White Jazz

The terse, staccato language approaches self-parody, saved by the psychological intensity and the white-knuckle ride into violence, corruption and depravity taken by the plot as it ensnares the utterly rotten Dave Klein, who arguably gets off lightly in the end, but at least he ends up help take down a bunch of people even worse than he is, which, if anything, is the major theme of the LA Quartet. Furiously paced, densely complex and constantly shitfting and swerving, it feels like the crescendo it was presumably meant to be.

Merged review:

The terse, staccato language approaches self-parody, saved by the psychological intensity and the white-knuckle ride into violence, corruption and depravity taken by the plot as it ensnares the show more utterly rotten Dave Klein, who arguably gets off lightly in the end, but at least he ends up help take down a bunch of people even worse than he is, which, if anything, is the major theme of the LA Quartet. Furiously paced, densely complex and constantly shitfting and swerving, it feels like the crescendo it was presumably meant to be. show less

I'd be tough to call the seedy, lurid dime novels that probably influenced James Ellroy great literature, and, honestly, I think I'd also be pretty tough to call the stuff he produces great literature, too, though some people have certainly tried. As with most Ellroy books, everything's a bit too intense to be taken altogether seriously, which gives this stuff a sort of cartoonish feel. In Ellroy's literary universe, evil characters are unimaginably twisted rather than merely venal, rogue cops are one-man crime waves with police badges rather than guys in blue who overstep the law, and hot dames are all-out sexpots rather than just pretty women. This stuff is evolved trash, but, to Ellroy's credit, it can also be really fun evolved show more trash.

Actually, Ellroy gets a bit of credit for keeping keeping things relatively simple in "White Jazz" and for tamping down some of his more extreme noirish tendencies. The police side of thing is more-or-less limited to the misadventures of a single detective, and the plot's relative economy makes the plot a bit more believable -- not to mention easier to follow -- than most of the other novels that make up the author's "L.A. Quartet." His prose's more reined-in, too, and you can see him developing a sparer, more staccato narrative voice that makes his writing in "The Black Dahlia" seem positively florid. Even so, this doesn't mean that you can't call "White Jazz" minimalist in any sense of the word: the book's too long, and readers who refuse to suspend their disbelief are unlikely to finish it. Still, Ellroy's talent for establishing historical setting -- and for writing snappy, cheerfully profane period dialogue -- is sharp as ever; I suspect he'd be a pretty good historian, or at least a good historical novelist, if he ever wanted to give his neo-noir gig a rest. Anyway, after three or four Ellroy novels, I think I'm ready to take a break from him. It's back to the "literary fiction" section for me. I can always re-watch "The Big Sleep" if I feel the need for a dose of seedy, dangerous mid-century L.A. show less

Dwell in the fractured mind of a bent L.A cop.

This book is not for the squeamish. It is laced with violence, gore, racism and brilliance. The first person narrative/stream of consciousness left me exhausted, as Ellroy packs more into a paragraph than most authors do into a chapter. The fragmented sentences and hard-hitting style add to the already high level of tension, making this a real page turner.

The ruthless Dave Klein is driven by greed and anger, and has no redeeming side to his character, other than protectiveness of his sister, which itself is engendered by an incestuous love.
All of the usual well-drawn characters are in there, including Ed Exley, Dudley Smith and of course Mickey Cohen.

Overall a great read if you are into show more that gritty, no-holds-barred noir style. show less

Dwell in the fractured mind of a bent L.A cop.

This book is not for the squeamish. It is laced with violence, gore, racism and brilliance. The first person narrative/stream of consciousness left me exhausted, as Ellroy packs more into a paragraph than most authors do into a chapter. The fragmented sentences and hard-hitting style add to the already high level of tension, making this a real page turner.

The ruthless Dave Klein is driven by greed and anger, and has no redeeming side to his character, other than protectiveness of his sister, which itself is engendered by an incestuous love.
All of the usual well-drawn characters are in there, including Ed Exley, Dudley Smith and of course Mickey Cohen.

Overall a great read if you are into show more that gritty, no-holds-barred noir style. show less

Even burning the dross off of prose leaves something haunted. The menace in Ellroy's streets is a puzzling presence, certainly along the likes of Mieville and Sinclair as it detours into origins and auras, Merleau-Ponty's flux made manifest in gridded streets and contained populations and vices. Ellroy slipped some going into the final act: hyperbole infected his plot and pus reigned supreme. Why have a voyeur/killer plot with incest overtones when one can fashion a virtual tribe of such, all of whom are bereft of conclusive geneology.

Meno conosciuto di altre opere di Ellroy, come Dalia Nera e L.A. Confidential, White Jazz è invece uno dei suoi lavori migliori.
Scritto col consueto stile che mescola articoli di giornale, veline della polizia, dialoghi serrati e scene di violenza estrema, è una storia dove si trova la quintessenza del marciume poliziesco, dove non esistono né buoni né cattivi, e dove il più marcio di tutti è quello dall'animo migliore.

Lt. Dave Klein is put on a burglary case he's disinterested in, but he suspects police chief Edmund Exley is using him for other purposes.

This is the final book in a loose series written by Ellroy; given where the last book ended, I was hoping for a lot more of the story that was started in the previous title. However, this book starts with yet another main character (curiously enough, speaking in a first-person narration, which has not happened since the first book the series) working on a case seemingly unconnected with the issues of the last book. The case itself is not interesting, nor is its nonsensical resolution that basically falls in Klein's lap with him doing minimal police work to get the facts. At this point, Ellroy seems to show more be derivative of himself, repeating the same types of things we saw in the previous books but acting like it's a new angle.

Furthermore, while all of Ellroy's protagonists have been less-than-stellar people (to put it mildly in some cases), this is the first time his main character is downright unlikable. I didn't really feel like there were any high stakes here because I didn't care what happened Klein. In fact, it was disappointing that of all Ellroy's protagonists Klein is one of the few who remains alive at the end of his book. This title does end somewhat ambiguously, although not on as much of a cliffhanger as the previous two in the series.

For the audiobook reader, I was amazed to find myself unhappy with Scott Brick as the narrator for this book. While I've loved Brick's narration of other books in the past, he was not a good fit here. He could do distinct voices and accents well, but his tone was all wrong for Klein and for the book as a whole. When I've read other noir-style mystery titles as audiobooks in the past (including ones in this series), the readers have managed to convey that old-film style of speech that fits the genre well. In addition, Ellroy's use of short, staccato sentences did not mesh well with the audiobook format (or perhaps just with Brick's reading of this title).

Overall, this was a big letdown for the finale of a series I had been invested in reading. show less