It used to be a more regular feature of this blog to make “other recommendations.” The summer would have been a good time to revitalize the idea, and the storm passing through the city as I write reminds me that summer is still not over. On days like these one has to make an effort to see it, and what better way to wait out the passing of the gray in New York than to reminisce about the sunshine, ocean and blue sky – in Los Angeles. Watching images of wind and flooding on the local news, what better time to think of the golden sprawl of freeway lanes and low houses on the outskirts of a desert. The bungalows and hidden villas in the hills, the beaches, the winding traffic on Sunset Boulevard past the billboards and clubs, these are fantasies for any New Yorker to entertain in the subway rush, even after the rain subsides. If it isn’t too late then, here are summer reading recommendations for you – in or out of the subway, during or after the storm – to transport you to L.A. and its environs. (In keeping with a Southern California motif of beauty that is better sampled than analyzed, each title is accompanied by a selection from the text itself.) And let’s leave it at that for now.
Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye. “The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers. The parking lot attendant had brought the car out and he was still holding the door open because Terry Lennox’s left foot was still dangling outside, as if he had forgotten he had one… ‘Look, mister, would you mind a whole lot pulling your leg into the car so I can sort of shut the door? Or should I open it all the way so you can fall out?’… I was living that year in a house on Yucca Avenue in the Laurel Canyon district. It was a small hillside house on a dead-end street with a long flight of redwood steps to the front door and a groove of eucalyptus trees across the way.”
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49. “San Narciso lay further south, near L.A. Like many named places in California it was less an identifiable city than a grouping of concepts – census tracts, special purpose bond-issue districts, shopping nuclei, all over-laid with access roads to its own freeway. She looked down a slope, needing to squint for the sunlight, onto a vast sprawl of houses which had grown up all together… and she thought of the time she’d opened a transistor radio to replace a battery and seen her first printed circuit.”
Joan Didion, The White Album. “It was difficult to ascertain what anyone involved did want, except for the action to continue. ‘You pull out,’ the agent said, ‘it dies right here, not that I want to influence your decision.’ The director picked up the bottle of Margaux they were drinking and examined the label. ‘Nice little red,’ the agent said. ‘Very nice.’ I left as the Sanka was being served.”
Charles Bukowski, Post Office. “‘Chinaski! Take route 539!’ The toughest in the station. Apartment houses with boxes that had scrubbed-out names or no names at all, under tiny lightbulbs… Old ladies standing in halls, up and down the streets, asking the same question… After three years I made ‘regular.’”
James Ellroy, White Jazz. “Dig it, hepcats: Meyer Harris Cohen, the marvelous, benevolent, malevolent Mickster, has been out of Federal custody since September, ’57. He did 3 to 5 for income tax evasion; his ragtag band dispersed, and the former mob kingpin’s life since then has been one long series of skidmarks across the City of the Fallen Angels, the town he used to rule with bullets, bribes and bullspit bonhomie. Dig, children, and smell the burning rubber of those skids.”
Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust. “Around quitting time, Tod Hackett heard a great din on the road outside his office. The groan of leather mingled with the jangle of iron and over all beat the tattoo of a thousand hooves. He hurried to the window… While he watched, a little fat man, wearing a cork sun-helmet, polo shirt and knickers, darted around the corner of the building in pursuit of the army. ‘Stage Nine – you bastards – Stage Nine!’ he screamed through a small megaphone.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Love of the Last Tycoon. “You can take Hollywood for granted like I did, or you can dismiss it with the contempt we reserve for what we don’t understand. It can be understood, too, but only dimly and in flashes. Not half a dozen men have ever been able to keep the whole equation of pictures in their heads.”
For further illumination, here are some other suggestions on the subject: John Fante, Ask the Dust; Aldous Huxley, After Many a Summer Dies the Swan; James Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice; and Samuel Fuller, A Third Face. Enjoy.
