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Priče Iz Los Anđelesa (2012)

by Ry Cooder(Favorite Author)

3.48 of 5 Votes: 1

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Geopoetika

review 1: I finished Los Angeles Stories on the St Malo ferry so was transported from a fortunately calm crossing of the English Channel to the down-at-heel city of Los Angeles in the 1940s and 1950s. Ry Cooder is not only a wonderful musician but also a pretty good writer as these stories prove. There is a fantastic sense of the atmosphere and seediness of the city, the desperation and hope of the people. Each of this collection of short stories has a link to the others, whether it be a place or a character and it was fun to spot how they join together. I didn't understand all the stories however, and a few lost me part way through so I was reading them more for their evocative descriptions than for their plots. Others were simpler to follow. Perhaps have a more extensive knowledge... more of the music scene of the period would have helped? I did pick up on a number of references but am sure that I missed more than I spotted! Overall, this is an interesting insight into a past time which puts the spotlight onto those who faded from view or who never made it big in the first place, the darker side of the city of dreams, and I enjoyed reading about the array of characters penned by Cooder. I wonder how many were actually real and how many purely imagined?
review 2: Ry Cooder, best known as a session guitarist, songwriter and vocalist has written a book with tales of his home, Los Angeles. Cooder is successful at painting a picture of the city in it's varying stages of growth and decay over the years and he does so using everyday inhabitants as his set pieces but he with the broadest of strokes. Cooder's success at musically living in any choosen era or geographic location spills onto the pages of this book as he looks closely at forgotten eras and colorful characters of the street. However, Los Angeles Stories fails to build essential excitement in its story arcs, transitions and characters. Unfortunately the tension in his use of "conflict" often falls short as well. These are all areas a more experienced author would have explored with more precision. Not a bad first effort but a co-writer could have made my journey in these pages more interesting. Being a big fan of Ry Cooder the musician I bought this book half knowing it wasn't going to be a literal masterpiece but it's not half bad either. Looking back each of the stories really does read like the backdrop for a song. less

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