[4KD]≫ Descargar Gratis The Prone Gunman City Lights Noir JeanPatrick Manchette James Brook Books

The Prone Gunman City Lights Noir JeanPatrick Manchette James Brook Books

Download As PDF : The Prone Gunman City Lights Noir JeanPatrick Manchette James Brook Books

The Prone Gunman City Lights Noir JeanPatrick Manchette James Brook Books

While the esteemed "City Lights Books" classifies "The Prone Gunman" as "noir" fiction, it's more properly plated in the adventure procedural category. That vaguely malodorous formula implies uniformity, conformity, plenty of violence, occasional quick sex, stereotypical characters and colorful lingo and that's what "The Prone Gunman" delivers. This book is further marred by pretension: to coolness, vaguely mocking machismo, and unsubtle dialogue. A cynic might speculate that - were it not for the author's nationality (French with a flair for an intellectual-bohemian bemused Euro-arrogance) and post-modern character (he's played in many fields) - he'd be largely forgotten. Mercifully, the book is short. It's a very fast and easily forgettable read.

The anti-hero is characteristically a jaundiced, somewhat bemused, hard-edged, ultra-cool and taciturn criminal. What his area of special expertise? The ever-fashionable secret agent/hit man. Besting even that hook; the "surprise ending" and the oh too ironic fate suffered by the protagonist. Conventionally, beneath the hard exterior (ice cold to the point of sociopathy) lies a noble mind: he quests for the One Woman, the Lost Woman, to whom he promised himself prior to setting out as a knight errant. In other words, he's participated in a morally and self-justified career as a contract killer.

Potentially, this is one of the author's weaker efforts, as New York Review Books (publishers of great and sometimes overlooked novelists) has re-issued some of his work. Of course, it's also possible that the persistence of "avant garde" French noir fiction (Boris Vian's, "I Spit on Your Grave" is another example) might speak to a peculiar American fetish, analogous to France's ironic fascination with the late Jerry Lewis..

As an adventure-procedural, "Gunman" isn't expected to give more than the minimum to character development. Psychological insights - if any - are or aren't disclosed by penetrating, pithy interior monologues. Occasionally, they are conferred by the wry axioms and asides dropped by minor characters. Instead, they emerge in the negative, that is in the complete absence of explanation. The character is formed by the lack of development of character. By being a mere cog in the adventure mechanism, he becomes the ultra-professional, "on-the-job", verging on sociopathic guy, the one who's never troubled by more than a passing qualm and is "just doing my job", albeit for entirely self-interested and cynical reasons.

The Parker novels (Don Westlake/Richard Stark) is a close domestic analogue but Westlake has many fine novels outside this series to his credit. Best is Jacques Mesrine's biography, " L'Instinct de Mort" ("The Death Wish", also on film, starring Vincent Cassel) hovered in the background while reading this book. Mesrine was - in real life - all that armchair outlaw-adventurers imagine for themselves: an outrageous, violent, narcissistic, highly intelligent, skilled and utterly brazen criminal who embodies the "Live Fast and Die Young" mentality. In fact, Mesrine was France's "Public Enemy Number 1". In addition to all that, he was an adept autobiographer who could carry a good story and portray matters personally, honestly and compellingly.

Manchette's formulaic story is far inferior, ironic pretension aside. The protagonist's character is entirely unidimensional and stereotypical. The dialogue is stilted and pedestrian. The plot is pure pulp and a caricature of it at that. Maybe that's intentionally so, but the potential irony is undermined by the lame presentation. So it goes with Machette. This book goes flat line fast.


Tags : Amazon.com: The Prone Gunman (City Lights Noir) (9780872864023): Jean-Patrick Manchette, James Brook: Books,Jean-Patrick Manchette, James Brook,The Prone Gunman (City Lights Noir),City Lights Publishers,0872864022,Action & Adventure,FICTION Action & Adventure,FICTION Mystery & Detective General,FICTION Mystery & Detective Hard-Boiled,FICTION Mystery & Detective International Mystery & Crime,FICTION Noir,Fiction,Fiction - Mystery Detective,Mystery & Detective - General,MysterySuspense,noir fiction; French writing in translation; contract killers; fiction about politics and violence; ironic fiction; crime novels,noir fiction;French writing in translation;contract killers;fiction about politics and violence;ironic fiction;crime novels

The Prone Gunman City Lights Noir JeanPatrick Manchette James Brook Books Reviews

Interesting even though a tad unbalanced. Martin (or, Christian) is an assassin for someone - who is uncertain - but for some intelligence group whose overall mission is uncertain. He has a peculiar obsession with a woman he has not seen for ten years and who appears to have no real role in the context of the story except that she appears as weird and unbalanced as her just returned lover. I hope the movie does a better job than the book in clarifying the plot and characterizing the performers. I was disappointed.
A short, but interesting novel. I may have to read more of his works after reading "The Prone Gunman" The book is only 156 pages long and it makes for a quick read, but it's an interesting and fun read. I will not go into details that have already been discussed by other reviewers (both positive and negative) but what I loved about this book was the quick pace. It took no time to meet the main character (Martin Terrier) and the fact he wants to get out of the hit man business. Can he? Will those who need him simply allow him to walk away? Terrier finds out the hard way about his life and the way the book ended was a nice twist. Typically, there is a happy ending or some ending to tie up loose ends. This book left me appreciating a little different ending than I expected.

