Thursday, October 8, 2009

And I'm back after a spell ...

The Dog Barks' Anton Ego plugs this blog and reviews the novella Nobody Moves by Denis Johnson. Though readers of BBBE may wonder whether or not the book is indeed a novella, we should be charitable towards Mr. Ego's first foray into novella criticism.


"I love Chandler and Hammett, from whom this book certainly descended, and I love British gangster flicks like Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. But unlike its cinematic counterparts, Johnson's shoot-em-up is rather bland. It's not as black, as noir, as sleak, as other reviewers have reported. Perhaps Johnson is making some ironic statement about formulaic fiction. Or maybe he was just having fun."


The rest of the review is witty and wicked.