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cimorene1558's review against another edition
3.0
I tend to be snippy about American mystery writers, especially men, but this is pretty good, if a little to nasty to be quite my cup of tea.
mwgant's review against another edition
3.0
This one hasn't aged as well. Frigid, undersexed females that need to be "cured" is painful. But, it's from the 1960's so John D. gets a partial pass. Still surprises me how prescient JDM was about the environment and the damage humans will do; a lot of good passages on this subject.
thebeardedpoet's review against another edition
4.0
If you love a loquacious narrator, one who loves to wax philosophical about human nature, especially human folly, one who never misses an opportunity to offer a tangent of observation or thought (especially about whether to sex or not to sex), Travis McGee is for you, as is One Fearful Yellow Eye! Travis McGee is one interesting package: beach bum, anachronism, amateur sex therapist, amateur philosopher, automotive restoration hobbyist, art connoisseur, food connoisseur, and off-the-books salvage professional. It is McGee's voice that makes this series of books.
This particular story is exciting and moves along well, but the nature of McGee requires detours and soliloquies which take the pace down a notch at times. Also when the evil caper behind all the problems is revealed, it is a doozy--maybe just a little too bonkers for plausibility, but by that point the peril and resolution has carried you to an endpoint. Just don't sit there and think about it too much after the last couple pages.
It is all worth it for the prose which sings like poetry at times. Someone could use this book do a PhD on sentence length variation. Definitely one of the most poetic and rhetorically vigorous works of fiction I've ever read.
This particular story is exciting and moves along well, but the nature of McGee requires detours and soliloquies which take the pace down a notch at times. Also when the evil caper behind all the problems is revealed, it is a doozy--maybe just a little too bonkers for plausibility, but by that point the peril and resolution has carried you to an endpoint. Just don't sit there and think about it too much after the last couple pages.
It is all worth it for the prose which sings like poetry at times. Someone could use this book do a PhD on sentence length variation. Definitely one of the most poetic and rhetorically vigorous works of fiction I've ever read.
johnnyb1954's review against another edition
2.0
I haven't read a Travis McGee story in 30 years and this wasn't the one to jump back in with. Maybe they were all like this and I had a different perspective before.
McGee is described in this book as a savior of wounded birds, meaning women in trouble. A woman that McGee is getting involved with is raped in the story. He describes his feelings by comparing it to the time he and his brother built this sports car and then it was damaged in an accident. Although it was repaired, it was never the same. Yeah, that's what women are like. Oh, sorry, spoiler alert, but, really, don't read this book.
One of the characters in the story is gay. So John D. macDonald takes this opportunity to give his (or McGee's) view on gay men. He tolerates them. It's like the negroes: some men hate them because they fear they are really one of them. You kind of have to read this two page exposition to get it, but, really, don't bother.
It comes down to McGee (MacDonald), as an enlightened white male, is superior to gays, women, blacks, rednecks, but he understands them and condescendingly is willing to coexist with the. Especially women, because sex.
The mystery was fine and well written which is why this is 2 stars instead of none.
McGee is described in this book as a savior of wounded birds, meaning women in trouble. A woman that McGee is getting involved with is raped in the story. He describes his feelings by comparing it to the time he and his brother built this sports car and then it was damaged in an accident. Although it was repaired, it was never the same. Yeah, that's what women are like. Oh, sorry, spoiler alert, but, really, don't read this book.
One of the characters in the story is gay. So John D. macDonald takes this opportunity to give his (or McGee's) view on gay men. He tolerates them. It's like the negroes: some men hate them because they fear they are really one of them. You kind of have to read this two page exposition to get it, but, really, don't bother.
It comes down to McGee (MacDonald), as an enlightened white male, is superior to gays, women, blacks, rednecks, but he understands them and condescendingly is willing to coexist with the. Especially women, because sex.
The mystery was fine and well written which is why this is 2 stars instead of none.
cafo6's review against another edition
5.0
This might be the saddest ending yet. :( I would caution modern readers to imagine the times, when reading any of these books. Sometimes the author/Travis sounds utterly racist or misogynistic- but I don’t find malice. Only a wry observation, often misunderstanding what he saw and not necessarily knowing what to make of it.
markfeltskog's review against another edition
I do understand that this book was published in 1966. Nonetheless, even for me, a reader mostly willing to overlook such things, the sexism in this novel is just too rank.
lrconnol's review against another edition
5.0
Travis McGee is always a delight to read. An especially scathing description of Chicago politics and at one point the wind was ruffling the 4 tons of paper on the Chicago streets.
genej101's review against another edition
4.0
One of John's good ones. This one different only in that Travis "may" have met his forever girl, but she wasn't up for it. Good plotting as always.
yaj's review against another edition
4.0
A little dated but still an intriguing mystery with interesting characters.
darwin8u's review against another edition
3.0
"A man will let his money be taken only when the alternative is something he cannot endure."
- John D. MacDonald, One Fearful Yellow Eye
McGee does Chicago. I liked it, but didn't love it. Sometimes MacDonald takes McGee away from Florida and it seems to almost work, but I still think I prefer McGee on a boat to McGee in Chicago, in the snow. As a favor to an old flame, McGee goes to Chicago because her ex-husband's estate has been emptied and the relatives all think she did it. McGee looks into the hows and whys of the money disappearing. McGee's views (and I'd presume to a bit MacDonald's) on homosexuals and Blacks appear in this novel and they are nearly there, but only reach the uncanny valley of sensitivity towards other groups:
"I'm always skeptical of the male who makes a big public deal about how he hates fairies, how they turn his stomach, how he'd like to beat the hell out of them. The queens are certainly distasteful, but the average homosexual in the visual and performing arts is usually a human being a little bit brighter and more perceptive than most."
I have to remind myself that this was published in 1966. He is growing. Language like that was seen as progressive in the 60s, in certain circles. Hell, language like that might sound progressive in Texas, Idaho, or Arizona in certain circles now. I seem to always find areas where MacDonald nearly writes a perfect novel, but a couple things just block it for me. He is one of those writers I keep coming back from and keep ending up just a bit frustrated (and not just because I keep wanting to enroll him in sensitivty training classes). His books have the potential for real genius and the more I read the more I see this potential. Individually, however, this book doesn't get close.
- John D. MacDonald, One Fearful Yellow Eye
McGee does Chicago. I liked it, but didn't love it. Sometimes MacDonald takes McGee away from Florida and it seems to almost work, but I still think I prefer McGee on a boat to McGee in Chicago, in the snow. As a favor to an old flame, McGee goes to Chicago because her ex-husband's estate has been emptied and the relatives all think she did it. McGee looks into the hows and whys of the money disappearing. McGee's views (and I'd presume to a bit MacDonald's) on homosexuals and Blacks appear in this novel and they are nearly there, but only reach the uncanny valley of sensitivity towards other groups:
"I'm always skeptical of the male who makes a big public deal about how he hates fairies, how they turn his stomach, how he'd like to beat the hell out of them. The queens are certainly distasteful, but the average homosexual in the visual and performing arts is usually a human being a little bit brighter and more perceptive than most."
I have to remind myself that this was published in 1966. He is growing. Language like that was seen as progressive in the 60s, in certain circles. Hell, language like that might sound progressive in Texas, Idaho, or Arizona in certain circles now. I seem to always find areas where MacDonald nearly writes a perfect novel, but a couple things just block it for me. He is one of those writers I keep coming back from and keep ending up just a bit frustrated (and not just because I keep wanting to enroll him in sensitivty training classes). His books have the potential for real genius and the more I read the more I see this potential. Individually, however, this book doesn't get close.