Get to it Crumley

Reading, slogging, trying to get through James Crumley's Mexican Tree Duck. I think I've blogged about Crumley before, his novel the Last Good Kiss has been called the last great detective novel (a bit of hyperbolic praise, though the book is pretty damn fine.)

The MTD is another story. It was Crumley's return to his character C.W. Sughrue - “‘Shoog’ as in sugar, honey,” he explains the pronunciation of his name upon meeting a young woman, “and ‘rue’ as in rue the goddamned day.” There is a decade long gap between books, and it makes me wonder if he lost his way a bit in those ten years. Crumley has influenced a lot of crime-fiction, mystery writers, but never achieved any sort of big-time success. After Last Good Kiss, I wondered why. But books like MDT or Bordersnakes (couldnt' even finish that one) kind of explain it for me. A reader can put up with only so much wandering. Now, the wandering can be very fascinating at times, but it had me going, just get to the fucking story already! I don't mean descriptive writing, which I enjoy, but just an aimlessness, with scenes that are disjointed, and periods of drug and alcohol fueled meditative...um... wondering. Or maybe wandering. I don't know, I am lost.

Still, he is one to read in terms with how far you can push characters in a crime-fiction novel. There lives are a mess (sort of like the book they are in), and as I get into the last 75 pages, there is no sense of clarity on the horizon. Plus, I feel like I need to take a shower after living in this sort of world for 200+ pages. Maybe I'll read a Hardy Boys or the Three Investigators next.