tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448581132479481740.post369798012778022261..comments2024-03-25T11:29:25.356-04:00Comments on Existential Ennui: Book Review: Killy, by Donald E. Westlake (Random House, 1963 / T. V. Boardman, 1964)Nick Jones (Louis XIV, the Sun King)http://www.blogger.com/profile/17716508525331235684noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5448581132479481740.post-57914196294951558122012-04-26T10:30:46.437-04:002012-04-26T10:30:46.437-04:00Finished it last night (I'm doing early Westla...Finished it last night (I'm doing early Westlake now), so belatedly responding to this. The book gave me what I always expect from a book Westlake writes under his own name that isn't a Dortmunder--which is a lot of curves. You think you know what's coming, and then it goes another way, and you adjust, and you think you know what's really coming, and it goes another way, repeat. <br /><br />Westlake dearly loved defeating expectations under all the names he wrote, but he made a positive artform out of it in his 'serious' books. He's not going for a formula here. He's experimenting, trying to figure out who he is as a writer, what he can do, how he can stretch the genre he's ostensibly writing under, as you point out.<br /><br />I didn't think it was such a negative portrayal of unions, overall--they're portrayed as effective and professional, and that, for Westlake, is a sincere compliment. If any institution becomes a source of power, it's going to have some corruption, and if it has no corruption, it has no power, and is thus of no use to anyone. Killy isn't being corrupted, so much as woken up to his true nature and place in the world. He's not as good a person as he thought, but he might do some people some good in the process of getting what he wants. Just like Killy. <br /><br />The really disturbing scenes involve the police abusing their power--this was a theme Westlake returned to again and again, and you have to wonder if he had some negative run-ins with cops as a young man. He really wants to hammer home the point that if you want young people to respect the law, you have to have officers who respect it. But again, power corrupts. <br /><br />So if you're expecting a positive portrayal of unions, you're going to see this as negative, but to me it wasn't meant as an expose. Unions had plenty of enemies in America back then, as they do now, and all he's saying is that it's stupid to expect them to be any different from politicians, police officers, or industrialists. They have their role to play, and the most important thing is that they play it well. <br /><br />So typical that we never even find out how the union vote goes. With Westlake, it's the process that matters, not the results.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00271250698430923736noreply@blogger.com