I'm 3/4 of the way through James Ellroy's (that's his picture, above) new book, "The Hilliker Curse," and I'm liking every page. It's probably his best book, and as an added bonus he reveals the secret of how he writes. Hold your hats, because it's not the advice you're probably expecting.
The book is autobiographical. It's about his obsession with the women in his life. He's a famous author, so I imagine that he's had his share of one night stands, but it's the small number of special simpatico women that he obsesses over. He's in love with being in love, and he's not above having an affair behind the back of the woman he's having an affair with.
But I don't mean to trivialize his relationships. He's genuinely in love with these women, and when problems develop, as they always do, it hurts him to the core. It takes a special kind of woman to put up with Ellroy's craziness. She has to be smart, vulnerable to male charm, sexy in a low key, every day kind of way, tolerant of his crazy, obsessive behavior, and has to be someone he can fantasize about, somebody who stimulates Ellroy to extreme anxiety and crisis, but who is simultaneously soothing and kind.
So where's the advice I mentioned? Well, he doesn't spell it out in so many words, but we can make inferences. Ellroy can write the way he does because he's compulsively driven to put words on paper, because he has a knack for it, and...here's the secret I promised... because his personal life is full of intrigues that inspire the intrigues in his fiction. Falling in love is an adventure, and adventure writers have to have real adventures in order to write.
Does every writer have to be a Don Juan? No, not at all...just the ones with literary pretensions. Ordinary fiction works very well with convention and stereotypes. The literary stuff requires truckloads of you-are-there details and deep psychological analysis. To be a good literary adventure writer you have to have tortured, literary adventures.
Funny cartoonists reading this are probably wondering if this applies to them. I don't know. I don't think I need too many heavy psychological adventures to learn how to have a character trip on a banana peel. Ellroy's method is still interesting, though.
"I don't think I need too many heavy psychological adventures to learn how to have a character trip on a banana peel."
ReplyDeleteI once saw an animated film, "Mary and Max" I think it was called, where a character tripping on chicken poop was a legitimate plot point. It also had a lot of art-house style character study, which was weird.
With a cartoonist, it's about having a particular mindset. Maybe your inner cartoon wackiness inspires you to pursue quirky people and activities. Or maybe your life is completely boring, but you just interpret things around you in a funny way. In either case, when you sit down with your pencil and your paper in front of you, you're "writing what you know", which isn't just about working in details like how your grandmother used to bake her beans.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read any of his books (yet, it's on my to-do list!) but yesterday I was flipping around AMC and came upon a fascinating movie. It had the compositional style and colour scheme of a movie from the 70s, except the scene took place at a dinner party in an old fashioned looking room (1910s style interior design), and everyone was dressed like it was the 1940s. What the fuck was this movie? Some movie from the 70s I've never heard of, but actually a period piece about the 40s?
ReplyDeleteAll of a sudden, JOSH HARTNETT, HILARY SWANK, and SCARLETT JOHANNSON OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE!
BRIAN DE PALMA, I exclaimed out loud, as I realized it was the Ellroy adapation The Black Dahlia, and the scene in question was one of the most fascinatingly shot films I'd ever seen. It really did look like Scarface, or one of his older films. It was fascinating. Even the bit part players looked out of time.
So now I've got to watch that fucking film proper, and eventually read the book.
Jorge: DePalma's an interesting guy. He misses as often as he hits, and he should be flogged for ruining Tom Wolfe's first novel, but when he's good, as in Scarface, he's really good.
ReplyDeleteI've only read a couple of Ellroy's books all the way through, and spot read in some others. I can't really testify that everything he writes is worth reading. Hilliker is written in his latest style, which is lean and dynamic, and perfect for the subject matter.
BTW: I finally watched the videos you posted about Sidney Lumet, etc...very interesting! Thanks!
Fried: In my opinion you don't need a lot of life experience to do comedy. That's for drama, which is different. The only psychological fact you need to know in comedy is that people pretend to be what they're not, and are frequently different than the way they perceive themselves.
Recently read the Monster Show, by david Skal; a history of 20th century horror films. recommended!
ReplyDeleteIn a later chapter he points out a horror element in Ellroy"s novels.
I remember thinking this while reading the Black Dahlia, when the cop digs up his partner's corpse, buried in a sand pit in Tijuana. Ellroy doesn't spare the reader the grisly details.
The film feigns away from this. It might have made a better film, and horror is something DePalma can do...well.
That sounds like a fascinating book.
ReplyDeleteEverything Elroy does seems to center around his mother.
I think his writing style owes a lot to his years as a speed freak.