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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
J'ai été déçu. À mon avis, l'adaptation de Tavernier (Coup de torchon), est bien meilleure.
EDIT: Another great novel selected as part of the HRF Keating [b:Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books|656168|Crime and Mystery The 100 Best Books|H.R.F. Keating|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348036164s/656168.jpg|642262] list and therefore part of my challenge to read the entire 100. Keating mentions that the novels of Thompson are without good taste and this one has the least taste of all thanks to a hero who kills somebody and kicks the dead body because he'd always wanted to, indepth discussions of bodily functions. But he also praises Thompson for the serious purpose and darker vision of life that lies behind the vulgarity. He uses the term bleak four times in his review. That should tell you more than enough about the content and the way it was received in its own time.
Jim Thompson sure does have a way with words. In his protagonist, Nick Corey, he has a perfect vessel for displaying his talents.
Easygoing Sheriff of Potts County Corey is one lazy man, or that's what he would have you believe. You might also be mistaken in thinking that he is a first class moron, able to be pushed around by his "betters," because when you get to know Nick Corey the first thing you realise is that you've been manipulated from the first moment he laid eyes on you.
This tale of small town America is littered with pimps, whores, crooked lawmen, private detectives, women no better than they ought to be, incestuous men, wife beaters, murderers, corrupt politicians, vindictive women, peeping toms, mentally challenged cuckolds, religious zealots and plenty of sex. Of course on top of that there's Sheriff Nick Corey, a noir protagonist the likes of which you may never have seen.
Narrating in the first person he portrays himself as a buffoon, a bumbling idiot who talks in circles, unwilling to directly criticise or disagree with any voting citizen but through careful slips in his facade Thompson provides you with a look at the workings of a manipulative, cold blooded killer intent on living the good life as he sees it no matter the cost to others.
Of course nobody in this story is innocent, that would go against the mood of the piece. Corey thinks everyone has sinned in some way or other and so they are painted as the kind of filth that might populate the New York landscape of Travis Bickle or Matt Scudder.
And yet you don't think about that until it's all over, Thompson gets you inside the mind of Corey with such great skill that you don't question what you're told until it's too late. In Corey he has created a truly memorable literary creation, complete with accurate speech patterns, ticks and mannerisms. It's not only Corey it is every character, however minor, that gets the full fleshed out treatment making for a rich world for the story to take place in.
Thompson seems to have influenced a whole lot of American authors, both in the noir genre and others of a literary persuasion, recently I've enjoyed great modern authors such as Cormac McCarthy, Donald Ray Pollock, Daniel Woodrell and Tom Franklin, all of whom owe a lot to the work of this man for example.
Pop. 1280 was adapted in to a movie by French director Bertrand Tavernier in 1982, pre-dating the Hollywood fascination with the rediscovered works of Thompson by 8 years. Tavernier moved the story from small town redneck USA to French colonial Africa under the title Coup de Torchon using the subject matter to highlight some of the inequality of colonial rule. The biggest change however is the lack of subtlety in the character of Corey (renamed Cordier) who is played as a complete buffoon that reacts or by some miracle gets lucky rather than plotting his evil. It's an enjoyable film all the same and well worth investigating for fans of the book, the author or the genre. Interestingly Tavernier later directed the adaptation of another American noir, this time set in America, [b:In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead|218736|In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead (Dave Robicheaux, #6)|James Lee Burke|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347384287s/218736.jpg|852498] starring Tommy Lee Jones as Dave Robicheaux, which again is a crime film well worth checking out.
Jim Thompson sure does have a way with words. In his protagonist, Nick Corey, he has a perfect vessel for displaying his talents.
“I ain't saying you're a liar, because that wouldn't be polite. But I'll tell you this, ma'am. If I loved liars, I'd hug you to death.”
Easygoing Sheriff of Potts County Corey is one lazy man, or that's what he would have you believe. You might also be mistaken in thinking that he is a first class moron, able to be pushed around by his "betters," because when you get to know Nick Corey the first thing you realise is that you've been manipulated from the first moment he laid eyes on you.
This tale of small town America is littered with pimps, whores, crooked lawmen, private detectives, women no better than they ought to be, incestuous men, wife beaters, murderers, corrupt politicians, vindictive women, peeping toms, mentally challenged cuckolds, religious zealots and plenty of sex. Of course on top of that there's Sheriff Nick Corey, a noir protagonist the likes of which you may never have seen.
"Well, sir, I should have been sitting pretty, just about as pretty as a man could sit.....I had it made and it looked like I could go on having it made as long as I minded my own business and didn't arrest no one unless I couldn't get out of it and they didn't amount to nothin'."
Narrating in the first person he portrays himself as a buffoon, a bumbling idiot who talks in circles, unwilling to directly criticise or disagree with any voting citizen but through careful slips in his facade Thompson provides you with a look at the workings of a manipulative, cold blooded killer intent on living the good life as he sees it no matter the cost to others.
Of course nobody in this story is innocent, that would go against the mood of the piece. Corey thinks everyone has sinned in some way or other and so they are painted as the kind of filth that might populate the New York landscape of Travis Bickle or Matt Scudder.
And yet you don't think about that until it's all over, Thompson gets you inside the mind of Corey with such great skill that you don't question what you're told until it's too late. In Corey he has created a truly memorable literary creation, complete with accurate speech patterns, ticks and mannerisms. It's not only Corey it is every character, however minor, that gets the full fleshed out treatment making for a rich world for the story to take place in.
