Cold Six Thousand: best experimental novel of the past decade?

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several hundred pages of four word sentences. except for dialogue and lots of fake primary sources, in the form of transcripts and reports from the fbi and so forth. and the internal monologues are just completely clipped, like you're reading someone's "things to do" list off a scratch pad. here is the first chapter.

― vahid (vahid), Friday, 9 January 2004 19:22 (twenty-two years ago)

don't be afraid to tell me it sucks.

― vahid (vahid), Friday, 9 January 2004 20:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think Ellroy was setting out to write an experimental novel. Grad students will write essays on anything, so maybe it is experimental. It doesn't matter to me.

Some of it sounds pretty funny when you read it out loud, like some of Hemingway's writing that is really clipped. (There is a thread on ILX that shows this out and a few people give an opinion on the book, including myself, I think.)

It is completely over the top book, but I liked it. I've liked all four of Ellroy's books that I have read.

The transcripts with JEH are the thing that makes it work.

― earlnash, Friday, 9 January 2004 20:32 (twenty-two years ago)

How does it compare with American Tabloid?

― otto, Friday, 9 January 2004 21:51 (twenty-two years ago)

even more intense. much more fragmentary. the sixties sort of kick into overdrive and the writing follows. much more made of the government-drugs connection. i'd say probably the best book about speed ever, in large part because the book really isn't about speed at all (very little is made of the fact that everybody's popping pills but you can just feel it soaking through the material). much scarier. the vietnam stuff has a resonance that the cuba material can't match (probably we've all seen many many more vietnam war movies is the thing).

i can't wait for the third novel. i figure it is going to descend into utter, atavistic madness (like the early 70s) and will heavily feature cocaine, nicaragua, iran, and the groundwork for the inner city crack/cia connection. oh and watergate too (duh). but who's going to be assassinated?

― vahid (vahid), Friday, 9 January 2004 22:07 (twenty-two years ago)

I read this book. And American Tabloid. And then I started thinking. and speaking. and writing. in sentences of no more. than five or six words.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Monday, 12 January 2004 05:57 (twenty-two years ago)

That looks awful. I'll stick with Hemingway, methinks, and even he's pretty ordinary a lot of the time.

― writingstatic (writingstatic), Monday, 12 January 2004 23:21 (twenty-two years ago)

salon.com has a great review of C6k posted on their site: http://archive.salon.com/books/review/2001/06/13/ellroy/

"Fans of crime thrillers would have complained that "American Tabloid" was nearly as impenetrable as "Ulysses" -- that is, if fans of crime thrillers had known what "Ulysses" is. I think Ellroy knows damn well what "Ulysses" is, and I think he has intended "The Cold Six Thousand" to be his -- dare I say it -- "Finnegans Wake."

― CJM, Wednesday, 14 January 2004 15:33 (twenty-two years ago)

oooh thanks!!

― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 17:11 (twenty-two years ago)

In what way? it couln't be more different from either Finnegans Wake or Ulysses. Such lazy writing.

― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 17:16 (twenty-two years ago)

lazy? how long do you think it takes to come up with a sentence like "eldon peavy vibed mean queen"?? lazy writing isn't that musical ... every sentence is the purest poetry!!

― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 17:22 (twenty-two years ago)

i meant that review was lazy, analogies to joyce are stock for reviewers and are pretty much always meaningless. The writing in the book itself seems to be annoying from what i have read of it - i wouldn't read this book for the same reason i dont listen to Trance music - it gives me a headache.

― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:01 (twenty-two years ago)

that made me laugh (though i'd say ellroy's more like hard house).

i had the same experience as adam, too. which is partly why i started this thread, because normally stuff like oulipo or don delillo just slides off my back, whereas "cold six thousand" i read in a marathon and it left me feeling dazed and not myself for a good week.

― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 18:06 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't see how anyone could compare Ellroy to Joyce, other than they both write books in a form of English.

There are some excellent scenes, observations and humor spiced throughout both "American Tabloid" and "The Cold Six Thousand". Like all good crime novels, everyone involved is pretty much evil and no one is innocent.

I think Ellroy's novelization of the Kennedy assassination is far more interesting than DeLillo, who takes forever and ever to get the point in "Libra" (yawn).

I could see both of these books by Ellroy going over the head of some mystery/crime readers, but the style it isn't anything like Ulysses or Faulkner or some oddball postmodern crap.

― earlnash, Wednesday, 14 January 2004 19:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't like the review: 'Now he wants to sit with the grown-ups' and 'profound' kill it but I'll pick this up.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 21:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I followed the 'finnegans wake' link. I enjoyed that feature.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 21:55 (twenty-two years ago)

julio you may want to read "american tabloid" first and see if you like that. there's lots of backstory.

― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 22:43 (twenty-two years ago)

"American Tabloid" is the place to start. Big Pete Bondurant is a cool character.

They have clearance copies at Amazon for .01 cent plus postage, if looking to get it cheap.

― earlnash, Thursday, 15 January 2004 02:22 (twenty-two years ago)

ok will do.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 15 January 2004 09:37 (twenty-two years ago)

two years pass...

i'm reading 'white jazz' right now and slowly finding me feet with ellroy's style in it (seems like i'm meant to take things in quickly but the sentences sometimes require slower reading than that allows, so i'm pulled in both directions at once), but even so the the excerpt linked to above is completely hilarious, i suppose because so audacious. somewhere a catholic-minded academic ought to be putting ellroy on a syllabus right next to hemingway, stein, and oulipo. especially if they're teaching a creative writing class.

― Josh (Josh), Friday, 11 August 2006 09:28 (nineteen years ago)

entertaining? you bet. experimental? not so sure. ellroy had a long autobiographical thing in the LA Times Sunday Magazine last month, I'll try to return w/a link. dude really takes himself seriously.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Friday, 11 August 2006 14:16 (nineteen years ago)

I almost quit once or twice getting into White Jazz (first Ellroy) but once you find his rhythm (or maybe it just steadies out in the last half), it's on.

― milo z (mlp), Friday, 11 August 2006 22:13 (nineteen years ago)

I dunno, the excerpt reads like something from a mediocre MFA student.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Friday, 11 August 2006 22:24 (nineteen years ago)

White Jazz wouldn't be the one to start with if you were likely to have difficulty with his writing style, and also because it's at the end of a trilogy. It's some time since I read Ellroy, but I think I really liked that trilogy, and quite liked The Black Dahlia, loved American Tabloid, hated The Cold Six Thousand (it just went on and on and on and on) and absolutely loathed his book about looking for his mother's murderer, which was nothing but therapy trussed up in card covers.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Saturday, 12 August 2006 20:38 (nineteen years ago)

i was talking about this with my friend ray, i dont think it works, as well as lets say black dahlia or underworld.

― anthony easton (anthony), Saturday, 12 August 2006 21:28 (nineteen years ago)

catholic in which sense?

― tom west (thomp), Saturday, 12 August 2006 22:11 (nineteen years ago)

not that one.

― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 13 August 2006 06:56 (nineteen years ago)

whats the problem with therapy trussed up in card covers?

― anthony easton (anthony), Sunday, 13 August 2006 10:30 (nineteen years ago)

therapy = good for the patient, but not necessarily for the audience

― Josh (Josh), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 07:17 (nineteen years ago)

Wot Accentmonkey said. American Tabloid = brilliant story, great characters, really snappy and well told. Cold Six Thousand = totally style over substance, story, really any kind of readability. Just cause you can write like that, doesn't mean you should.

― Meg Busset (Mog), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 12:03 (nineteen years ago)

if it is therapy, then it seems almost american, and america has decided that public therapy is "good" for the audience, dependign on how we define good, i guess.

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 15:43 (nineteen years ago)

america has decided != i have decided

― Josh (Josh), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 21:04 (nineteen years ago)

or accentmonkey has decided

― Josh (Josh), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 21:04 (nineteen years ago)

oh, i agree....i am just wondering why this time you have rejected americas glories...why do you hate freedom josh?

(or, for a writer that is supposed to be subtextual/subversive about american politics, he sure writes pretty populist)

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 21:46 (nineteen years ago)

in order of quality:

the black dahlia
the big nowhere
white jazz
american tabloid
l.a. confidential
my dark places
the cold six thousand
killer on the road

i liked/loved all of these books, with the notable exception of 'killer on the road', which is godawful.

― gear (gear), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 21:58 (nineteen years ago)

iooq:

the black dahlia
l.a. confidential
my dark places
the cold six thousand
american tabloid
l.a. confidential
white jazz

i havent read the rest

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 23:14 (nineteen years ago)

he's supposed to be politically subversive? on the basis of what, the tabloid/six thousand/? trilogy?

the black dahlia didn't interest me that much. it was good, but i felt like the potentially interesting parts were left unexplored by the dictates of the plot and genre.

― Josh (Josh), Thursday, 17 August 2006 06:04 (nineteen years ago)

I almost picked up 'Killer on the Road,' I read somewhere that it was the best serial killer noir since Jim Thompson, blah blah blah, but everyone else (every last review, comment, etc.) has said that it was terrible.

― milo z (mlp), Friday, 18 August 2006 01:39 (nineteen years ago)

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