This is not going to be a book for everyone, but despite its flaws, Tarantino has crafted an interesting debut novel. While I mentioned earlier that he relies on screenwriting style, this is not just a copy of the screenplay. This is a VERY different book from the movie with several new scenes and several scenes that were in the film and not in the book (view spoiler) The book feels more grounded in reality and also feels like a more personal story. The plot aspect really is about Rick and how he’s coming to terms with his career and where it needs to head if he’s continuing. It’s in every scene with him, sometimes blatantly, but often quite subtlety. It’s a personal journey, and while at times the book feels “plotless” it creates a wonderful character study as well as capturing a time and place.
Yes, Tarantino goes off on film digressions that stop the “action” of the story… every single one of them is important. He’s setting the time and place. He’s showing you how Hollywood worked at the time. He’s showing where it tried to evolve and where it was stuck until something pushed it forward. Each of these is a factor that explain in a way why Rick makes the decisions he does. Hollywood was undergoing big changes at the time. In the sixties it was caught in a war between old Hollywood and modern Hollywood. Should it keep westerns the family friendly clean affair of the John Wayne films of the past or go with the gritty R rated style the Italians were making? Should it reject the counterculture youth in favor of presenting the “family values” of the 50s, or should it show that families weren’t always the perfect places and sometimes split up (as perfectly portrayed in how Charles Manson recruited members to his “family). There’s a lot of moving parts, some of which feel pointless from a “let’s get to from point A to point B” narrative… all of it though feels like capturing a moment in time.
Look, this is either going to be a book you dig despite of (or because of) Tarantino’s quirks or absolutely hate. I was completely all in. I loved the old Hollywood feel. I delighted in the fact that the book feels more like a Hollywood history lesson at times more than an actual novel… though Tarantino is clearly having a blast mixing in blatantly false information with his facts as some of them involve how real people went on to make films with his fictional ones (including how one of them would later make a film with Quentin Tarantino). I had fun seeing aspects of our characters we didn’t get in the film (Cliff has a top five Akira Kurosawa film list and that brought a smile to my face). This is a novel that, just like the movie, if really about a love of film and cinema. If you’re not here for that, skip it. I won’t blame anyone for not liking it, I’ll admit now my score is probably generous, but that’s because it hit on subjects that I too love. It was written with me as a target audience member… not everyone will be. A solid 4/5 stars and a big hope that Tarantino decides to write another novel.