Scan barcode
A review by paul_cornelius
Savage Night by Jim Thompson
5.0
Savage Night might be the most existential Thompson novel I've yet read. The story of Carl Bigelow, a malformed man, someone who only makes five feet by wearing enormous lifts, who operates as a mob boss's hired executioner, takes place against a background of sordid lust, looming death, and purposeless existence. Nobody is safe, not Carl's target, his ally in the plot, the man he thinks is standing watch over him, or the even more malformed woman, Ruthie, he pities. And in fact Carl and Ruthie essentially are man and wife here, two corrupted monsters who also seem to operate with an aura of magic surrounding them.
The style of Savage Night also stands out. There is the usual amorphous and ambiguous start to things, where the world only seems to come into focus in a manner of someone emerging from a hangover. But the surprise is the ending. Often, Thompson leaves things hanging. But, here, he's gone one step further. Carl Bigelow transitions into the essence of non-existence, unlife, which isn't so shocking, because he has been chasing it down the path of madness throughout the novel.
Reading Thompson makes you realize just how much of a level he existed at above other writers of the genre. I've read a lot of James Hadley Chase lately, working on him from an academic point of view, and while Chase has a few works that hop on the boundary of literary modernism, none come close to the world Jim Thompson creates.
Final note: I haven't read a Thompson novel in a few years. One reason is that I ran out of books of his I owned copies of. This is the first downloaded digital Thompson I've read. And he is one of those authors that does not lend his work to digital e-readers. You need the visceral feel of the pages in your hand. He's like Maugham in that regard. Or Conrad. Turning the pages of a Thompson novel are part of the experience that I miss with the digital format. It just doesn't seem the same.
The style of Savage Night also stands out. There is the usual amorphous and ambiguous start to things, where the world only seems to come into focus in a manner of someone emerging from a hangover. But the surprise is the ending. Often, Thompson leaves things hanging. But, here, he's gone one step further. Carl Bigelow transitions into the essence of non-existence, unlife, which isn't so shocking, because he has been chasing it down the path of madness throughout the novel.
Reading Thompson makes you realize just how much of a level he existed at above other writers of the genre. I've read a lot of James Hadley Chase lately, working on him from an academic point of view, and while Chase has a few works that hop on the boundary of literary modernism, none come close to the world Jim Thompson creates.
Final note: I haven't read a Thompson novel in a few years. One reason is that I ran out of books of his I owned copies of. This is the first downloaded digital Thompson I've read. And he is one of those authors that does not lend his work to digital e-readers. You need the visceral feel of the pages in your hand. He's like Maugham in that regard. Or Conrad. Turning the pages of a Thompson novel are part of the experience that I miss with the digital format. It just doesn't seem the same.