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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
I found this a bit hard to get into and then really enjoyed it. A lot of overlap with the TV show, which was both good and bad. Some of the character development was plodding , but overall it tracked really well. It has a lot of well written scenes and a good energy to it.
The TV show is WAY better than this book, not even close.
I know when a book has a movie or TV show, it's customary to say that the book was better than the movie or the TV show but this is one of those rare instances it isn't so. The show is much, much better in every way from storytelling to character development while the book lacks in every department. It wastes way too much time on side characters, side stories and there are so many inconsistencies and plot holes in the story that it makes it even difficult to follow the plot. It's just a poorly written book overall.
I know when a book has a movie or TV show, it's customary to say that the book was better than the movie or the TV show but this is one of those rare instances it isn't so. The show is much, much better in every way from storytelling to character development while the book lacks in every department. It wastes way too much time on side characters, side stories and there are so many inconsistencies and plot holes in the story that it makes it even difficult to follow the plot. It's just a poorly written book overall.
Mærkelig at læse oven på serien. Der er sammenfald, men også store forskelle. Den har mange fine elementer og var en fin læseoplevelse.
Desværre var den læst lige efter Richard Russo, og Russo skriver bare mere som jeg kan lide det. Og ironisk nok, så er Russo også skarpere på en bestemt udtryksform som også bliver brugt af og til i bogen, så det føltes lidt fladt. John Williams beskrev også jagt-scenerne bedre i Butcher's Crossing. Så det er nogle hårde hunde Dexter er oppe imod - også selvom Dexter var der først.
Men der var også ting der var for kedelige og langtrukne. Og så har jeg aldrig fundet Calamity Jane det mindste interessant.
3,5 stjerner.
Desværre var den læst lige efter Richard Russo, og Russo skriver bare mere som jeg kan lide det. Og ironisk nok, så er Russo også skarpere på en bestemt udtryksform som også bliver brugt af og til i bogen, så det føltes lidt fladt. John Williams beskrev også jagt-scenerne bedre i Butcher's Crossing. Så det er nogle hårde hunde Dexter er oppe imod - også selvom Dexter var der først.
Men der var også ting der var for kedelige og langtrukne. Og så har jeg aldrig fundet Calamity Jane det mindste interessant.
3,5 stjerner.
All the stars. Loved every word of this saga of the Old West. Based on the story of Wild Bill Hickok and peopled with plenty of other real people, it just oozes with the sights and smells and dangers of a wild and rugged period of history. Nuance, feeling, and empathy jump from every page.
An elegy to the town of Deadwood and its famous inhabitants. A "western" in the way Cormac McCarthy writes westerns. Clean, spare writing that is beautiful in its own way. Try it out, especially if you were a fan of HBO's "Deadwood."
This book was an un-dramatization of Wild Bill's death, trying to make up for it by throwing in outlandish things, but was so meh the rest of the time it didn't help.
adventurous
dark
funny
informative
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
"Deadwood may well be the best Western ever written." — The Washington Post Book World
To whoever wrote this blurb during the book's first published (1986), I'm not even confident this was true that time.
To whoever wrote this blurb during the book's first published (1986), I'm not even confident this was true that time.
"It weighed on him," Charley said. "He never met a human being that didn't already have an opinion on him, and it was his nature to feel an obligation to fill their expectations..."
Synopsis and/or Premise:
Bill Hickok, Charley Utter, and Malcolm Nash arrives in Deadwood, a riotous mining town where anything can happen anywhere at anytime. Comes next are a series of wild events that defined the place through history while we follow a set of characters unfolding their interconnected personal stories.
The Good and The Bad:
Let's start with some positives. I liked how it embraced the full tone of the stereotypical Wild West yet it was still grounded on the realism of true historical events. A true definition of unpredictable, and the campiness just exaggerated its absurdity. It wasn't even trying to be funny in many parts, yet I find myself chortling 😂 from the zaniness.
I determined within the pages some shining moments ✨. There were scenes that was either amusing or just generally written well. There's also dialogues that had profound depth and nuances behind them, which was treat to stumble upon. There were even characters (like Soft brain/Bottle Fiend and Malcolm Nash) that I found to be my personal favorites because of their unique traits. Lastly, by being a historical fiction (accurate or perhaps not as much) it earned at least some merit through its nature of immortalizing certain place, time, and people within literature.
I'm not hiding this disappointment 😞. I could peek into the novel's full capabilities, but it was riddled with flaws. This is why it's impossible for me to rate it higher. Here they are:
1. Much needed digestible chapters - It did have 'chapters' encompassing separate dates and events. So technically, this book contained the longest chapter I've ever encountered (150+ pages.) 📏 But I think they served more on the purpose of story acts. It should had been divided into much smaller parts for better reading experience (ex. improvement on pacing.)
2. Unpersuasive and shaky writing style - The characters weren't written compellingly. Thus, it's too difficult to connect to them 😒. This should have been No. 1 priority especially if the plot cannot decide on either focusing on a central character (Charley) or to be a third person omniscient POV. It just felt like we follow most of these casts only for plot purposes. Yes — you get the general story, but only understood it retrospectively from a bunch of tedious and stale writing.
3. All over the place narrative - The overall narrative was more of a collection of interweaving novellas 📚. There wasn't an alluring foundation aside from depictions of true historical events. This meandering plot slows the pacing much further.
4. Wasted potentials - This was more of a fundamental problem of the book and its chosen genre. I genuinely believe that Historical Fiction is one of, if not the hardest genre to pull successfully ✍️. One needs to take care of three important objectives:
- To deliver an effective and moving narrative,
- To give tribute and be relatively accurate on its contextual inspiration, and
- To provide a fresh/novel perspective for the readers.
Examples of books that accomplished them are All the Light We Cannot See (by Anthony Doerr) and Bone Talk (by Candy Gourlay). Books that that missed some are The Sentinels of Andersonville (by Tracy Groot) and, unfortunately, this one.
Final Thoughts:
Deadwood (by Pete Dexter) is a gritty Western, Historical Fiction of said real-life location alongside its true events. It doesn't have one storyline but of intertwined chronicles, and it does come off more like a memoir with bits of fiction. PLEASE, don't let your children read this because there's a ton of smut. To be quite frank, it wasn't an enjoyable read especially when my hopes of the writing improving gets repeatedly broken. However, it was odd that I felt saddened as the book found closures to its characters. Well...maybe I'll admit that I was attached to them even for a little 😅. I heard the TV show was much better.
Rating: Borderline top of 4/10
A Masterclass in using sentences to accurately describe and create characters.
"To Charley's knowledge, Jack Crawford was the only man in the West who spoke in footnotes."
"He was carrying a leather bag, and smelled like everything he touched or eaten in two months."
"He looked at a story about a new gun they had out in California that spit seventy rounds in four seconds. They called it the "Peace Conservator." They were always doing some damn thing in California that nobody had thought out the consequences."
A little heavy on the Peeders though. I think the word is used every third page.
"To Charley's knowledge, Jack Crawford was the only man in the West who spoke in footnotes."
"He was carrying a leather bag, and smelled like everything he touched or eaten in two months."
"He looked at a story about a new gun they had out in California that spit seventy rounds in four seconds. They called it the "Peace Conservator." They were always doing some damn thing in California that nobody had thought out the consequences."
A little heavy on the Peeders though. I think the word is used every third page.
dark
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Very entertaining - close to 5 stars. The dialogue is great, at times reminiscent of Beckett. The author was, of course, restricted by the actual events in Deadwood, so I wished that some relationships could persist, but I guess that's the point. As Agnes Lake says, <i>Things don't care how they happen, that's left for us, to care.</i>