American Tabloid: I could not
February 6th, 2008The list of books I could not finish is growing ever higher. I had started reading the Black Dahlia by James Ellroy some time ago and was put off by the slang and the mob lingo, failing to understand most of what was happening, what with the ellipses and the black humor. I decided I’d give Ellroy another go, with American Tabloid. At first, it went OK, as I found out that the difficulty with language was in fact not really greater than that I would have with the same class of jargon in French: like the lush marine lexicon in sea novels, the exuberant slang expressions in roman noir are the stuff the atmosphere is made of and are supposed to be guessed rather than understood.
But then I began to feel something building up in my throat, slowly as I turned the pages. The cynicism of two of the main characters (Pete Bondurant, archvillain, and Kemper Boyd, anti-hero) was clearly not counterbalanced by the naked and tortured honesty of Ward Littell, and as the body count kept growing steadily, the uneasiness turned into disgust.
I once thought I could detach myself from movie violence. In fact, I think I can only detach from fake movie violence, of the James Bond or possibly the Kill Bill kind. But not the realistic violence. At least not after two events which have altered the way representations of violence are processed in my head.
One Sunday morning, as I was idly cycling the remote control through all the cable channels to find something worth wasting my time on (thank God I do not have a TV anymore!), I came across a very short footage by a war reporter in Africa, in which a handful of paramilitary militia men with at least one kid among them were molesting and stripping another man, then let him run, and without a warning shot him in the back. Obviously I had seen tons of actors shot in the back, but this guy had not been acting. Maybe he was a torturer, maybe he was a landlord, maybe he was a father of two, I don’t care. All I know is that I had nightmares for some time afterwards, and that each time I watched movie violence that was intended to be realistic, these images kept surfacing in my mind.
The second event was shortly after I had become a father, when my mother told me how humans were the animal species which took the most love to make, raise, and grow. She told me how she felt that each time someone died in a war, it was like erasing all the hours of love that had gone into the making of this being, and what a waste it was. This was so powerful I could not forget it in a lifetime.
Now, whenever a scenario kills off insignificant John Does, I find myself unconsciously adding up the breastfeeding, the feverish wakes, the hikes in the woods, the bedtime stories, the lullabies, and dumping all of that down a bottomless mental pit in a splash of gory bits. Mr Ellroy was dumping love by the truckload. It was too much for me. Maybe I cannot read noir anymore. I laid down my book and opted for some P.G. Wodehouse instead.
Next: Something New, and Love Among the Chickens
…each time someone died in a war, it was like erasing all the hours of love that had gone into the making of this being, and what a waste it was. This was so powerful I could not forget it in a lifetime.
What a powerful image! Unforgetable, indeed!
People who do not understand the issues inherent in such violence lack imagination, being unable to imagine all of that love that is dumped by the truckload.
Thanks for sharing this Mandarine.
Another thing that strikes me about movie violence is that death is almost alwas intended as a punishment for the victim himself or herself alone, when in fact the victim won’t care after he’s dead, but his family will, and they never have their say in these circumstances.
I can’t read those books either. It’s not just the violence, it’s the casualness of it, as though it doesn’t much matter.
I was struck by how you linked the deaths (even imaginary ones) with the love used to raised them - something I have been doing for a long time, as I do not believe in war or violence. I struggle with the idealism we have for courage, etc discovered in war conditions - the medals handed out - because I think the sacrifice should be recognized, has to be. But every time someone dies in a war - all those bombs that have fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan on innocent people celebrating weddings, over the past 5 years - I cry for the people who die. It deeply bothers me that we are so free to kill other people’s children, and express no real understanding or remorse at the cost gone into raising and loving them, or count (or acknowledge) the cost of their loss to their loved ones.
I am starting to be careful of what I watch on tv - I do like mystery and crime, I admit, because I think these genres show the best of human nature trying to stop the worst of human nature. We need the detective, the crime solver, the hero, the brave, the courageous. Because human nature is both light and dark. I haven’t read the Black Dahlia nor seen the movie - certainly the movie looks too graphic for me, but I will let you know if I read the Black Dahlia and what I think.
Thanks very much for your thoughts, and your blog. Although I’ve just found it, I have found it insightful, thoughtful, aware, and intriguing.
and - in light of the comment I made on your ‘leave a comment or not?’ blog - I think comments show that a connection has been made. And that’s the best of blogging (and the internet), for me.
Happy Sunday, happy reading!
Becky: I do agree that the casualness makes it more disgusting instead of less.
Susan: I like mystery novels not because of whatever human nature ilustrations, but because of the rational thinking, just like a good riddle. I’d be glad to read how you feel about the Black Dahlia.
I quite agree with you. Such cynical violence is caustic to our souls. I love good mysteries, too. But recently I was reading a Denis Lehane mystery, and quite enjoying it, when I came upon a graphic passage in which a pet dog is painfully poisoned to death. The death of the dog certainly did not advance the plot, it just added shock value. I put the book down and never picked it up again. If products like shampoos and soaps can be Cruelty Free why not books and movies?
“No fictitious people or animals were hurt during the writing of this novel.”
Thank you for yet another book that won’t go on my TBR list. I had the same trouble reading Elmore Leonard and finally decided these types of books maybe just really aren’t for me, despite how “good” others might say they are. I, too, would have been horrified by that person being shot in the back. I wish there were some way to make everyone feel the way your mother so eloquently put it. It seems to me we’re just becoming more and more callous about death and violence, although reading blogs has given me hope that maybe that’s not the case.
Could it serve some purpose if soldiers’ uniforms had slogans written across the chest and the back in large print: ‘I am someone’s son’ / ‘and someone’s father’?
That is a wonderful and revolutionary idea. Perhaps civilians should wear such slogans on their clothes, too; especially those living in war zones.
Civilians in countries occupied by US armed forces should wear tee-shirts with Matthew 24.40: “What you do to the smallest of these my brothers, you are doing to me.”