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kcfromaustcrime's review
5.0
I'll be perfectly honest - I circled El Dorado in the Readings tent at the Melbourne Writers festival for days. It's a contemporary Australian crime fiction thriller. It was long-listed for the 2007 Ned's and I'd promised myself to read the entire list of nominees this year. So why was I circling?
Well El Dorado is a verse novel - poetry and I admit I'm never convinced about reading poetry. Sure I love listening to some bush poetry, and I love to listen to some I guess you'd call them performance poets - ask everyone about dragging me away from Lem Sissay's performances at last year's MWF - but reading an entire verse novel.... a crime verse novel. Errrrrrrrrrr
So I circled.
The opening verse is a ripper mind you:
The little girl's
dead hand
is sticking stiffly
up
as if reaching
to grab an angel's foot.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm
Then I found this stanza on page 8 and I was heading for the cash register:
It's not often
I envy
Detective Sergeant Rodney Mason
but a man
with no imagination
and no sense of smell -
'the wife reckons
that's why
I never buy her flowers' -
is right at home
in the city morgue
El Dorado is fascinating. As a story it switches from dark comedy, to tragedy. The personal lives of the investigating team are laid bare, the raw grief of families who lose a child to a murderer, the panic and worry as it becomes increasingly obvious that not only do they not know who, they don't understand why. There's pace, there's a progression of the story and it's done in pared down, beautifully worded verse.
El Dorado is a great crime novel. It's compelling verse. All I can say is don't circle it like I did - grab a copy and try it - you'll probably find yourself mildly astounded.
trixie_belden's review
It's clever to have written a whole crime thriller in poetry but cleverness was not enough for me. I could not get past the complete lack of plot. The characters are completely unbelievable and the crime investigation makes no sense. Although there are some nice passages, the beauty of the language did not make up for the poor narrative. It's surprisingly quick and easy to read though.
kateeliz's review
2.0
I was unimpressed by this. The verse was clumsy and the plot incredibly underwhelming, especially the ending. I also thought her allusions were way overdone and far too obvious, which was clear from the outset through her rudimentary yet pretentious epigraph. Shame, as The Monkey's Mask is one of my all time favourites.
beeeeonka's review
2.0
I LOVED The Monkey's Mask, but I struggled with El Dorado. I found it difficult to follow the characters for the first 1/4 and found the twists in the plot lacking in actual mystery or suspense.
lisa_setepenre's review
5.0
As a crime story, this is disappointing – the camera is always slightly off to the side of the crime and its solving, focusing on the people solving these crimes and their relationships instead. Yet it's still an utterly amazing piece of writing. I don't have the words to explain how marvellous Dorothy Porter's writing is.
siennarose's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
4.0
Most of the time, my reading interests are particularly niche. Maybe it's growing up with so many younger siblings, or maybe it's being an emerging social worker, but nothing captures my interest quite like missing or murdered children. Harming kids goes against our most basic evolutionary instincts. I'll never understand it, and as such I’ll never cease to be fascinated and horrified.
Dorothy Porter gave me my first introduction to novels in verse through The Monkey’s Mask, and when I found out she had another, I immediately bought it.
El Dorado plays with themes of innocence, youth, and the futility of aging. It also explores themes of sexuality, desire, and the line between art and obscenity. There is also a conversation about the assumption of impropriety between adults and children. The issue is framed in such a way that suggests people are too quick to accuse or assume wrong doing. There are even some throw away lines like ”now days he'd be charged with a sex crime”. I wonder if this is a reflection of Porters true thoughts.
In reality though, whether you're a mandated reported or not, I’d rather be careful, but wrong, than let a predator slip through the cracks.
Fantastic book.
Dorothy Porter gave me my first introduction to novels in verse through The Monkey’s Mask, and when I found out she had another, I immediately bought it.
El Dorado plays with themes of innocence, youth, and the futility of aging. It also explores themes of sexuality, desire, and the line between art and obscenity. There is also a conversation about the assumption of impropriety between adults and children. The issue is framed in such a way that suggests people are too quick to accuse or assume wrong doing. There are even some throw away lines like ”now days he'd be charged with a sex crime”. I wonder if this is a reflection of Porters true thoughts.
In reality though, whether you're a mandated reported or not, I’d rather be careful, but wrong, than let a predator slip through the cracks.
Fantastic book.
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