Roger Angle's Blog - Posts Tagged "opening-pages"
CLASSIC THRILLER - 'GORKY PARK'
DAY ONE - "Gorky Park"
I have trouble finding fiction I want to read, including thrillers. Often, they bore me out of my skull.
So, every once in a while, I go through some of my old faves, just to read the openings.
Last night, I picked up "Gorky Park," by Martin Cruz Smith, and I got hooked.
The opening drew me in, as it always has before. There is so much life here, and danger, and nuance, and mystery, and such rich character development. Wow!
Arkady Renko is a great central character. Like any good fictional detective, he risks his life to do the right thing. And he goes up against the KGB, an impressive foe.
Why are so many more recent thrillers less than thrilling in their opening pages?
Beats me. Maybe you can answer that.
I was thinking of 'Mr. Murder" by Dean Koontz. I struggled through two chapters and caught a serious case of narcolepsy. So boring!
And I was thinking of "Night School" by Lee Child. Another snore-fest. How dull! I read maybe twenty pages and could not stay awake.
My theory is that once you have hit the bestseller lists you can slide by, writing dull, boring crap. Sad to say.
Meanwhile, back to "Gorky Park."
#
DAY TWO - "Gorky Park"
So, I finished reading Chapter 1.
One thing I like about this book is that the chapters are long, rich in detail, and well developed. Very different from the modern tendency to write little, short, namby-pamby, three-page chapters. This chapter is 26 pages long. Whoa, writing for grownups.
I feel like I'm living Arkady Renko's life and know everything that he knows. I am walking in his shoes. I am married to his unloving wife. I am navigating the treacherous waters of the Russian state bureaucracy, as he is. I feel his feelings.
Like any good fictional detective, Arkady Renko is a little bit self-destructive. He puts his own principles above his own social and financial success, even above his own safety. We admire him, or I do. And we want people in real life to live up to his standards.
He suspects a KGB agent of murder. Oh-oh. Look out!
So far, so good. I love it.
More later.
#
DAY THREE - "Gorky Park"
Arkady Renko is a complex character, not big and strong and heroic, like Jack Reacher. To me, Renko is more believable and more sympathetic.
I admire Jack Reacher and enjoy it when he kicks ass. In one scene, he takes on several young former football players and puts them in the hospital. That is fun. And believable, more or less. And satisfying. But Arkady Renko is a more interesting character, at least to me.
Renko is awash in a sea of difficulties. He is in a loveless marriage to a beautiful woman who is having an affair with a Communist Party official, obviously screwing her way to the top. So I feel sorry for Renko, who has been undone by his opposition to the Party. He is a good man surrounded by corruption and greed. He is admirable in a different and more interesting way than Jack Reacher.
The forensic details in this book are wonderful. Detailed, relevant and accurate, as far as I can tell. Wonderful. Engrossing.
I am still on Chapter Two. More later.
#
DAY FOUR - "Gorky Park"
Can't wait to get back to this book. It is truly a masterpiece of mystery/thriller fiction. I have read other novels by Martin Cruz Smith, and they don't come close.
There is so much real life here, so much research that went into this novel. I am now in the part where an anthropologist recreates faces from the skulls of dead people. Fascinating. This was the first place I read about it. Amazing. And it is all so dramatic. A fine touch. Like a good movie. It is totally captivating.
This book is much better than my own, I must admit. (You should still give mine a try, of course.)
There is also a fine sense of the rhythms of real life. Part of the plot seems arbitrary, like life. It doesn't feel planned or artificial. It's full of surprises.
More later.
#
DAY FIVE - "Gorky Park"
I finally hit a weak patch. Chapter Five is confusing. Wait, where are we? Why are we here? What the hell is going on? Takes a while before it gets good again, in Ch.6.
But that is a rare lapse.
The jacket copy says M.C. Smith spent eight years working on "Gorky Park." I don't doubt it. So much research and so much life went into it.
One quote I saved from this book: “Proust said you could seduce any woman if you were willing to sit and listen to her complain until four in the morning.”
I think this is funny. It is said by Nikitin. one of the characters. I Googled it as a Proust quote and could not verify it. So I doubt if Proust actually wrote it. But who cares? This is fiction.
I used to have a writing student, Peggy, who had known people who lived in the same building in NYC as Martin Cruz Smith. They thought he was wasting his time working on this book. Then, of course, it became a huge bestseller, as it should.
