ugghhhh, I saw the trailer and I thought it would be a cool movie but it still hasn't been released here, anyway I saw the book at a store and it was kinda cheap so I bought it, and I regret. I even stopped reading Antonia Frasier's the journey because of it.

I stopped like 2 or three chapters after they found the Dahlia dead.

I know that James Ellroy is suppossed to be one of the great american authors but I think what I read sucks. It didn't even feel real, I totally felt like it was Ellroy coming through the character, the words seemed fake, I didn't buy it.

I've been reading lots of biographies lately so I guess I'm more interested in real life, maybe that's the reason, but I think the book was so boring, at least the part I wrote. It's like nothing happens. It's not like when I read The Alienist by Caleb Carr, I couldn't put it down and it was like 600 pages, it was that compelling.

Nothing grabbed me about this book and I couldn't get past the xenophobic, racist and homophobic writing. I get that he was trying to capture the 1940's feel but I think it was so contrived and I couldn't help but feel attacked, I'm latin and gay. And the book is so fucking macho, I think that is so boring.

Has anyone read it??? should I continue?? does it get good??? because I find it unreadable.

the movie's better.

& so is every other thread on this board not made by you, for that matter.

was your cunty attitude necessary???? I'm on a with trial in this board. Go on, be part of the masses.


I heard the movie is pretty bad.

i wish you were on a witch trial. i'd personally burn you at the stake myself if i had the op.

the movie was brilliant. it was a disgusting, twisted storyline, & they made lesbians look sxy again. i'm sick of seeing all these butch rug munchers like charlize theron in Monster. we want the femmes.

& by femmes, i don't mean you. die now.

I liked the book, but it's been a while since I read it. I think you're at the part where it starts to get really interesting. They begin piecing together what happened and the pace picks up.

The first part is about boxing and politics and how the two cops met if I remember correctly. Once they start trying to solve the murder and you begin finding out about the girl's life it becomes addictive.

It doesn't get any less harsh though, so if you find it offensive so far, expect more of the same from the rest of the book.

I like Ellroy, but he can be a little overly mannered – which is an odd word to use given how harsh his books are, but to me it fits best. He’s written at least one short story entirely in the alliterative-mainstream-hepcat-gossip-columnist voice (if only I could have come up with a way to describe that in total alliteration with heavy use of –O as a suffix, that would have been really funny, but I’m too tired). And he does pile it on, there’s a ton of names and details to keep straight.

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well I already got to the part where they found the body and he goes to the "dyke" joints and talks to the "lezzies" uggghh, and it still hasn't begun for me.

Is there a real plot?? I mean do they find a killer?? they get a clue??? or is it going to be a no end street like the case was in real life?

Am I missing out on a lot if I just see the movie???? I really hated the writing and I find it very boring.

Yes, they find a killer. I didn't see the movie, but I'm given to understand it wasn't good. Why don't you just find a non-fictional book about the case if you don't like this book?

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because there isn't really anything to know about it, I mean what do you about elizabeth short?? that she was a wannabe actress and was found severed in a vacant lot, and that's it. There's nothing more.

maybe I should finish it. Is it a great ending??

i love ellroy and his world and his crazy projected obsessions...

havent read black dahlia, actually went looking for it today. ill read it next.
knowing what i know of him, i cant imagine that the movie is better than the book. that movie is....uhhhhh... . but all his books (this one included im sure) are awesome..



im actually going to read the screenplay for la confidential. but that's not by ellroy, its by brian helgeland, a brilliant screenwriter, especially when it comes to adaptation. he is

oh yeah, HCH, if you want to read a more "true" story of the black dahlia, read this, written by the son of one of the detectives on the case. the last chapter is an update and includes a viable "resolution" to the case.


brian depalma made the movie, so he/his producers had the rights to james ellroy's book. the rights to this book, "severed", were bought by david lynch in the late 80s. i dont know if it was just an option or if he still owns them, regardless...i would absolutely DROOOOOL at the idea of lynch taking on a movie based on the REAL story....wow

i have to disagree. very. very. very much.

if only pretty lesbians was all they were going for. then maybe it woud stand a chance.


my suspicion is that they tried to adapt way too literally. was nothing learned from the goliath , and ultimately highly sccessfull LA CONFIdENtAIL?

that movie did james ellroy justice. they shouldnt have touched anything else after that.

all I want to know is if the movie is true to the book and if I'll miss out on something if I just see the movie.

This book is really unbearable. I picked it up again and I am at the part where they see Betty's porno film, I stopped for a while and read a bit of Anais Nin diaries, and looked at the other book and said to myself "why am I reading that bullshit?"


