GET-READING ~

Here's the new order of business in case you haven't been paying attention — "get reading!"  The Guardian after the death of Gabriel Garcia Marquez lists five books you must have under your belt if you wish to proceed onward toward the inevitable end of the earth since, supposedly, the oceans are dying. When they go — we go. I do pay attention to that. But I was reading, madly, before this announcement of doom. 

Get cooking because Marquez wrote long journey books. I'll go back and maybe even reread one of the Marquez classics. I read all the books when they first appeared, but News of a Kidnapping (1996) dealing with Colombian drug dealer Pablo Escobar's Medellín Cartel in the 1990s, is beckoning in these times. Proceed and read all your Kafka, Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Bernhard, Flannery O' Connor. It's Julia Roberts, who blurts out of the blue, in character, in the much under appreciated film August: Osage County, the name of Carson McCullers. One more little-read author to make a second coming. Take note that Sam Shepard is the troubled alcoholic poet in the film, and of late, Shepard has been showing up in a bit longer cameo portions in films not adding all that much but he's used wisely, like tinctures of seasoning, in this film. Time to re-read True West, Buried Child, the man's singular travel essays? He likes to travel solo, on the ground, with wheels.

While you pencil in names to get-reading with, don't balk or hesitate or think you're slumming it with Donald Westlake. You should already be on the road to ruin having read all his novels and chief character "Parker" through the Westlake penned "Richard Stark" novels. I've lost count now who has been re-issuing what and when after Westlake's death a few years ago. The first time published The Comedy Is Finished (2012) was written but not published around the same time Martin Scorsese released his black comedy The King of Comedy (1982), starring Jerry Lewis and Robert DeNiro, an unlikely pairing that works wonders. Read your Westlake (drink your milk) although I prefer Richard Stark.

Also read W.G. Sebald, Ron Rash, and how'd you get this far not reading Brigid Brophy? I was at a fine and meaty book sale yesterday where two book dealers, jokers, clowns really, circled a poetry table grabbing every known name (what "names" are there in poetry? Yeats, Heaney, Ashbery it seems to these dervish dancers), shouting out their devilish skills at being pests, which they are, leaving behind, at least, hidden treasures of great poets and titles and "no-names" in their game and pursuit at being irritating top-feeders, and then hightailing it away. Going for the gold! It's all about revenge and spite. But I've noticed, when traveling between book sales, small towns where the white man has failed in New England — the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Moroccan, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese etc., are doing pretty darn well for themselves. Making do and revitalizing a broken down business left crooked and busted by the white man's spite; er, I mean spirit.

It's not the oceans that will die first. And if and when they do, we'll know who had their hand in on it.

Of course it's not just the mafia of pesky book dealers that mount a book sale — there are the readers here as well. Some quite devoted. I watched two women work as a team on a dozen heavy boxes of carefully chosen garden and landscaping books. This took hours of their labor. Afterwards, by chance, we would meet up on the curb outside the book sale with our gleanings piled up in boxes ready to load for the ride home. They were loading their booty up into the back bed of a red Toyota pickup, Vermont plates, and I asked if they had a shop. They must have been prepared for me because the taller of the two, with the longer hair and the big smile said quickly, "Nope. We're just obsessed." I nodded with a smile and said, "Good for you." And they knew what I meant.

A moment later while they still worked at their loading I heard one of the woman say to the other, "It's okay to have a house filled up with books, isn't it?"

Sure it is.

[ BA ]

http://www.hardcasecrime.com/books_bios.cgi?title=The%20Comedy%20Is%20Finished

"BURY THEM FIRST" ~

No one speaks better about "Richard Stark" than his creator and guide Donald Westlake.


Of the 28 Stark novels, 24 feature its star "Parker" — no first name, although Westlake somewhere once said if he had to choose a first name for "Parker", he'd like "Frank". Forget that and just think "Parker" since it goes down like a rock thrown in all the novels. 


Not to confuse things — in 1999, a Richard Stark novel The Hunter was made into a film titled "Payback," after the seminal debut starring Lee Marvin as "Parker" but changed to the name "Walker" (remains the best of all Stark film versions, "Point Blank," 1967), and Mel Gibson starred in this remake. Gibson's terrific and even more terrific today as his personal life has given us a true bad boy since the film was released.