Funny how things turn out.
More later.
#
I have trouble finding fiction I want to read, including thrillers. Often, they bore me out of my skull.
So, every once in a while, I go through some of my old faves, just to read the openings.
Last night, I picked up "Gorky Park," by Martin Cruz Smith, and I got hooked.
The opening drew me in, as it always has before. There is so much life here, and danger, and nuance, and mystery, and such rich character development. Wow!
Arkady Renko is a great central character. Like any good fictional detective, he risks his life to do the right thing. And he goes up against the KGB, an impressive foe.
Why are so many more recent thrillers less than thrilling in their opening pages?
Beats me. Maybe you can answer that.
I was thinking of 'Mr. Murder" by Dean Koontz. I struggled through two chapters and caught a serious case of narcolepsy. So boring!
And I was thinking of "Night School" by Lee Child. Another snore-fest. How dull! I read maybe twenty pages and could not stay awake.
My theory is that once you have hit the bestseller lists you can slide by, writing dull, boring crap. Sad to say.
Meanwhile, back to "Gorky Park."
#
DAY TWO - "Gorky Park"
So, I finished reading Chapter 1.
One thing I like about this book is that the chapters are long, rich in detail, and well developed. Very different from the modern tendency to write little, short, namby-pamby, three-page chapters. This chapter is 26 pages long. Whoa, writing for grownups.
I feel like I'm living Arkady Renko's life and know everything that he knows. I am walking in his shoes. I am married to his unloving wife. I am navigating the treacherous waters of the Russian state bureaucracy, as he is. I feel his feelings.
Like any good fictional detective, Arkady Renko is a little bit self-destructive. He puts his own principles above his own social and financial success, even above his own safety. We admire him, or I do. And we want people in real life to live up to his standards.
He suspects a KGB agent of murder. Oh-oh. Look out!
So far, so good. I love it.
More later.
#
DAY THREE - "Gorky Park"
Arkady Renko is a complex character, not big and strong and heroic, like Jack Reacher. To me, Renko is more believable and more sympathetic.
I admire Jack Reacher and enjoy it when he kicks ass. In one scene, he takes on several young former football players and puts them in the hospital. That is fun. And believable, more or less. And satisfying. But Arkady Renko is a more interesting character, at least to me.
Renko is awash in a sea of difficulties. He is in a loveless marriage to a beautiful woman who is having an affair with a Communist Party official, obviously screwing her way to the top. So I feel sorry for Renko, who has been undone by his opposition to the Party. He is a good man surrounded by corruption and greed. He is admirable in a different and more interesting way than Jack Reacher.
The forensic details in this book are wonderful. Detailed, relevant and accurate, as far as I can tell. Wonderful. Engrossing.
I am still on Chapter Two. More later.
#
DAY FOUR - "Gorky Park"
Can't wait to get back to this book. It is truly a masterpiece of mystery/thriller fiction. I have read other novels by Martin Cruz Smith, and they don't come close.
There is so much real life here, so much research that went into this novel. I am now in the part where an anthropologist recreates faces from the skulls of dead people. Fascinating. This was the first place I read about it. Amazing. And it is all so dramatic. A fine touch. Like a good movie. It is totally captivating.
This book is much better than my own, I must admit. (You should still give mine a try, of course.)
There is also a fine sense of the rhythms of real life. Part of the plot seems arbitrary, like life. It doesn't feel planned or artificial. It's full of surprises.
More later.
#
DAY FIVE - "Gorky Park"
I finally hit a weak patch. Chapter Five is confusing. Wait, where are we? Why are we here? What the hell is going on? Takes a while before it gets good again, in Ch.6.
But that is a rare lapse.
The jacket copy says M.C. Smith spent eight years working on "Gorky Park." I don't doubt it. So much research and so much life went into it.
One quote I saved from this book: “Proust said you could seduce any woman if you were willing to sit and listen to her complain until four in the morning.”
I think this is funny. It is said by Nikitin. one of the characters. I Googled it as a Proust quote and could not verify it. So I doubt if Proust actually wrote it. But who cares? This is fiction.
I used to have a writing student, Peggy, who had known people who lived in the same building in NYC as Martin Cruz Smith. They thought he was wasting his time working on this book. Then, of course, it became a huge bestseller, as it should.
Funny how things turn out.
More later.
#
