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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
I am so glad to be done this book. This is the final book in a four book series about missing children and the Yorkshire Ripper. I can't say I liked it much. It seems liked the same plot rehashed from the other three novels. I think I preferred the 1st book and the third book the most, as they were easier to follow. They seemed more linear in terms of plot. I don't think this book was actually necessary to be honest. With that said, I will give this one a 3.6/5.
The last of the books in the Red Riding Quartet and once again David Peace takes us dark and disturbing ride into the heart of West Yorkshire. A brilliant end to this saga, bringing together threads from the very first book 1974. Uncompromising and unrelenting to the end a brilliant read.
Well, I did it. Quartet finished.
Still murky, but goes a long way towards clearing up the other three. “That would’ve been good to know,” I thought more than once, as a flashback made it clear what had been done by whom in which book. Somehow, though, the bits of clarity make the entire thing no less bleak and horrifying.
Anyone know of a site that breaks it all down nice and cleanly?
Still murky, but goes a long way towards clearing up the other three. “That would’ve been good to know,” I thought more than once, as a flashback made it clear what had been done by whom in which book. Somehow, though, the bits of clarity make the entire thing no less bleak and horrifying.
Anyone know of a site that breaks it all down nice and cleanly?
I...don't really know what happened here. And I was paying a reasonable amount of attention. I'm beginning to suspect, however, that this is the way its supposed to be. The point of this series is not solving "the mystery" (there may even be less of a mystery than I thought--could it be that I was paying less attention all along than I thought I was? is this supposed to be what readers experience? is this why everyone has the same name? is this why everyone knows everything and nothing? gah!), the point of the series, as far as I can tell, is summed up in the epigraph (the first time I can recall Peace doing this, at least with real quotes) of the last part of this book: "Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do." --Voltaire.
Does anyone amount to anything, at the end of the day, in this series? All the "good men" are dead by the end, and the series ends not so much because the story is over but because there is no one left to tell it. I wasn't convinced that Peace was doing anything particularly revolutionary with this series until I got to the end. He doesn't do anything really new with characters or pacing or perspective (interesting at best, erratic at worst) and the violence was excessive and the women were pathetic, but if I'm reading this right he gave a quartet an open ending, then that is brave. This thing has less hope that The Wire. I'm not sure if that's a good thing, but it's certainly new.
Does anyone amount to anything, at the end of the day, in this series? All the "good men" are dead by the end, and the series ends not so much because the story is over but because there is no one left to tell it. I wasn't convinced that Peace was doing anything particularly revolutionary with this series until I got to the end. He doesn't do anything really new with characters or pacing or perspective (interesting at best, erratic at worst) and the violence was excessive and the women were pathetic, but if I'm reading this right he gave a quartet an open ending, then that is brave. This thing has less hope that The Wire. I'm not sure if that's a good thing, but it's certainly new.
Nineteen Eighty Three is the final book in the Red Riding Quartet and there's only one word to describe it. Sublime.
David Peace is a phenomenal writer. His writing style is quick, slick and draws you in. I find myself sucked into the hazy world of corrupt cops, earnest lawyers and journalists fighting for the truth.
The characters he writes are all flawed, there are no Hollywood heroes here, which makes more for the interesting read.
The narrative is led by three individuals, policeman Maurice Jobson, lawyer John Pigott and young prostitute BJ. All three of them are tangled up in the web of conspiracy and cover ups around the disappearances of young girls in the Yorkshire area.
Jobson is the lead investigator, but also the reluctant heir of Bill 'Badger' Molloy's scheme to get rich quick. Pigott is representing Michael Myshkin, who was arrested and charged for the murder of one of the girls and BJ is on the run from everyone and everything.
None of the Red Riding Quartet stands alone, they all form one large story told by different characters, but I think reading them one after the other would be too much, too intense. Having said that, I think it was too long since I read Nineteen Eighty and some of the details were a little dulled in my head. I'd seen the incredible Channel 4 adaptation (well worth a watch for any fan) and I think that helped certain characters cement into my mind. For me, Jobson was David Morrisey, Pigott was Mark Addy and BJ was Robert Sheehan. For me this was a help rather than a hindrance.
As the narrative changes between these three characters it can be initially confusing as to whose point of view it is with the start of each chapter. That's the only reason I marked it 4 stars instead of 5. Otherwise, it's a series like no other. If you can hold your stomach (it's certainly not pretty and described with graphic detail) and you can put up with the bad language then jump into this world. David Peace's heady world of violence and corruption is a world like no other and I can't wait to read more of his.
David Peace is a phenomenal writer. His writing style is quick, slick and draws you in. I find myself sucked into the hazy world of corrupt cops, earnest lawyers and journalists fighting for the truth.
The characters he writes are all flawed, there are no Hollywood heroes here, which makes more for the interesting read.
The narrative is led by three individuals, policeman Maurice Jobson, lawyer John Pigott and young prostitute BJ. All three of them are tangled up in the web of conspiracy and cover ups around the disappearances of young girls in the Yorkshire area.
Jobson is the lead investigator, but also the reluctant heir of Bill 'Badger' Molloy's scheme to get rich quick. Pigott is representing Michael Myshkin, who was arrested and charged for the murder of one of the girls and BJ is on the run from everyone and everything.
None of the Red Riding Quartet stands alone, they all form one large story told by different characters, but I think reading them one after the other would be too much, too intense. Having said that, I think it was too long since I read Nineteen Eighty and some of the details were a little dulled in my head. I'd seen the incredible Channel 4 adaptation (well worth a watch for any fan) and I think that helped certain characters cement into my mind. For me, Jobson was David Morrisey, Pigott was Mark Addy and BJ was Robert Sheehan. For me this was a help rather than a hindrance.