Don't take the film too seriously (though I do), after all it is a tongue in cheek noir, foolishly remade a few years later and released as a "director's-cut." While this remake may be technically wiser, it's boring, and has lost the pranks and hijinks and the delicious narration by Gibson himself reeling off his mind at what he's feeling and looking at as "Porter." He's looking at betrayal, and "Parker" (or "Porter" as he's called here) is all about loyalty. Don't cross him.


Everyone in the 1999 version of Payback gets theirs by crossing Porter.


Casting director Marion Dougherty has spun a novelty — nearly every slimeball on the outer edges of Hollywood is brought in, male and female, and by slimeball I mean trained actors who can pull it off. Like William Devane, Manu Tupou and Deborah Unger. Like Kris Kristofferson with James Coburn (combining again Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett from another earlier classic film). The director's cut erases Kristofferson completely; more dumbness.


 When Westlake was asked who he thought of as his "Parker," he answered, "Jack Palance." When I mention Palance to Sweetheart she just makes a face and says, "eeewww" (pinching her nose). 


Lee Marvin's a glorious and tall leopard-like "Walker" (Parker). Gibson's "Porter" (Parker) is playful & fed-up with idiots, can deliver impeccable Stark lines, and just wants his "$70,000". No more, no less.


 _____________











Some Novels Available by Richard Stark

    The Hunter (1962, aka Point Blank, Payback, University of Chicago Press reprint 2008) ISBN 978-0-226-77099-4
    The Man With the Getaway Face (1963, aka The Steel Hit, University of Chicago Press reprint 2008) ISBN 978-0-226-77100-7
    The Outfit (1963, University of Chicago Press reprint 2008) ISBN 978-0-226-77101-4
    The Mourner (1963, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77103-8
    The Score (1964, aka Killtown, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77104-5
    The Jugger (1965, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77102-1
    The Seventh (1966, aka The Split, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77105-2
    The Handle (1966, aka Run Lethal, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77106-9
    The Rare Coin Score (1967, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77107-6
    The Green Eagle Score (1967, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) ISBN 978-0-226-77108-3
    The Black Ice Score (1968, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) ISBN 978-0-226-77109-0
    The Sour Lemon Score (1969, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) ISBN 978-0-226-77110-6
    Deadly Edge (1971, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) ISBN 0-7490-0087-2 and 978-0-226-77091-8
    Slayground (1971, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) — First chapter shared with The Blackbird, a novel in Westlake's Alan Grofield series. ISBN 978-0-226-77092-5
    Plunder Squad (1972, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) ISBN 978-0-226-77093-2
    Butcher's Moon (1974, University of Chicago Press reprint 2011) ISBN 978-0-226-77095-6
    Comeback (1997, University of Chicago Press reprint 2011) ISBN 978-0-226-77058-1
    Backflash (1998, University of Chicago Press reprint 2011) ISBN 978-0-226-77060-4
    Flashfire (2000, University of Chicago Press reprint 2011) ISBN 978-0-226-77062-8
    Firebreak (2001, University of Chicago Press reprint 2011) ISBN 978-0-226-77065-9
    Breakout (2002)
    Nobody Runs Forever (2004)
    Ask the Parrot (2006)
    Dirty Money (2008)

Also appears in:

    The Blackbird (1969) by Richard Stark — Parker appears only the first chapter of this novel starring Alan Grofield.
    Dead Skip (1972) by Joe Gores — Parker appears briefly in a sequence that was also described (from a different viewpoint) in Plunder Squad (1972).
    Jimmy the Kid (1974) by Donald E. Westlake — This novel in Westlake's John Dortmunder series features the gang planning a caper based on a Parker novel they have. Chapters alternate between Parker committing a kidnapping (in the otherwise unavailable novel Child Heist) and the Dortmunder gang screwing it up as they try to imitate Parker. Only a few chapters of Child Heist are featured, and this particular Parker story is not complete on its own.

(wikipedia)