Рецензия на книгу

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  tanat-0s22 апреля 2009 г.

  
  

  Lights and signs in the darkness, half-seen faces, the rustle and honk of life on just another of those evenings in a city whose heart never seems to be quite where you are, but is always round a corner, or down that street, or the other side of hulking buildings in some new club whose glory nights will be over before you've even heard of it. Between there and here are a clutch of cheap hotels, dusty liquor stores, car lots selling vehicles of dubious provenance. A tatty herd of people waiting on street corners with nothing very positive in mind, in a veldt of concrete bunkers housing businesses that will swallow countless hollow lives without ever being quoted on NASDAQ. Gradually the change to residential streets, and then into Venice. From the outside, on the right streets, Venice can look like it's trying to claw itself back upmarket. Some of the property is expensive, in a crappy International style. Every now and then you'll see a tattered piece of 1950s signage, something exuberant that harks back to flash bulbs and frozen glamour. Most have been torn down now, replaced by brutal information boards stamped out in Helvetica, the official typeface of purgatory. Helvetica isn't designed to make you feel anything good, to promise adventure or gladden the heart. Helvetica is for telling you that profits are down, that the photocopier needs servicing and by the way, you've been fired. Finally, Santa Monica. Nicer houses, small offices, places to get Japanese food and the London Times. The sea, with a pier that was born in sepia but knows those days are over. The Palisades up above, busy Ocean Avenue, then the first line of hotels and restaurants. The sense, from somewhere, that this suburb had once been a town. Perhaps it's the sea that makes it feel that way, that gives an impression that this community is here for a reason. In places it still is, still feels as if it has a relationship to its environment that goes beyond simply having flattened it. Stores and cafes and places to be, places to walk into and to buy from. You could live there and understand where you were, as the Becker family had until recently. It's not a real place, but then so little of Los Angeles is real, and the parts that are real are the places you don't want to be. Real is for people with guns and hangovers. Real is what you want to avoid. LA believes itself full of magic, and sometimes can even feel that way, but much of this is a mutually agreed upon sleight of hand. You can stand in one place and believe that one day you'll be a movie star — stand somewhere else, and you'll believe that you'll soon be dead. You know that what you see is a trick, but still you want to believe. You can buy maps that tell you where the stars live, but not where to stand to become one: all you can do is walk the lots and prop up the bars, hoping that luck will come find you. LA is a city that has taken Fate to its heart, has bought her many drinks and scribbled her phone number down after long evenings making eyes: but to call Fate a harsh mistress is giving her the benefit of very many doubts. Fate is more like a malevolent little starlet on a downhill cocaine slide, doing a slightly good deed once a week just in case someone important is watching. Fate doesn't always have your best interests in mind. Fate just doesn't give a shit.

  'Good to be back?' Nina asked. Zandt grunted.

  That's the best part of the book (I had high hopes after reading it, but it all went downhill from there). Would have made a great lj-entry, but as a piece of actual literature doesn't seem like much.

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