Bitterroot
Registered by buchkauz of Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg Germany on 10/7/2013
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
A weird book.
I don't get any of the people in the story. The people in this book spend their time having cryptic dialogues, being very aggressive and rude with each other (or having sex), doling out or receiving violence. In most cases I don't see why they would be this particular kind of rude in that particular situation, or why they would choose to have sex with each other, or why they would be doing what they are doing in that particular manner, or in that particular situation. Not my kind of people, really.
Billy Bob Holland (1st person narrator, except for when he isn't there, then a 3rd person omniscient narrator takes over) visits an old friend in Montana, Doc Voss. According to the blurb, the book is about him being targeted by ex-con Wyatt Dixon, but to me this plotline looks like an aside. Voss and his daughter and what happens to them takes up as much of the book, and the activities of Dixon and a number of people he is involved with further obfuscate the story.
After much to and fro, most of the bad folks kill each other, the few remaining villains end up in prison, and our hero, his employee-turned-girl friend and his son head of into the sunset. More accurately, they wind up in an (almost) ghost town on the Texas state line, where we are treated to a rather detailed description of Holland taking a good look at a long abandoned hotel, then buying ice cream from a slightly embarrassed (why?) elderly Mexican in the middle of nowhere. What this has to do with the story remains unclear.
Anyway, the book is full of details that do little to nothing for the story. People are flyfishing all the time, or playing with guns, knives or cars, building fires, cooking food etc. It does get tiring after a while.
The story isn't so bad, which is why I finished the book, but I don't really like the style. The (as it says on the cover) "beautifully crafted prose" washed right over my head, and "the best dialogue this side of Elmore Leonard" must have been hidden between the lines where I didn't find it. I am not able to see Billy Bob Holland as "complex and brilliantly rendered lawman". For me, this book is deep in WTF territory, but maybe someone will like it. Have fun...
I don't get any of the people in the story. The people in this book spend their time having cryptic dialogues, being very aggressive and rude with each other (or having sex), doling out or receiving violence. In most cases I don't see why they would be this particular kind of rude in that particular situation, or why they would choose to have sex with each other, or why they would be doing what they are doing in that particular manner, or in that particular situation. Not my kind of people, really.
Billy Bob Holland (1st person narrator, except for when he isn't there, then a 3rd person omniscient narrator takes over) visits an old friend in Montana, Doc Voss. According to the blurb, the book is about him being targeted by ex-con Wyatt Dixon, but to me this plotline looks like an aside. Voss and his daughter and what happens to them takes up as much of the book, and the activities of Dixon and a number of people he is involved with further obfuscate the story.
After much to and fro, most of the bad folks kill each other, the few remaining villains end up in prison, and our hero, his employee-turned-girl friend and his son head of into the sunset. More accurately, they wind up in an (almost) ghost town on the Texas state line, where we are treated to a rather detailed description of Holland taking a good look at a long abandoned hotel, then buying ice cream from a slightly embarrassed (why?) elderly Mexican in the middle of nowhere. What this has to do with the story remains unclear.
Anyway, the book is full of details that do little to nothing for the story. People are flyfishing all the time, or playing with guns, knives or cars, building fires, cooking food etc. It does get tiring after a while.
The story isn't so bad, which is why I finished the book, but I don't really like the style. The (as it says on the cover) "beautifully crafted prose" washed right over my head, and "the best dialogue this side of Elmore Leonard" must have been hidden between the lines where I didn't find it. I am not able to see Billy Bob Holland as "complex and brilliantly rendered lawman". For me, this book is deep in WTF territory, but maybe someone will like it. Have fun...
Journal Entry 2 by buchkauz at Bücherschrank Stadtgarten / Zoo in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg Germany on Monday, September 29, 2014
Released 9 yrs ago (9/26/2014 UTC) at Bücherschrank Stadtgarten / Zoo in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg Germany
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
Left the book in the foreign language section of the book case.
