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Loading... Nineteen Eighty-Three: The Red Riding Quartet, Book Four (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) (edition 2010)by David Peace
Work InformationNineteen Eighty Three by David Peace
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. I have never been this happy to be done with a book. It's time to find something more uplifting. Maybe some Cormac McCarthy. I haven't read [b:Old Yeller|130580|Old Yeller|Fred Gipson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327940112l/130580._SY75_.jpg|2686896] since I was a kid… ( ) Much improved on the last two volumes, probably helped by there being three different POV characters so the over-used poetic prose devices are varied and spread out a bit. Another one without a sympathetic protagonist (the one I thought likely to be redeemed wasn't in the end) and extremely different to the finale of the TV adaptations in a variety of key ways. The TV version is sanitised I guess but in addition to leaving out the nastier aspects of the POV characters it changes the plot; people who die in the book live in the TV version but I'll say no more than that. I'll put the same review on all four of them: Nineteen Seventy-Four Nineteen Seventy-Seven Nineteen Eighty Nineteen Eighty Three I read them as a challenge - based on camaraderie with coworkers. Once I started the series, didn't especially want to wimp out, and then was compelled to read thru to the last book to see if I could possibly figure out what the "ending" was. I'm not faulting the author - it was a unique and compelling writing style and twisted plot with characters jumping back and forth between books. I did it. I read them all. I think they got weirder and more difficult as they went along, but if you're looking for some intense, darkly challenging books - have at it. Read in 2011. The final book in the Red Riding quartet. This time the three main characters are a solicitor, a rent boy and a corrupt police officer. The story, as with the other books, goes back and forth in time and answers many of the questions raised in the first book. It was sometimes hard to follow, but it was well worth the read. The quartet has to be read as one - there's no point starting one book and then going onto something else afterwards - the characters and actions are so complex you have to really put some time aside to work your way through everything. Having said that, they were absolutely worth the time taken. Nineteen Seventy-Four Nineteen Seventy-Seven Nineteen Eighty Nineteen Eighty-Three I was inspired to read this crime quartet by arubabookwoman's superb review below. In her summary, she wrote "These four novels are amazing. They are not, however, for everyone. There are obscenities on every page. Brutality and violence abound, sometimes graphically described. Everyone is corrupt. The novels are bleak, gritty, cynical and despairing. If this description doesn't bother you, I highly recommend these books. Read as one, they are a masterpiece." There is little I can add to this, except to say that Peace's writing is exceptional. Even though it can often be difficult to know who is talking or thinking, the way Peace gets inside people's heads so that his writing replicates how they think is astounding and, indeed, often poetic, despite the obscenity and graphic violence. I couldn't put these books down, even as they horrified me. no reviews | add a review
Nineteen Eighty Three's three intertwining storylines see the Quartet's central themes of corruption and the perversion of justice come to a head as BJ, the rent boy from Nineteen Seventy Four, the lawyer Big John Piggott, who's as near as you get to a hero in Peace's world, and Maurice Oldfield, the senior cop whose career of corruption and brutality has set all this in motion, find themselves on a collision course that can only end in a terrible vengeance. Nineteen Eighty Three is an epic tale which concludes a body of work confirming Peace as the most innovative and remarkable new British crime writer to have emerged for years. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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