What is so good about Ellroy¿¿ someone tell me.

well... its opinion of course. you ask anyone who likes him, they ll probably say -


-absence of pretentious flowery language. if you notice he uses almost non-sentences alot of the time. stocatto if you will. his prose can be like really frenetic, inteligent spoken language. its also somewhat 'jazzy'. probably if you dont like jazz, you wont like his style.

-intense male-centered melodrama. most other epic level melodrama involving men are romances written by women, often originating from a female central character.( not just shitty ones... heathcliff from wuthering heights, anyone??). the notebook and bridges of madison county DO NOT count in this case even thogh men wrote those books. those books made men cringe. ellroy most DEF. does not make men cringe.
his men are tough and angry and emotional.

-he has a fascinating obessesion with gruesome crime. the black dahlia and the big nowhere feature crimes so dark and twisted they are very very reminscent of 'the silence of the lambs' and 'red dragon' . so if you like those kinds of angles.......

-authentcity of period and location. he really knows 50's LA. and esp crime and police in the 50s because he lived it. that was the decade in which he was a boy , but old enough to connect with his environment. his mom was murdered and dumped by a school in west la, they never found the killer. so you're kind of reading about his issues which orginated in the 50s in la during his formative years. anyone who thinks the 50s was nuclear families, brand new refridgerators, perfect pies, safe streets in newly born suburbia, and 'gosh' , 'gee' and 'darn' are highly mislead.

he's got his local dialects and police jargon from that era DOWN, as well. the way he weaves together real people and his ficitional characters is very smart and thoroughtly researched.

his stark lack of political corecctness is very appropriate and timely, similarly.


i've read many of his books. he's detailed and interesting to me. i love the ellroy machoism. it seems absolutely not contrived and authentic. it may turn some off. but the reality is, men are like this.

similar to the reasons why david lynch is attractive to people, me included. the dark, fucked up and highly twisted underbelly of what's pretty and normal and wholesome. it simultaneously makes the beautiful fucked up and and makes the ugly look delicate and shiny and beautiful...

ellroy is like tolkein in the way that his stories are engulfed in a WORLD whose fabric is so precisely put together with every SINGLE thread thought out and meaningful in some way. every single detail adds immensely to the depth of his world...there's absolutely nothing two dimensional about it, you couldnt deconstruct it or detect any artificiality in it no matter how hard you tried. storytellers like this are GENIUS, their storytelling literally swallows you into this dreamscape and takes you so deep into it, you're hardpressed to find as much as a SHRED of evidence that it isn't real....

I picked up on all those things and they are all things I dislike.

I don't like jazz, and I don't like his writing style.

I also don't like male centered stories because I find them completely BORING. Call me gay or sentimental or whatever but it's all so shallow and detached. I'm sure there are some great compelling male centered stories but seriously what is interesting about Bucky Bleichert?? where is the depth??? that he's a hasbeen boxer??? big deal. I felt no sympathy for him whatsoever, I really don't wanna know what happens to him and I'm not rooting for him at all. There is nothing in it that "grabs" you, I mean where is the hook??

I don't like gruesome crimes, lol.

Yes but it could've have been all gritty crime like he puts it. I actually think it's kinda fake and cartoony.


Has anyone seen the film??? is it true to the book?? I really don't wanna read it but I don't want to feel like I'm missing something, but seriously it's an unbearable book.

am I a retard because I don't see ANY of this in the book??

but, a large majority of stories that reach the masses via movies, books, tv, comic books, whatever...ARE male centered. it might be unfair but thats how it is and how it's been. they say in hollywood if you write a screenplay and your main character is a woman, you've got less of a chance of selling it or finding a mass audience for it. im not saying thats right or wrong, but that's how it is. some of the greatest stories of all time have men as the main characters, it's the male's character arc we are exposed to the most and care about the most (because he is the main character, the hero). there are such an infinite amount of these, i personally would never be able to say that just because something is male centric, it's boring. or its this or that or any generalization for that matter. men are not inherently boring, as women are not inherently interesting...its not the MALE or the FEMALE that makes a good story, its the character. you can care about a male character just as much as a female, and vice versa. its the writing and storytelling overall that determines that. that's my opinion and ive always been convinced of that.

no, you're not. if the book doesnt grab you, you cant really allow yourself to read it like the author meant it to be read, and you just dont pick up on it. you've just gotta be into it and open to it. i think that goes for all reading. if youre not into it, youre just gonna be flashing words through your mind with an inability to pick up on their meaning, literal or metaphorical.