L.A. Confidential
by James Ellroy
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Book Summary Information
Author: James EllroyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1997-09-01
ISBN: 0446674249
Number of pages: 496
Publisher: Warner Books
Book Reviews of L.A. Confidential
Book Review: Nihilistic, Brutal Descent into LA's Vice Abattior
Summary: 5 Stars
"LA Confidential" is not a novel to be read so much as it is a novel to be re-read, possibly 3 or more times. At nearly 500 pages, yes, that's asking a lot of a reader, but Ellroy and "LA Confidential" are well worth the stretch. But be warned--Ellroy never hesitates to shock with the vilest and most depraved extremes of human depravity and evil. "LA Confidential" unflinchingly serves up an intoxicating broth of '50's style, hairy-armpit men's sweat-magazine action, highly complex plotting, sick SICK crime intrigue along with historical based "faction" inspired by the LA police dept's long and sordid history of corruption.
Fans of the 1997 movie should DEFINITELY make the effort to experience the source material here. Brian Helgeland (who won an Oscar for his screenplay) did an outstanding job adapting Ellroy's novel, and I agree captured the spirit and essence of the novel. BUT so MUCH had to be left out to make a 2 hour movie. I would say 60% of the novel got left "on the cutting room floor" to adapt for screen. This is reason enough I think for movie fans to take a run at the novel, not only to see everything the movie had to miss, but also, to appreciate what a complex yarn Ellroy spun here AND certainly the bang-up adaptation Helgeland squeezed out of it.
It is the understatement of the year to just say James Ellroy is cynical in extremis about humanity in general. "LA Confidential" has got to be absolutely as hard-bitten as crime fiction can get, and it seems like good is only done incidentally. Once every corrupt and predatory angle is played, some benefit is reaped by innocents only after these feral human pit-bulls tear each other to shreds. Maybe one gunsel or bent cop will find a whisper of a conscience during a lull in the bloodshed and double-dealing and provide readers with some backhanded facsimile of a happy ending.
So what's the appeal, then? Partly it's just the lurid shock of vicariously experiencing Ellroy's eternal midnight of California damnation. But let's give him awestruck credit for his tough, relentless, flint-edged plotting and dialogue that keeps you up way later than you should every night, to read just "one more chapter". I should also add that the blood and guts carnage is also heavily salted with wicked, biting humor to counterbalance the crime squalor AND further amaze you with Ellroy's prowess. If you have the stomach for crime noir this hard edged, I have never read anyone who does it better than Ellroy does.
I concede I may not be the sharpest crayola in the box, but as indicated in my opener, "LA Confidential" is SO dense and multilayered, with an unforgivingly huge cast of characters, that it is very easy to get lost or confused. All the better to read it again--and again--and grow into full appreciation of the elaborate elegance of the plot and to better appreciate the artistry--yes--of Ellroy's writing. It certainly helped me to have seen the movie first so I could picture the actors' faces while reading of them in the novel. But I am confident the novel packs no less of a punch even if you haven't seen the movie.
Once "LA Confidential" hooks you, step up to The Black Dahlia for more fact-based and equally grisly LA crime horror, then see Ellroy really soar with American Tabloid: A Novel, then sequel The Cold Six Thousand: A Novel, where his parallel universe of gang crime and political corruption goes national, fictionalizing the Bay of Pigs, JFK assassination, Howard Hughes' lunatic Las Vegas days, the nefarious J. Edgar Hoover, Bobby Kennedy, MLK, James Earl Ray, Sirhan Sirhan, & much, much more.
Only time will tell whether Ellroy gets recognized as a literary worthy like Dashiell Hammett and Jim Thompson got to be. Whether he does or not may not be settled in our lifetimes, but that should certainly not inhibit our enjoyment of Ellroy's brass-knuckled work today. If you won't get squeamish when the going gets rough, "LA Confidential" is your ticket to some top shelf crime mystery. Best enjoyed while sipping cheap bourbon on the rocks (cigarettes optional, but definitely era-appropriate).
Summary of L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential is epic "noir", a crime novel of astonishing detail and scope written by the bestselling author of The Black Dahlia. A horrific mass murder invades the lives of victims and victimizers on both sides of the law. And three lawmen are caught in a deadly spiral, a nightmare that tests loyalty and courage, and offers no mercy, grants no survivors.James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential is film-noir crime fiction akin to Chinatown, Hollywood Babylon, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Jim Thompson. It's about three tortured souls in the 1950s L.A.P.D.: Ed Exley, the clean-cut cop who lives shivering in the shadow of his dad, a legendary cop in the same department; Jack Vincennes, a cop who advises a Police Squad- like TV show and busts movie stars for payoffs from sleazy Hush-Hush magazine; and Bud White, a detective haunted by the sight of his dad murdering his mom.
Ellroy himself was traumatized as a boy by his party-animal mother's murder. (See his memoir My Dark Places for the whole sordid story.) So it is clear that Bud is partly autobiographical. But Exley, whose shiny reputation conceals a dark secret, and Vincennes, who goes showbiz with a vengeance, reflect parts of Ellroy, too.
L.A. Confidential holds enough plots for two or three books: the cops chase stolen gangland heroin through a landscape littered with not-always-innocent corpses while succumbing to sexy sirens who have been surgically resculpted to resemble movie stars; a vile developer--based (unfairly) on Walt Disney-- schemes to make big bucks off Moochie Mouse; and the cops compete with the crooks to see who can be more corrupt and violent. Ellroy's hardboiled prose is so compressed that some of his rat-a-tat paragraphs are hard to follow. You have to read with attention as intense as his?and that is very intense indeed. But he richly rewards the effort. He may not be as deep and literary as Chandler, but he belongs on the same top-level shelf.
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