As the narrative changes between these three characters it can be initially confusing as to whose point of view it is with the start of each chapter. That's the only reason I marked it 4 stars instead of 5. Otherwise, it's a series like no other. If you can hold your stomach (it's certainly not pretty and described with graphic detail) and you can put up with the bad language then jump into this world. David Peace's heady world of violence and corruption is a world like no other and I can't wait to read more of his.
Much improved on the last two volumes, probably helped by there being three different POV characters so the over-used poetic prose devices are varied and spread out a bit. Another one without a sympathetic protagonist (the one I thought likely to be redeemed wasn't in the end) and extremely different to the finale of the TV adaptations in a variety of key ways. The TV version is sanitised I guess but in addition to leaving out the nastier aspects of the POV characters it changes the plot; people who die in the book live in the TV version but I'll say no more than that.
Nineteen Eighty-Three is also not about the Yorkshire Ripper case, like the first novel in this series, Nineteen Seventy-Four. It instead follows another missing child case, similar to the ones detailed in the first novel. Unlike all of the previous novels, though, this one takes us back to before the events of the first book so that we finally get a complete picture of the entire series.
In 1983, we once again have multiple perspectives. This time it's from Det. Maurice Jobson, the Chief Superintendent of the Yorkshire police force and one of the most corrupt coppers that we've seen to date; John Piggot, some random lawyer who is quite nice sincerely seems to care, which is a nice change; and BJ, the street thug, local guy that we've seen since 1974.
While I appreciated getting the full picture on the events leading up to 1974 and the course of everything that has happened through the series until now, I think Peace's writing has gone down in quality or he might not have as much talent in distinguishing between multiple characters. I thought he did quite well in 1977 between Det. Bob Fraser and Jack Whitehead, but here Peace uses first, second and third person to distinguish between Jobson, Piggot and BJ; his way of doing it might have been his attempt at those different points of view, but it comes across more as lazy writing: Peace doesn't have the writing chops to make each character's voice different and so turns to writing them with different points of view. I don't have any love for second-person, because I think it's trite and sounds terrible, so I wasn't a fan. Peace's tackling of BJ was not any better and made BJ seem like an idiot or some sort of Neanderthal (e.g., "BJ bang on Clare's door," "BJ wait at bus stop for Clare," etc. -- examples not direct quotations from the book), which is not in line with what we've seen him speak thus far in the series. His actual speech is normal, so I don't know what's up with the point of view.
Once again, the book is very film noir-esque and the repetition is still there, although by this time it's getting quite irritating. I ended up skimming over some parts because I could see where it was going. That's never a fun thing to do in a novel.
In 1983, we once again have multiple perspectives. This time it's from Det. Maurice Jobson, the Chief Superintendent of the Yorkshire police force and one of the most corrupt coppers that we've seen to date; John Piggot, some random lawyer who is quite nice sincerely seems to care, which is a nice change; and BJ, the street thug, local guy that we've seen since 1974.
While I appreciated getting the full picture on the events leading up to 1974 and the course of everything that has happened through the series until now, I think Peace's writing has gone down in quality or he might not have as much talent in distinguishing between multiple characters. I thought he did quite well in 1977 between Det. Bob Fraser and Jack Whitehead, but here Peace uses first, second and third person to distinguish between Jobson, Piggot and BJ; his way of doing it might have been his attempt at those different points of view, but it comes across more as lazy writing: Peace doesn't have the writing chops to make each character's voice different and so turns to writing them with different points of view. I don't have any love for second-person, because I think it's trite and sounds terrible, so I wasn't a fan. Peace's tackling of BJ was not any better and made BJ seem like an idiot or some sort of Neanderthal (e.g., "BJ bang on Clare's door," "BJ wait at bus stop for Clare," etc. -- examples not direct quotations from the book), which is not in line with what we've seen him speak thus far in the series. His actual speech is normal, so I don't know what's up with the point of view.
Once again, the book is very film noir-esque and the repetition is still there, although by this time it's getting quite irritating. I ended up skimming over some parts because I could see where it was going. That's never a fun thing to do in a novel.
None of the Red Riding quartet stand well on their own - they can only really be read as a collected work. The overall theme of the enormous cost in human lives and immense suffering of hypocrisy and corruption is interesting and well developed. The books use a fascinating device of shifting point of view from one novel to the next, both in terms of character and time, to develop that theme and gradually fill in the broader story. For instance, a character seen only as an antagonist in 1974 becomes the central character from whose point of view the story is told in 1977 and then recurs in the latter two books as an important and sympathetic character. A character referred to only in a few passages of 1977 is the dominate character driving all of 1980.
The prose, in an apparent effort to be stylistic, often comes off as pretentious, repetitive, and just plain over-stuffed. Many characters are left only partially explored, the exact details of what happened to them and why is almost always left hazy and ambiguous, though the point may be that the exact details don't matter so long as we can link their fate back to the overarching theme of the cost of corruption. The series as a whole is also just depressing - in tone and in theme (with one small but significant exception partway through the final book, though the ending reverts to form).
The prose, in an apparent effort to be stylistic, often comes off as pretentious, repetitive, and just plain over-stuffed. Many characters are left only partially explored, the exact details of what happened to them and why is almost always left hazy and ambiguous, though the point may be that the exact details don't matter so long as we can link their fate back to the overarching theme of the cost of corruption. The series as a whole is also just depressing - in tone and in theme (with one small but significant exception partway through the final book, though the ending reverts to form).