Entertainment For Lively Minds
Red Riding Hoodwinked
Did anybody else watch the first episode of Channel Four's ultra-hyped and ecstatically-reviewed Red Riding and find themselves thinking....eh?
Although lots of PR puffery usually puts me off, I was looking forward to it having enjoyed some of David Peace's early novels (ie not the one set in Tokyo) but both myself and Mrs Scoop were totally underwhelmed.
Understanding the accents was a bit tricky but, as an avid Wire fan, I was prepared to ignore that but following the plot was much harder as there didn't appear to be much to actually follow.
It mainly seemed to consist of excessive northern grimness and the main character Eddie getting beaten up on a regular basis. And Sean Bean being a bit fat.
Am I missing something? (Stands back in anticipation of volley of abuse....)
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Didn't like the books either
Way too much hype for a writer who obviously thinks he is better than he actually is.
Almost managed to spoil the Damned United with his "poetic" penchant of repeating things thrice.
There are good stories to be told here but not by someone who has more interest in style than storytelling.
A narrative disaster area
It seems that David Peace hasn't realised that the real lesson to be learned from James Ellroy doesn't consist of aping his punchy prose or trios of flawed heroes; it's about learning the craft of the hardboiled hack the hard way. Before Ellroy wrote White Jazz (the second novel in "The L.A. Quartet"), which was where his now-trademark style took off, he had already published half a dozen novels, none of which set the earth on fire but each of which was narratively more skilfully constructed than the previous one. Peace waded straight in at the deep end. And drowned.
Having read everything that David Peace has published to date, my conclusion is the same as Jim's: he can't tell a story to save his life. (It's surely no accident that in what is generally considered to be his most readable book, The Damned United, he didn't have to plot anything, since the What Happens Next was all laid out for him by well-documented events.)
interesting
having only read dammned united (and enjoyed it) I started to read one of the others 1977(?) I got 20 pages in and thought i can't be bothered with this Elroy stuff today (and I've most of his JE novels). So having seen the first tv film and enjoyed it but thought the plot was a little under written i assumed that was tv telescoping the plot.
I must admit I'm never entirely convinced by these driven cop architypes their motivation always seems not totally convincing. But being genre works you usual just have to go with the conventions .
i always wonder how the likes of James elroy and David Peace cope with a trip to B&Q or or to buy some stamps from Rymans everyday life must be tame when there's no one nailing dogs to walls or obsessively tracking down cuban drug smuggling patriots with chain saws.
Good see though that Peace work has started lots of animated debates about tv and books which is is always good a thing.
Ellroy
I loved him up until The Cold Six Thousand, at which point his trademark staccato style simply stopped being truly readable. It can only be a matter of time before he delivers a 2000-page novel. Composed. Entirely. Of. Single. Word. Sentences.
Close
But.
No.
Cigar.
They'll.
Be.
Paragraphs.
It does get a bit "rich"
at times. i remember finishing the cold 2000 and having to have a long swim in the sea to clear my head. Powerful thing that there reading.
The Mash is your friend
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts-%26-entertainment/fears-grow-tha...
This may get pulled cos there's another thread on this
but, I agree - the TV version gutted the novel to such an extent that it didn't really make sense. Sean Bean's character was an amalgam of three from the book, which led to the problem the Daily Mash nails.
I don't mind the style in the novels, think it works really well, though not so much for the Damned United. didn't really recognise Clough under all the fripperies.
No-one likes it, but I don't suppose it cares...
I was also looking forward to it but soon remembered that I'd struggled to the end of the first book and hadn't felt inclined to investigate further. Grim indeed but hey, none more dark, none more edgy and that's what counts in today's 'serious' drama.
That Mash piece utterly superb.
All those who have said it was remarkably like Life on Mars with the laughs taken out are also right on the money.
Thought about it last night when watching the Miner's Strike documentary. Good to be reminded that the North can stand for something better and nobler than squalor, aggro and murdering prostitutes.
Except I fear that Mash piece might be shit too
mentioning black pudding in a piece about Yorkshire is a dead giveaway. It was written by a Pimms sipping southerner.
The books are ace.
Th Mash is Scottish isn’t it?
I don’t think it’s written by “Pimms sipping southerners”.
Anyway, people in Yorkshire consume both black pudding and Pimms.
Quite like the books. Quite enjoyed the programme too. But the Mash, as ever, has a point.
Scottish?
- in that case it was written by leek eating Northerners.
surely battered leeks
....
I have an odd view of David Peace's books..
...because I come from the same one-horse, two-novelist Yorkshire town as him and even I couldn't recognise the unrelenting gloom of the surroundings and the foul reek of brutality and corrution that hung over it all. I'm not in a hurry to see it depicted on the screen.
ah so DH
you can take grim reality on the streets of Baltimore but not the hard chilly streets of Morley!
Not Morley
Morley was the glittering metropolis that travellers used to tell us about.
osset
intit?
Interesting stuff on this
Interesting stuff on this very comparison from John Lloyd in FT
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9c9793a8-09dd-11de-add8-0000779fd2ac.html
"The Peace/ Channel 4 dystopia can be appreciated only if all disbelief is wholly suspended (though Peace, from his comments, did not mean it to be so). Presented as socially significant, it is only culturally so; witness to a creative state of mind, not to an actual or even possible state of affairs. Comparisons to the US crime series The Sopranos and The Wire reveal only the stark contrasts, above all in the view of society. In The Wire, the police are sometimes violent, but violence springs usually from frustration over losing a fight against all-pervasive evil with its trail of victims. In Red Riding, evil is the police; the victims are the innocent, and society itself."
In 1974. . .
David Peace was seven. Technically, he was an eye-witness, but I doubt his practical experience of that time and place went much further than knowing a hell of a lot about sledging and conkers.
my point was more about
the ease we all have of accepting a partial view of the world as long as there's an ocean between it and us. I'm the same age as Peace and from a few miles down the road in south yorkshire and yes there were very few bent coppers beating up reporters with hoses at my primary school.There's very little nesquik drinking or playing top trumps in peaces work but give him time! You can't slate a novel writer for using his imagination can you, james elroy wasn't on the grassy knoll etc.
Fair enough
But you must admit that seeing the LAPD investigating the murder of your mum and having a dad who was Rita Hayworth's gofer probably does go some way towards helping you prepare for your career as a noir writer.
aye -
mebbe it's fiction. Although the Bradford based stuff in 1977 rattled some chains for me.
Had heard so much about Peace
but first book of his I read was the Ripper one and I have to say I really didn't enjoy it. Haven't bothered returning yet.