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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
This was at once charming and disarming. Steeped in old Parisian culture and style and music, our unusual omniscient narrator tells the story of Georges Gerfaut, a businessman who ends up being hunted by two hitman for unknown reasons following a brief slice-of-life section preceded by tracking shots from the future of a man and his dog brutally killed (heads up for those who don’t like animal violence), and our man Gerfaut rocketing along a highway in a Mercedes.
Very much a sort of mash-up of Cohen brothers and Tarantino but vividly, sensuously French. Street names and travel itineraries and food and clothes all build around a French ecosystem; strangeness and things entirely apart from the everyday, very English. It somehow works. Half the fun is being placed in that time period with great description of absolutely everything. It even tends to shirk colour, making it feel like a noir black and white film most of the time, for me. It initially put me off, vacillating between the comical and the hard-boiled—but the narrator pulls it off with the unusual perspective and closing chapter.
It also helps it’s quite short and punchy; staccato sentences and matter-of-fact prose style feel reminiscent of Hemingway, albeit decidedly, purposefully off-of-center with dialogue, the only real consistent weakness of the book. I do think it’s there for a point though. It knows it’s built a character and a gonzo hybrid thing encapsulating a moment in time. I imagine it’s so odd it’ll put some people off. A 4.5 rounded up, because I really do think it’s unique and interesting in lasting ways.
Very much a sort of mash-up of Cohen brothers and Tarantino but vividly, sensuously French. Street names and travel itineraries and food and clothes all build around a French ecosystem; strangeness and things entirely apart from the everyday, very English. It somehow works. Half the fun is being placed in that time period with great description of absolutely everything. It even tends to shirk colour, making it feel like a noir black and white film most of the time, for me. It initially put me off, vacillating between the comical and the hard-boiled—but the narrator pulls it off with the unusual perspective and closing chapter.
It also helps it’s quite short and punchy; staccato sentences and matter-of-fact prose style feel reminiscent of Hemingway, albeit decidedly, purposefully off-of-center with dialogue, the only real consistent weakness of the book. I do think it’s there for a point though. It knows it’s built a character and a gonzo hybrid thing encapsulating a moment in time. I imagine it’s so odd it’ll put some people off. A 4.5 rounded up, because I really do think it’s unique and interesting in lasting ways.
video review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R-fP0nJgVI
A quickly-moving read that keeps pace, introduces many obstacles, and doesn't shy away from visceral descriptions of violence. Nothing lasts long, but what does happen are quick gut punches with brief quips of humor. It's almost too unbelievable and believable at the same time. Lots of urgency and tension. I both liked and hated Gerfaut! I also enjoy a story that comes full circle. Manchette does good work with the last few lines of each chapter in propelling the action and tension forward.
Three to Kill is the last of the Manchette ouevre currently translated in to English and I seem to have saved the best for last. This slim volume is a matter of factly violent novel, an indictment of the spurious nature of the petite bourgeois lifestyle, a wilderness adventure tale of self discovery in the vein of [b:The Thirty-Nine Steps|147114|The Thirty-Nine Steps|John Buchan|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328011493s/147114.jpg|2422487] and a bleak piece of noir existentialism rolled in to one.
The influence of [a:Georges Simenon|9693|Georges Simenon|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1192221335p2/9693.jpg] is more obviously evident than ever, this being the story of a lost middle manager rejecting the self imposed shackles of his life after a traumatic event - his attempted murder in this case - and much like Kees Popinga realising that life can continue without possessions and that cosmetic appearances are not as important as he first thought.
Whilst the criticism of French society isn't as direct as in his other novels the message is as obvious as ever, especially with the fabulously unexpected (and perhaps implausible) final chapter turning the screw just a little tighter. As with Simenon and even the Martin Beck series of literary crime novels the criticism of society and human nature in the work of Manchette walks hand in hand with and even subjugates the crimes themselves and it is for this that Manchette is seemingly deified by French critics.
I hope that there are more Manchette's being translated for future publication as he was a wonderful novellist who could achieve much more with his prose as others in a quarter of the word count and I just can't see myself learning French any time soon sadly.
The influence of [a:Georges Simenon|9693|Georges Simenon|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1192221335p2/9693.jpg] is more obviously evident than ever, this being the story of a lost middle manager rejecting the self imposed shackles of his life after a traumatic event - his attempted murder in this case - and much like Kees Popinga realising that life can continue without possessions and that cosmetic appearances are not as important as he first thought.
Whilst the criticism of French society isn't as direct as in his other novels the message is as obvious as ever, especially with the fabulously unexpected (and perhaps implausible) final chapter turning the screw just a little tighter. As with Simenon and even the Martin Beck series of literary crime novels the criticism of society and human nature in the work of Manchette walks hand in hand with and even subjugates the crimes themselves and it is for this that Manchette is seemingly deified by French critics.
