Reading Material

The early arrival of this book led to some reading time over the weekend.  I finished the first of this trilogy, Under the Bright Lights.  My brain was running a background soundtrack of Tom Waits.  Visions of the movie, Down by Law, sprang up occasionally.

Woodrell has a writing style I enjoy.  Scenes spring from the language, not from the recitation of details or a snapshot declaration.  And phrases provide images in unexpected ways.  "Hands-on-meat percussionists",  "vest of pudge and ganja-inspired eyes."  But "spoonable brains" has to be one of my favorites.

Somewhat irritated by his inability to provoke paralyzing fear, even in bums with spoonable brains, Jewel watched until the wino was fifty feet down the alley.  He's seen a movie once where it turned out even Comanches wouldn't tweak the noses of unknown fates by spearing outright crazies. He got the point of it, now, and it didn't have anything at all to do with having sung too many old Baptist hymns. (page 66)

James Ellroy said of Muscle For The Wing:  "Vicious, colloquial, dark, and -- most unsurprisingly -- brutally funny. To read it is to enter a superbly realized universe of surprises."  I do not disagree.