Thompson seems to have influenced a whole lot of American authors, both in the noir genre and others of a literary persuasion, recently I've enjoyed great modern authors such as Cormac McCarthy, Donald Ray Pollock, Daniel Woodrell and Tom Franklin, all of whom owe a lot to the work of this man for example.
Pop. 1280 was adapted in to a movie by French director Bertrand Tavernier in 1982, pre-dating the Hollywood fascination with the rediscovered works of Thompson by 8 years. Tavernier moved the story from small town redneck USA to French colonial Africa under the title Coup de Torchon using the subject matter to highlight some of the inequality of colonial rule. The biggest change however is the lack of subtlety in the character of Corey (renamed Cordier) who is played as a complete buffoon that reacts or by some miracle gets lucky rather than plotting his evil. It's an enjoyable film all the same and well worth investigating for fans of the book, the author or the genre. Interestingly Tavernier later directed the adaptation of another American noir, this time set in America, [b:In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead|218736|In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead (Dave Robicheaux, #6)|James Lee Burke|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347384287s/218736.jpg|852498] starring Tommy Lee Jones as Dave Robicheaux, which again is a crime film well worth checking out.
Thompson manipulates you the very same way Corey manipulates everyone around him and convinces you that he knows the absolute truth about life, there's no hope for us.
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
beğenip beğenmemekte kararsız kaldım. hızlı gelişen bir hikâye ve olaylar; hepsi sanki önceden ince ince planlanmış da uygulama safhasında gelişigüzel olmuş gibi (bunu da kurgu eser için söyledim ya, çok acayip). hayır yani, demek istediğim, kitabın kahramanı -ortalarda bunun ipucunu verse de- öyle bir tablo çiziyor ki en başta, okuyucuyu sersemletiyor: “serseri mi yoksa bir dahi mi?”. biraz “alıklar birliği”, biraz “olağan şüpheliler” kahramanlarının havası vardı kendisinde. bütün bu zincirleme reaksiyonları anlatmak için kendisinin arada kalmışlığının da aktarılması gerekmiş ki sanırım beğenmediğim ama kitabın akışında önemli olan kısımlar onlardı. kitabın sonunda kendimi nüfus memuru gibi son sayımı yapmaya çalışırken yakalamışken kitap da son bir sürprizle beni yakaladı.
It's really hard to like Nick Corey, High Sherriff of Potts County, but you almost have to admire how he maneuvers his way through life's little difficulties. This book was nothing like I expected, and the many unexpected turns were very entertaining. It's a dark story, though, and gets progressively darker as Nick finds himself in more and more difficult situations. I would have given 4 stars except for the end - I was really very disappointed in the ending and it turned a darkly amusing journey into something just disturbing.
I didn't know quite what to make of this book at first, but once I settled into the mind of Sheriff Nick Corey, I didn't want this smash-up work of stylistic genius to end.
Sociopaths aren't uncommon in literature. Sometimes they're painted in caricature, like Fight Club's Tyler Durden. Other times they're painted up with all the trappings of demons or monsters, like Anton Chigurh from No Country For Old Men.
But Nick Corey is as believable a sociopath as I can remember reading. I don't think a sociopath consciously looks at the world and makes decisions that adhere to sociopathic logic. Instead, they lurch from one convenient fiction to the next, genuinely adhering to whatever specious or fleeting logic justifies the actions dictated by a hidden and unknown id.
This is my first book by Thompson, but he really blew me away, and I suspect I'll be back.
Sociopaths aren't uncommon in literature. Sometimes they're painted in caricature, like Fight Club's Tyler Durden. Other times they're painted up with all the trappings of demons or monsters, like Anton Chigurh from No Country For Old Men.
But Nick Corey is as believable a sociopath as I can remember reading. I don't think a sociopath consciously looks at the world and makes decisions that adhere to sociopathic logic. Instead, they lurch from one convenient fiction to the next, genuinely adhering to whatever specious or fleeting logic justifies the actions dictated by a hidden and unknown id.
This is my first book by Thompson, but he really blew me away, and I suspect I'll be back.
What begins as a fun piece of sleaze turns into a pretty cutting commentary about what an inherently corrupt and unjust society does to those who live in it, in particular, what it does to those charged with enforcing its injustices.
dark
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I think I'm going to throw up, have a shower, and then grab another Jim Thompson book. A sick bastard who writes a great crime story with a brutal outlook on the world.
Es un libro que me ha descolocado bastante. Me acercaba a él proviniente de las páginas finales de [b:Criminal|106033|Criminal, Vol. 1 Coward|Ed Brubaker|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348189021l/106033._SY75_.jpg|102209] donde se repasan las referencias y pilares del género negro. Esperaba una historia «noir» de sheriff corrupto y me he encontrado una especie de novela picaresca en la que al protagonista-narrador le ocurren situaciones cada vez mas brutales de las que libra con su ingenio y poca moral. El sheriff pasa sin mucha lógica de ser un cobarde pusilánime a un maquiavelo de la política hasta convertirse por fin en un iluminado con delirios de grandeza. Se lee con interés pero sin que se sienta como lógico, coherente o con un mínimo de tridimensionalidad en los personajes. La próxima vez pruebo con [a:Dashiell Hammett|16927|Dashiell Hammett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1287255332p2/16927.jpg] o [a:Raymond Chandler|1377|Raymond Chandler|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1206535318p2/1377.jpg].