I hope that there are more Manchette's being translated for future publication as he was a wonderful novellist who could achieve much more with his prose as others in a quarter of the word count and I just can't see myself learning French any time soon sadly.
Here's a re-print of a 1976 French title with a spare, vicious elegance that stands in stark contrast to Stansbery's torrid sensationalism. Businessman Georges Gerfault stops to aid the victim of what seems to be a roadside accident but is in reality a failed hit job, and finds himself in the crosshairs of a pair of hired guns, Carlo and Bastien, who make their first attempt on his life while he vacations with his family at the sunny seaside, and chase him across the country and right out of his ordinary, complacent life. The swift, lean story with riveting episodes of unadorned brutality is related by a narrator not so much omniscient as insouciant, whose cool and clinical description of the desperate events unfolding before his impassive camera lens is occasionally leavened with slight Gallic shrugs and whiffs of sly humor as reminiscent of Voltaire as Camus. The result is rather like being a passenger in a precision sportscar hurtling down the highway at insane speeds, wondering if the driver's nonchalant demeanor and offhand remarks on the passing flora and fauna owe to his supreme expertise and confidence in German engineering, or to utter suicidal indifference. I swiftly gobbled up the only other Manchette currently available here — The Prone Gunman — and eagerly await the translation of his eight other crime novels. (Americans don't read or have access to nearly enough popular literature from other cultures — not that we're obliged to be cosmopolitan in our tastes, but the rest of the world has so many refreshingly different stories to tell us. The current interest in Euro-mysteries is an encouraging sign: let's resolve to travel the world this year, if only in our reading).
Entertaining but slight "wrong man" kind of thriller. Not convinced that it is somehow more meaningful because the author is French.
A French noir gem. Picked up when Borders UK was going out of business (5 books for 1 pound, can't go wrong). Excellent translation, and delightful middle-manager anti-hero, bit of a schlub, who finds himself on the wrong side of two hitmen for no good reason at all.
Nihilistic in a really fun way. Finished in two brief readings. I'll definitely seek out more Manchette. (Maybe even in original.)
Nihilistic in a really fun way. Finished in two brief readings. I'll definitely seek out more Manchette. (Maybe even in original.)
This is a pretty pitch black roman noir, about a more-or-less regular Parisian salaryman who is targeted by two hitmen and the life journey that sends him on. It's gripping stuff, though by the time he's settled in the mountains, it's faintly comic. My brother and I disagree on this, but I think there's something intentionally comic in the hard-boiled sentences Manchette writes here, but maybe I've just been ruined by the Frank Millers of the world.
It's a taut little thriller, even if, like I suggested, the second act feels faintly silly. Manchette has a very detached style-- we get a lot of static detail about what people are wearing, some odd asides about music, even beyond his protagonist's exclusive musical interest in west coast jazz. There are strange asides to contempoary leftist politics, which the back cover tells me was an interest of Manchette's, and that was responsible for introducing as a valid topic in crime novels-- to me, it felt like he was taking the piss. But again, tone is really hard to read accurately. Manchette is not; if you want a black hearted thriller, you can do a lot worse.
It's a taut little thriller, even if, like I suggested, the second act feels faintly silly. Manchette has a very detached style-- we get a lot of static detail about what people are wearing, some odd asides about music, even beyond his protagonist's exclusive musical interest in west coast jazz. There are strange asides to contempoary leftist politics, which the back cover tells me was an interest of Manchette's, and that was responsible for introducing as a valid topic in crime novels-- to me, it felt like he was taking the piss. But again, tone is really hard to read accurately. Manchette is not; if you want a black hearted thriller, you can do a lot worse.
Jean-Patrick Manchette (1942-1995) – French crime novelist who revived the genre in France beginning in the 1970s with his super-cool style of extreme violence mixed with caustic social and political commentary.
In Elmore Leonard’s novel Tishomingo Blues, stunt diver Dennis Lenahan, an honest, straightlaced athlete, is practicing his stunt platform diving eighty feet above a pool of water behind a Tunica, Mississippi hotel when he witnesses a murder and is subsequently embroiled in the murky, deadly world of crime. It’s this clashing of two worlds that makes Leonard’s novel so compelling.
There's a similar dynamic in Three to Kill where Georges Gerfaut, an everyday kind of guy, a company manager, an engineer by education, through the simple act of providing aid to a victim of a car crash, becomes a prime target for two seasoned hit men.
I'm not giving anything away here since right up front in the first chapters we come across an example of Jean-Patrick's slick foreshadowing: “The attempt on Gerfaut’s life did not take place immediately, but it was not long in coming: just three days.”
The novel's rapid-fire action will bring to mind such films as Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. And, oh, how music blares on radios and stereos, jazz and popular singers like Leonard Cohen, no big surprise, since jazz and popular music are kings in snazzy, hip 1970s France. And let’s recall Jean-Patrick Manchette was himself a jazz sax player.
