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I was in the library booksale looking for Raymond Chandler with my dad when a stranger in the "Mysteries" aisle said, "If you like Raymond Chandler, that" - he indicated - "is a good book." Well, I don't know if I like Raymond Chandler, but I know he's supposed to be very good. I figured anyone compared favorably to him ought to be worth a shot. So I bought it and read it.
Dancing Bear is clever, but lacks verisimilitude. There: the book review in a sentence.
To elaborate: books must be evaluated on several levels. There is the most fundamental level, which is basic literacy. (Fortunately, few published works have much trouble in this area.) Then there is writing, storytelling, characterization - the responsibilities of every fiction writer. Then there are the responsibilities of the genre, which fall into two parts: defining characteristics - e.g. the presence of a mystery - and genre-specific merits - e.g. the cleverness of the solution.
As I said, Dancing Bear is clever. I would not spoil the secret, but Crumley lays out the threads quite skillfully - perhaps not as subtly as could be desired, but quite competently and with a knack for indirection. If a shortage of red herrings does not disturb you, the unraveling of Crumley's mystery might well entertain.
However, as I also said, it lacks verisimilitude. This lack is produced chiefly by two properties of the book: its clumsy adherence to nonessential genre characteristics and carelessness of characterization. These go together, as many features of the characters seem to exist either to imitate the clichés of hard-boiled detective fiction or to support the plot - sometimes both. A particularly glaring example of the former is the neighbor who, for no visible reason, loves to 'visit' the protagonist/narrator (Milton Chester Milodragovitch, III - usually referenced in the last name) while her husband is working. This could, perhaps, be forgivable, save that Milodragovitch is so thoroughly miserable a character (in every sense of the word) that it beggars the imagination that he would ever be sought out. (Fortunately, he's at least somewhat introspective - I don't think I would have bothered to finish were he not.) Unfortunately, the neighbor is hardly atypical - in every possible reading of the phrase. Annoying, that was.
The storytelling and prose, my two remaining categories, also failed to show any especial merit. Competent, both, the former more than the latter, but both were simply up to par and little more. In the final reading, all I can say for it is that it was clever. Lacking verisimilitude, lacking any sort of extraordinary literary virtue, but clever, all the same.
Even for only $2 U.S., I expected a little more than that.
Dancing Bear is clever, but lacks verisimilitude. There: the book review in a sentence.
To elaborate: books must be evaluated on several levels. There is the most fundamental level, which is basic literacy. (Fortunately, few published works have much trouble in this area.) Then there is writing, storytelling, characterization - the responsibilities of every fiction writer. Then there are the responsibilities of the genre, which fall into two parts: defining characteristics - e.g. the presence of a mystery - and genre-specific merits - e.g. the cleverness of the solution.
As I said, Dancing Bear is clever. I would not spoil the secret, but Crumley lays out the threads quite skillfully - perhaps not as subtly as could be desired, but quite competently and with a knack for indirection. If a shortage of red herrings does not disturb you, the unraveling of Crumley's mystery might well entertain.
However, as I also said, it lacks verisimilitude. This lack is produced chiefly by two properties of the book: its clumsy adherence to nonessential genre characteristics and carelessness of characterization. These go together, as many features of the characters seem to exist either to imitate the clichés of hard-boiled detective fiction or to support the plot - sometimes both. A particularly glaring example of the former is the neighbor who, for no visible reason, loves to 'visit' the protagonist/narrator (Milton Chester Milodragovitch, III - usually referenced in the last name) while her husband is working. This could, perhaps, be forgivable, save that Milodragovitch is so thoroughly miserable a character (in every sense of the word) that it beggars the imagination that he would ever be sought out. (Fortunately, he's at least somewhat introspective - I don't think I would have bothered to finish were he not.) Unfortunately, the neighbor is hardly atypical - in every possible reading of the phrase. Annoying, that was.
The storytelling and prose, my two remaining categories, also failed to show any especial merit. Competent, both, the former more than the latter, but both were simply up to par and little more. In the final reading, all I can say for it is that it was clever. Lacking verisimilitude, lacking any sort of extraordinary literary virtue, but clever, all the same.
Even for only $2 U.S., I expected a little more than that.