I enjoyed this book. It was a quick, fun and well written book. The author passed away years ago, but it is clear he was a really good writer and knew how to get to a point quickly and move a plot along at a rapid pace.
Manchette became one of my favorite crime writers with this book. It's everything you'd want from a book like this. It's to the point, the characters don't change their stripes for easy writing cheats, and the narrative twists and turns in consistently interesting ways.

Basic premise, a local town thug is returning to pick up his previous girlfriend from back when lived there. His problem is that he's a hitman and he's being followed by his connections angry that he hasn't done one last job for him. It seems like a tired story but what makes this work is that the whole town and everyone he meets adds to the story in a way that makes it feel fresh. First, nobody is really an idiot here. One character does stuff that seems like frankly slutty behavior only you realize it's a survival mechanism.

When I say no one's an idiot, I mean everyone is ready to do exactly what they need to stay alive and they are ready to do absolutely anything. It's that animal like intensity that makes the book so great. It's like watching those nature documentaries where a lions chase down buffaloes but the camera doesn't cut away from the kill or for that matter all the eating. Manchette gets that life outside of established civilized norms is nasty and short. He doesn't back off on it.

I'm hoping more of his stuff gets translated. He's an extremely consistent writer. Also, his works are short. You never feel like you wasted time.

Also, you should buy this book cause it's one more nail in the coffin of Sean Penn as any kind of actual artist. Everything he wanted to say politically was already built into this book but he's too old, too dumb, and too full of himself to go with it. He had a near impossible to miss target and succeeded wildly in screwing it up
While the esteemed "City Lights Books" classifies "The Prone Gunman" as "noir" fiction, it's more properly plated in the adventure procedural category. That vaguely malodorous formula implies uniformity, conformity, plenty of violence, occasional quick sex, stereotypical characters and colorful lingo and that's what "The Prone Gunman" delivers. This book is further marred by pretension to coolness, vaguely mocking machismo, and unsubtle dialogue. A cynic might speculate that - were it not for the author's nationality (French with a flair for an intellectual-bohemian bemused Euro-arrogance) and post-modern character (he's played in many fields) - he'd be largely forgotten. Mercifully, the book is short. It's a very fast and easily forgettable read.

The anti-hero is characteristically a jaundiced, somewhat bemused, hard-edged, ultra-cool and taciturn criminal. What his area of special expertise? The ever-fashionable secret agent/hit man. Besting even that hook; the "surprise ending" and the oh too ironic fate suffered by the protagonist. Conventionally, beneath the hard exterior (ice cold to the point of sociopathy) lies a noble mind he quests for the One Woman, the Lost Woman, to whom he promised himself prior to setting out as a knight errant. In other words, he's participated in a morally and self-justified career as a contract killer.

Potentially, this is one of the author's weaker efforts, as New York Review Books (publishers of great and sometimes overlooked novelists) has re-issued some of his work. Of course, it's also possible that the persistence of "avant garde" French noir fiction (Boris Vian's, "I Spit on Your Grave" is another example) might speak to a peculiar American fetish, analogous to France's ironic fascination with the late Jerry Lewis..

As an adventure-procedural, "Gunman" isn't expected to give more than the minimum to character development. Psychological insights - if any - are or aren't disclosed by penetrating, pithy interior monologues. Occasionally, they are conferred by the wry axioms and asides dropped by minor characters. Instead, they emerge in the negative, that is in the complete absence of explanation. The character is formed by the lack of development of character. By being a mere cog in the adventure mechanism, he becomes the ultra-professional, "on-the-job", verging on sociopathic guy, the one who's never troubled by more than a passing qualm and is "just doing my job", albeit for entirely self-interested and cynical reasons.

The Parker novels (Don Westlake/Richard Stark) is a close domestic analogue but Westlake has many fine novels outside this series to his credit. Best is Jacques Mesrine's biography, " L'Instinct de Mort" ("The Death Wish", also on film, starring Vincent Cassel) hovered in the background while reading this book. Mesrine was - in real life - all that armchair outlaw-adventurers imagine for themselves an outrageous, violent, narcissistic, highly intelligent, skilled and utterly brazen criminal who embodies the "Live Fast and Die Young" mentality. In fact, Mesrine was France's "Public Enemy Number 1". In addition to all that, he was an adept autobiographer who could carry a good story and portray matters personally, honestly and compellingly.

Manchette's formulaic story is far inferior, ironic pretension aside. The protagonist's character is entirely unidimensional and stereotypical. The dialogue is stilted and pedestrian. The plot is pure pulp and a caricature of it at that. Maybe that's intentionally so, but the potential irony is undermined by the lame presentation. So it goes with Machette. This book goes flat line fast.