Cars and guns also receive a special call out - for such a cool, new brand of crime fiction we have not just a red sedan but a Lancia Beta 1800, not just a target pistol but a SIG P210-5 9mm automatic. These souped-up objects pack a punch, provide the speed, add a dash of glamour and give the men and women in Manchette’s world an enhanced identity.
Even more than his jazz sax, let’s not forget Manchette was also involved in leftist Marxist politics prior to becoming a crime writer. His interest in politics, specifically the pitfalls and corrosiveness of capitalism comes through loud and clear. For example, one of the characters, a kingpin of killing from the Dominican Republic, was a leader in the military responsible for torturing and murdering peasants affiliated with the revolutionary leftist, anti-capitalists. The lesson to be learned: how money and power corrupt and quickly lead to violence, a way of dealing with problems that spills over into the general society where anyone can be the victim of an eruption of violence in the least likely of places, swimming among a crown at a beach or pumping gas at a service station.
In such a modern world, life imitates art, men and women continually envision themselves as a character in a work of contemporary fiction, or more usually, an American action film. This is exactly the case when Georges Gerfaut finds himself in a life-threatening predicament that reminds him both of a crime novel and a American Western. Such is life in the late twentieth century - images and memories are linked not with classical literature or lessons learned in school but with popular culture and the crustiness of the here and now. Thus, these great lines: “From an aesthetic point of view, the landscape was highly romantic. From Gerfaut’s point of view, it was absolute shit.”
Fortunately, the world still contains people who are not all about greed and ego – an old man helps Gerfaut not to be paid but for that good old-time feeling: compassion for another human being. On the other end of the spectrum, Gerfaut encounters a young lady who tells him, “When I was nineteen I married a surgeon. He was crazily in love with me, the moron. It was only a civil marriage. We were divorced after five years, and I took him for every penny I could get.”
We might think Manchette is making an observation about the older and younger generations but this would be short-sighted since there are other oldsters who exhibit a fair share of greed and ego and younger people who are kind. Perhaps this is the more accurate expression of the author’s philosophy: as powerful as social forces can be, we are still free to choose what type of people we become.
Life is rarely all black and white. Manchette captures the humanity of the two hit men, their squabbling, their fatigue, their suffering, even their tastes in food and reading material, the young one likes comics, especially Spiderman. And that kingpin of killing, Alonso, boss of the two hit men, has warm, fuzzy feelings for Elizabeth, his bull mastiff, occasionally giving her an extra helping of meat. Alonso also enjoys listening to Mendelssohn or Liszt and reads war novels by C.S. Forester when he isn’t looking at photos in Playboy and masturbating, mostly without success.
I can imagine many readers in France and elsewhere over the years have put themselves in Georges Gerfaut’s shoes. Even the meekest accountant-type has dreams of adventure and danger but, alas, the vast majority of middle-aged men (and women) are never attacked by hit men or take up automatic weapons to extract revenge against a killer. That’s the way it goes – at least they can read about Georges.
One last reflection. I read where critic Chris Morgan cites how Manchette would find today’s noir alien to his sensibilities since, to take one example, David Lynch's films are voyeuristic rather than crusading, viewing depravity at a safe distance rather than confronting such degrading behavior directly.
For Jean-Patrick Manchette, morality is a key to building a good society and his cool, violent novels served as his vehicle to wake people up to this truth.
Jean-Patrick Manchette (1942-1995)
concept: an elmore leonard novel brined in frenchness* and left in the sun for a couple years to remove impurities
RIYL the episode of barry where barry just fights the jujitsu champion guy non-stop for 27 minutes, except with way more name checks of jazz musicians and very precise descriptions of sensible european cars/firearms. seriously though this book is perfect - i will go to my grave proclaiming that the tv show Mad Men is overrated, but if you took the basic white-collar anomie theme of that show and combined it with just like staccato brawls and gunplay it turns into a glittering diamond
* all french books have to be asterisked with the disclaimer that i cannot tell if the author was being funny or weird in certain moments, or just extremely french
seriously though i loved this. giving me the splenetic aura i crave for 2024
RIYL the episode of barry where barry just fights the jujitsu champion guy non-stop for 27 minutes, except with way more name checks of jazz musicians and very precise descriptions of sensible european cars/firearms. seriously though this book is perfect - i will go to my grave proclaiming that the tv show Mad Men is overrated, but if you took the basic white-collar anomie theme of that show and combined it with just like staccato brawls and gunplay it turns into a glittering diamond
* all french books have to be asterisked with the disclaimer that i cannot tell if the author was being funny or weird in certain moments, or just extremely french
seriously though i loved this. giving me the splenetic aura i crave for 2024