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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Even though I can see how the author intended we see this almost as a film playing out on screen - story about actress, writer based in LA. And overall I quite liked how it came together towards the end, I just didn't get along with the writing for about half of the book: clunky and long-winded in a way that impeded the flow of story for me.
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Really torn about how I feel about this novel. On the one hand, it's quite well written, but so much in the post-Hemingway/noir terse style with almost no exposition (even including a bullfighting scene right out of The Sun Also Rises!) that it verges on plagiarism. I was also slightly attracted to hearing a first person male viewpoint on a tragically doomed love affair, along the lines of a Jean Rhys novel in reverse (as advertised by a blurb on the cover), but found the narrator so self-serving and blissfully unaware that he quite literally has all the power in the relationship and that his dumb self-imposed loneliness is absolutely no excuse for heaping more sorrow on this obviously desperately traumatized woman. Also making such a damaged, powerless female the villain of the piece is pretty inexcusable. Granted, given the generation of the narrator, and the '50s Hollywood atmosphere, the narrative voice is probably super believable and honest, it's just hard to take in 2023, since Fox news has completely institutionalized this tradition of men who hold all the cards and run everything bitching endlessly about all the backlash to the dystopian world that they themselves have created, as if all the fallout and consequences of their actions somehow make them the victims when the more direct victims of their sexism and bigotry raise any sort of protest against the horrors of white male American bigotry, racism, misogyny, and the horrors of heartless capitalism and the gross inequalities it naturally produces between the genders, the center and minorities, and, of course, the rich and poor.
I'm not sure if this novel inadvertently tells this great truth (and is thus infuriatingly unhip to its own most salient point) or if Hayes was actually smart and brave enough not to editorialize the point but merely show this totally egotistical, self-serving and utterly dishonest I'm-the-real-victim-here behavior for what it is and leave it to us to take that from the book and to be infuriated. Either way it's infuriating--and, authorial intention aside, I'd lay even money on the fact that 90% of the men who read this novel never see the irony, if it is indeed irony and not an accidentally represented truth.
I'm not sure if this novel inadvertently tells this great truth (and is thus infuriatingly unhip to its own most salient point) or if Hayes was actually smart and brave enough not to editorialize the point but merely show this totally egotistical, self-serving and utterly dishonest I'm-the-real-victim-here behavior for what it is and leave it to us to take that from the book and to be infuriated. Either way it's infuriating--and, authorial intention aside, I'd lay even money on the fact that 90% of the men who read this novel never see the irony, if it is indeed irony and not an accidentally represented truth.
Alfred Hayes goes two for two with this cynical look at the effects of Tinseltown on the psyche of those drawn to it's bauble. You could draw comparisons to a whole raft of authors writing at a similar time to Hayes such as Dorothy Hughes, Charles Willeford, Jim Thompson, Horace McCoy and Nathanael West but whilst Hayes shares similarities with those great authors he is entirely his own beast. My Face for the World to See is a bleak and unrelenting love story told with sparse, evocative prose, it's an analysis of greed and desire and of the emptiness of all involved in making movies, it's also an unflinching look at despair and depression, isolation and solitude. And Hayes does it as good as anyone you'll ever read.
#novel #paperback #penguinmodernclassics #myfacefortheworldtosee #alfredhayes #penguin #justread #bookstagram #quickread
While watching "Clash by Night" on TCM's Noir Alley recently, Eddie Muller mentioned that Hayes (who had written the screenplay for that film) was an excellent novelist as well. His best novel is this title, and I jumped on amazon and ordered a copy, and began reading it the evening that it arrived.
Well, it is a Hollywood novel, a genre which I love - but it is not Noir.
Mostly presented as a first-person interior monologue, the writing in the first third of the book is dense, and full of observations on various aspects of Life, or the narrator's life. The plot, and action, picks up as they head down to Tijuana to watch the bull fights on a Sunday afternoon (only a few pages, but not for people who love animals). And the long section on their break-up (the woman's name is never mentioned) is long, and flows along quickly with lots of action.
Written in the '50's, it seems set in the '30's (his big-wig studio friend Charlie waves to various "names" - all of whom are from that period).
In the end the author seems to blame her, and her fragile personality type, as much as the narrator's cruel, distant naivity. And in the end the narrator comes to accept his need to be controlled, to become part of the "group" in order to survive - even if "survival" comes with a dull, meaningless life that he will always be aware of for years to come.
Hayes has 2 other easily accessible titles, including one on his time in post-War Italy (where he worked in the newly revived Italian film industry with some top names), but I doubt I will read either one. The writing smells of overwritten, introspective, turgid 1950's prose. Too bad, I was so excited too find a new author I had not previously heard about.
Well, it is a Hollywood novel, a genre which I love - but it is not Noir.
Mostly presented as a first-person interior monologue, the writing in the first third of the book is dense, and full of observations on various aspects of Life, or the narrator's life. The plot, and action, picks up as they head down to Tijuana to watch the bull fights on a Sunday afternoon (only a few pages, but not for people who love animals). And the long section on their break-up (the woman's name is never mentioned) is long, and flows along quickly with lots of action.
Written in the '50's, it seems set in the '30's (his big-wig studio friend Charlie waves to various "names" - all of whom are from that period).
In the end the author seems to blame her, and her fragile personality type, as much as the narrator's cruel, distant naivity. And in the end the narrator comes to accept his need to be controlled, to become part of the "group" in order to survive - even if "survival" comes with a dull, meaningless life that he will always be aware of for years to come.
Hayes has 2 other easily accessible titles, including one on his time in post-War Italy (where he worked in the newly revived Italian film industry with some top names), but I doubt I will read either one. The writing smells of overwritten, introspective, turgid 1950's prose. Too bad, I was so excited too find a new author I had not previously heard about.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
sad
medium-paced
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
There is nothing quite like an ill-fated affair between two people who need some serious help
Wow oh wow. I always think about this book every once and a while, it's v. heart breaking
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes