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Ô dingos, ô châteaux !
Par les monts et les routes, fuyaient Julie la folle et l'enfant menacé d'un bien bizarre kidnapping. Dans la tête de Julie, des souvenirs d'incendies, de fusillades. Au cœur, un espoir : découvrir le château fabuleux où l'attendaient la délivrance et le repos. Mais les trouverait-elle ? Savait-elle, Julie la pitoyable étoile de ce ballet macabre, que les autres danseurs étaient bien plus fous qu'elle ?
187 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
39 people are currently reading
3485 people want to read
About the author
Jean-Patrick Manchette
66 books323 followersJean-Patrick Manchette was a French crime novelist credited with reinventing and reinvigorating the genre. He wrote ten short novels in the seventies and early eighties, and is widely recognized as the foremost French crime fiction author of the 1970s - 1980s . His stories are violent, existentialist explorations of the human condition and French society.
Manchette was politically to the left and his writing reflects this through his analysis of social positions and culture. His books are reminiscent of the nouvelle vague crime films of Jean-Pierre Melville, employing a similarly cool, existential style on a typically American genre (film noir for Melville and pulp novels for Manchette).
Three of his novels have been translated into English. Two were published by San Francisco publisher City Lights Books (3 To Kill [from the French "Le petit bleu de la côte ouest"] and The Prone Gunman [from the French "La Position du tireur couché"]). A third, Fatale, was released by New York Review Books Classics in 2011.
Manchette believed he had gone full circle with his last novel, which he conceived as a "closure" of his Noir fiction. In a 1988 letter to a journalist, Manchette said:
" After that, as I did not have to belong to any kind of literary school, I entered a very different work area. In seven years, I have not done anything good. I'm still working at it."
In 1989, finally having found new territory he wanted to explore, Manchette started writing a new novel, La Princesse du Sang" ("Blood Princess"), an international thriller, which was supposed to be the first book in a new cycle, a series of novels covering five decades from the post-war period to present times. He died from cancer before completing it.
Starting in 1996, a year after Manchette's death, several unpublished works were released, showing how very active he was during in the years preceding his death.
In 2009, Fantagraphics Books released an English-language version of French cartoonist Jacques Tardi's adaptation of Le petit bleu, under the new English title 'West Coast Blues.' Fantagraphics released a second Tardi adaptation, of "La Position du tireur couché" (under the title "Like a Sniper Lining Up His Shot" ) in the summer of 2011, and has scheduled a third one, of "Ô Dingos! Ô Châteaux!" (under the title "Run Like Crazy Run Like Hell") in summer 2014. Manchette himself was a fan of comics, and his praised translation of Alan Moore's Watchmen into French remains in print.
Manchette was politically to the left and his writing reflects this through his analysis of social positions and culture. His books are reminiscent of the nouvelle vague crime films of Jean-Pierre Melville, employing a similarly cool, existential style on a typically American genre (film noir for Melville and pulp novels for Manchette).
Three of his novels have been translated into English. Two were published by San Francisco publisher City Lights Books (3 To Kill [from the French "Le petit bleu de la côte ouest"] and The Prone Gunman [from the French "La Position du tireur couché"]). A third, Fatale, was released by New York Review Books Classics in 2011.
Manchette believed he had gone full circle with his last novel, which he conceived as a "closure" of his Noir fiction. In a 1988 letter to a journalist, Manchette said:
" After that, as I did not have to belong to any kind of literary school, I entered a very different work area. In seven years, I have not done anything good. I'm still working at it."
In 1989, finally having found new territory he wanted to explore, Manchette started writing a new novel, La Princesse du Sang" ("Blood Princess"), an international thriller, which was supposed to be the first book in a new cycle, a series of novels covering five decades from the post-war period to present times. He died from cancer before completing it.
Starting in 1996, a year after Manchette's death, several unpublished works were released, showing how very active he was during in the years preceding his death.
In 2009, Fantagraphics Books released an English-language version of French cartoonist Jacques Tardi's adaptation of Le petit bleu, under the new English title 'West Coast Blues.' Fantagraphics released a second Tardi adaptation, of "La Position du tireur couché" (under the title "Like a Sniper Lining Up His Shot" ) in the summer of 2011, and has scheduled a third one, of "Ô Dingos! Ô Châteaux!" (under the title "Run Like Crazy Run Like Hell") in summer 2014. Manchette himself was a fan of comics, and his praised translation of Alan Moore's Watchmen into French remains in print.
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December 15, 2022
Dashiell Hammett’s 1929 novel Red Harvest features a California town turned into a bullet-riddled blood bath. One prime French counterpart to this bloody harvest of corpses is Jean-Patrick Manchette’s 1972 The Mad and the Bad, a novel featuring a host of ultra-violent characters, among their number: a super-wealthy architect, a thuggish hired killer and an attractive gal fresh from the mental hospital. In keeping with the author’s rat-tat-tat hard-edged cinema-like prose, below are eight bullets fresh from my Toshiba Satellite L-55:
DETAIL OF OBJECTS
Cars, guns, desks, chairs, clothing are labeled and described crisply. “Cupboards and shelves were covered by a fine-grained white plastic laminate. Likewise the bed, which had a red blanket. There was no bedspread. A white table and a white chair in the middle of the room completed the décor.” All that whiteness reminds me of the old people’s home in Albert Camus' The Stranger. Alienation, anyone?
VIOLENCE AS A MODE OF BEING
Like that diner scene in the film Pulp Fiction? If so, you are in for a treat as in:
“The man grabbed him by the collar of his safari jacket, jerked him out of the Lincoln, and threw him to the ground.
“Stop! Stop!” shouted Julie.
The brute paid her no mind, took a run-up and kicked Hartog in the ribs. Hartog groaned. The blood drained from his face. Julie got back in the Lincoln and opened the compartment with the revolver. She trained the weapon on White Raincoat through the car’s open door.”
Firearms and violence as the unquestioned baseline of how life is lived; the novel’s characters breath and act in the raw with none of those irksome reflections or philosophic musing, thank you.
ALCOHOL, COFFEE, CIGARETTES, PILLS
But having to contend with and defend yourself from alienating objects and coarse, loathsome people pushes architect, hired killer, gal and their supporting cast to a constant imbibing; I mean, who could ever think of living for a minute without booze, caffeine, nicotine, uppers, downers, stomach soothers? Get with it, gang - sure, you are reading descriptions of sickness and vomiting on every other page, but you have to admit, these people are hip.
THEY'RE MAOISTS!
At one point during an outbreak of public violence, someone shouts, “They’re Maoists!” And there are several other oblique references to the political, very much in keeping with the author’s direct involvement with Marxism and politics prior to becoming a novelist. This political dimension is one we do not encounter in Jean-Patrick Manchette’s American forerunners: Chandler, Hammett, Cain, Thompson.
ALL THIS BLOOD AND KILLING IS EXCITING!
And speaking of Marxism, recall the Marxist dictum: ‘Be happy in your work.” Well, hired killer Thomson is very happy in his work as per this snippet when he is in the middle of his job:
“He bounded down an aisle, knocking over an old woman who began to wail in terror. He trotted by Boys Apparel, his mouth full of bile. He heard a deafening explosion and assumed that Coco had decided to open up. Fragments of plastic flew from a display. The store was filled by an immense tumult. This is exciting. I am enjoying this, Thompson told himself as he spat gastric juice on the ground.” Ah, enjoyment! What life is all about.
LIFE IMITATING ART
One character observes how what they are doing is exactly what a film star did in one of their favorite movies. Funny, reading this novel, I had the distinct feeling the author was filtering life through an action film – art imitating art imitating life; or is it art imitating art imitating life imitating art?
DUEL PLOT IN MINIMALIST MODE
Unlike the two other novels I read by the author, where every chapter following the one main character, The Mad and the Bad features parallel plots, alternating between hired killer Thompson and hunted gal, Julia -- a most effective narrative technique, especially at the end when the chapters pop back and forth, culminating in a, you guessed it, hyper-violent conclusion.
If you think New York Review Books (NYRB) is publishing nothing but stuffy classics, here is a gem that will take your misguided notion and shoot it full of holes. In the mood for a juiced-up fast read? This J-P M is your book.
Jean-Patrick Manchette (1942-1995)
May 2, 2020
If you prefer noir with a nouvelle vague air—less detached than Godard, less sentimental than Truffaut...something by Chabrol perhaps—then the crime novels of Jean-Patrick Manchette may be just what you’ve been looking for.
This novel, in which Julie, an au pair just released from a mental hospital, and Peter her charge, the spoiled six-year-old nephew of a billionaire, are pursued by contract killer Thompson and his crew throughout the French countryside, is a fine example of what the author can do. Manchette, who honed his skills writing teleplays for French TV, has a great gift for spare dialogue which suggests more than it tells, and for economical descriptions which are easily visualized. This book could be a fast read, if you want it to be, but there is plenty here to savor and reflect upon too, if you are a contemplative sort of reader.
Manchette was a left-winger, radicalized by the war in Algeria, who holds up to criticism—but never in a preachy way—the materialistic values of a society poisoned by money. He does this through his sharp cynical dialogue (learned from Dashiell Hammett) and his talent for describing rooms and the objects in them (learned from the Nouveau Roman novelists like Robbe-Grillet).
But if you’re just in the market for a good crime novel, don’t let the political and literary influences worry you. I believe they make his books richer and deeper, but they never interfere with the clarity of his vision, the drive of his narrative, nor the diamond-hard edge of his prose.
January 20, 2022
[Edited, pictures added 1/20/22]
The blurbs and the introduction over-promise exciting stuff. We are told the author brought the noir style of Dashiell Hammett and William Burroughs to the French detective story.
[image error]
But most of the book turns out to be the saga of the pursuit of a woman and her nephew by thugs through the French countryside. The four would-be killers stumble and bumble through a keystone cops scenario with gore instead of noir. There is little plot and character development in this far-fetched scenario.
The author (1942–1995, lung cancer) wrote short stories and ten-or-so novella-length crime novels like this one. About half appear to have been translated into English. With hindsight, since I am editing this review after I posted another review of a book by him, I much prefer Fatale. That’s his best-known work, although I also gave that one a ‘3’ for the same reasons.
Top photo of Riquewihr in Alsace from travel.usnews.com
The author from theparisreview.org
The blurbs and the introduction over-promise exciting stuff. We are told the author brought the noir style of Dashiell Hammett and William Burroughs to the French detective story.
[image error]
But most of the book turns out to be the saga of the pursuit of a woman and her nephew by thugs through the French countryside. The four would-be killers stumble and bumble through a keystone cops scenario with gore instead of noir. There is little plot and character development in this far-fetched scenario.
The author (1942–1995, lung cancer) wrote short stories and ten-or-so novella-length crime novels like this one. About half appear to have been translated into English. With hindsight, since I am editing this review after I posted another review of a book by him, I much prefer Fatale. That’s his best-known work, although I also gave that one a ‘3’ for the same reasons.
Top photo of Riquewihr in Alsace from travel.usnews.com
The author from theparisreview.org
November 20, 2015
This is my advice: if you want to read a little Noir, but don't want to look slutty while doing so, then try a Noir by nyrb-classics. The cool cover serves as an intellectual beard and, who knows, you might actually be surprised at the quality of the writing. Like this one.
I inhaled this - just one more chapter, just one more chapter, just one more chapter......
There's a great female protagonist, recently released from a sanitarium, and you have to admire a cold-blooded killer who rents a car and uses 'André Proust' as an alias. Those Proust boys, I tell ya.
Don't get me wrong. It's still Noir, and could definitely make some bad TV, like shootouts where nobody gets hit. Or, if need be, people only get shot in the arm, or their ear. Nothing which might slow them down.
But I had an hour and a half of fun. An intermezzo. A palate cleanser.
I inhaled this - just one more chapter, just one more chapter, just one more chapter......
There's a great female protagonist, recently released from a sanitarium, and you have to admire a cold-blooded killer who rents a car and uses 'André Proust' as an alias. Those Proust boys, I tell ya.
Don't get me wrong. It's still Noir, and could definitely make some bad TV, like shootouts where nobody gets hit. Or, if need be, people only get shot in the arm, or their ear. Nothing which might slow them down.
But I had an hour and a half of fun. An intermezzo. A palate cleanser.
January 8, 2024
Πριν διακόσια χρόνια είχαμε μαζευτεί φοιτητοπαρέα για σουβλάκια και ταινία και εκείνο το βράδυ η "αντιφά" πτέρυγα της παρέας επέλεξε να νοικιάσουμε δύο dvd* για να δούμε: το ένα ήταν "Το σπιρτόκουτο" του νέου, τότε σκηνοθέτη Γιάννη Οικονομίδη και το άλλο μια τσοντοειδή μαλακία το "Ken Park". Αν δεν σας λέει κάτι πρόκειται για ένα ερωτικό δράμα με θέμα τη ζωή τριών εφήβων, παρουσιάζει τρία περιστατικά από τη ζωή τους διαποτισμένα με σχεδόν ανώμαλο πορνό: στη μιάμισι ώρα είδαμε, ελαφρύ σαδομαζοχισμό, παρτούζα, ερωτική ασφυξία ή όπως το λένε και άλλα πολλά. Με το τελείωμα του έργου (και μιας παρτούζας περίπου ενός τετάρτου) υπήρχε μια αμηχανία στο δωμάτιο. Κανείς δεν ήξερε πως να σχολιάσει το έργο, κάποιοι ίσως να είχανε πάρει δουλειά για το σπίτι αλλά ο αυτοδιαχειριζόμενος το μόνο που έλεγε είναι ότι "τα χώνει καλά", προφανώς εννοώντας στο σαθρό σύστημα. Δεν ξέρω που το είδε αυτό, αλλά το είδε.
Αυτό ήταν μια από τις πρώτες εμπειρίες που είχα με άτομα που έβρισκαν ψήγματα πολιτικής εκεί που δεν υπήρχαν.
Την ίδια εποχή ξεκίνησα να διαβάζω τα βιβλία του Ζίν-Πάτρικ Μανσέτ: τη "Πρηνή θέση" και το "Μελαγχολικό κομμάτι": οι εκδόσεις "Άγρα" (όπως και η "Πόλις") είχανε κάτι μαγικό: έμοιαζαν να είναι μακριά από το "εμπορικό βιβλίο" ενώ οι τίτλοι ήταν φως φανάρι ότι απευθύνονταν σε "ψαγμένους" (τρομάρα μας). Επίμετρα με αναλύσεις επί των κειμένων, σχολιασμοί, πολιτικές αιχμές συνόδευαν τα έργα που εκδίδονταν από την "Άγρα". Σε όλα αυτά ο Μανσέτ είχε μια ειδική θέση: κύριος εκφραστής του "Πολάρ" μυθιστορήματος, το οποίο φυσικά δεν είχα ιδέα γιατί και καλά είναι σημαντικό (guess what ούτε τώρα έχω) αλλά κάθε βιβλίο να υπονοεί ότι είναι για λίγους, για ψαγμένους, ότι αν το διαβάσεις έχεις άλλη αντίληψη της πραγματικότητας, ότι είσαι αντισυμβατικό πνεύμα.
Εν ολίγοις διάβασα αρκετό Μανσέτ και Ζαν-Κλώντ Ισσό στα νεανικά μου χρόνια (τώρα είμαι ο θείος που κάθεται με τη νεολέρα) ίσως και σε μια έξαρση ματαιοδοξίας ανάλογη με αυτή του φίλου αντιφά: εγώ ξέρω καλύτερα, είμαι αντισυμβατικός, δε καταλαβαίνετε εσείς, το βιβλίο τα λέει καλά και άλλες τέτοιες αρλούμπες.
Προς τι αυτή η de profundis εξομολόγηση που χαλαρά δεν σας ενδιαφέρει;
Γιατί διαβάζοντας τον Μανσέτ το 2024 κάπου αναρωτήθηκα αν εν τέλει εξελίχθηκα σαν αναγνώστης και η απάντηση είναι δεν ξέρω. Διαβάζοντας τον τώρα, αδυνατώ να βρω γιατί είναι τόσο σημαντικός: γράφει καλά, ιδιαίτερα απλοϊκά αλλά οι "πολιτικές αιχμές" νομίζω ότι περισσότερο είναι στις ονειρώξεις των κριτικών του: εγώ διάβασα μια ιστορία γραφικής βίας, ανάλογης με αυτή των Κοέν/Ταραντίνο όπου ο κακός έχει ψάξει ειδικά να βρει τους πιο βλαμμένους εκτελεστές μαζί με ένα ημιψυχοπαθή αρχηγό και να γεμίσουν τον τόπο σφαίρες, αναζητώντας ένα μούλικο και μια φασαία. Ιδιαίτερα απλοϊκή, χαλαρά γραμμένη, με μικρές τρύπες, λίγο τραβηγμένη από τα μαλλιά αλλά καλή φάση.
Οκέι πλάκα έχει αλλά μέχρι εκεί. Διαβάστε το δεν θα χάσετε τίποτα!
* Αν είστε ζούμερς και δεν καταλαβαίνετε τι γράφω γκούγκλ: "βίντεοκλάμπ", "ενοικίαση ταινίας", "dvd".
Αυτό ήταν μια από τις πρώτες εμπειρίες που είχα με άτομα που έβρισκαν ψήγματα πολιτικής εκεί που δεν υπήρχαν.
Την ίδια εποχή ξεκίνησα να διαβάζω τα βιβλία του Ζίν-Πάτρικ Μανσέτ: τη "Πρηνή θέση" και το "Μελαγχολικό κομμάτι": οι εκδόσεις "Άγρα" (όπως και η "Πόλις") είχανε κάτι μαγικό: έμοιαζαν να είναι μακριά από το "εμπορικό βιβλίο" ενώ οι τίτλοι ήταν φως φανάρι ότι απευθύνονταν σε "ψαγμένους" (τρομάρα μας). Επίμετρα με αναλύσεις επί των κειμένων, σχολιασμοί, πολιτικές αιχμές συνόδευαν τα έργα που εκδίδονταν από την "Άγρα". Σε όλα αυτά ο Μανσέτ είχε μια ειδική θέση: κύριος εκφραστής του "Πολάρ" μυθιστορήματος, το οποίο φυσικά δεν είχα ιδέα γιατί και καλά είναι σημαντικό (guess what ούτε τώρα έχω) αλλά κάθε βιβλίο να υπονοεί ότι είναι για λίγους, για ψαγμένους, ότι αν το διαβάσεις έχεις άλλη αντίληψη της πραγματικότητας, ότι είσαι αντισυμβατικό πνεύμα.
Εν ολίγοις διάβασα αρκετό Μανσέτ και Ζαν-Κλώντ Ισσό στα νεανικά μου χρόνια (τώρα είμαι ο θείος που κάθεται με τη νεολέρα) ίσως και σε μια έξαρση ματαιοδοξίας ανάλογη με αυτή του φίλου αντιφά: εγώ ξέρω καλύτερα, είμαι αντισυμβατικός, δε καταλαβαίνετε εσείς, το βιβλίο τα λέει καλά και άλλες τέτοιες αρλούμπες.
Προς τι αυτή η de profundis εξομολόγηση που χαλαρά δεν σας ενδιαφέρει;
Γιατί διαβάζοντας τον Μανσέτ το 2024 κάπου αναρωτήθηκα αν εν τέλει εξελίχθηκα σαν αναγνώστης και η απάντηση είναι δεν ξέρω. Διαβάζοντας τον τώρα, αδυνατώ να βρω γιατί είναι τόσο σημαντικός: γράφει καλά, ιδιαίτερα απλοϊκά αλλά οι "πολιτικές αιχμές" νομίζω ότι περισσότερο είναι στις ονειρώξεις των κριτικών του: εγώ διάβασα μια ιστορία γραφικής βίας, ανάλογης με αυτή των Κοέν/Ταραντίνο όπου ο κακός έχει ψάξει ειδικά να βρει τους πιο βλαμμένους εκτελεστές μαζί με ένα ημιψυχοπαθή αρχηγό και να γεμίσουν τον τόπο σφαίρες, αναζητώντας ένα μούλικο και μια φασαία. Ιδιαίτερα απλοϊκή, χαλαρά γραμμένη, με μικρές τρύπες, λίγο τραβηγμένη από τα μαλλιά αλλά καλή φάση.
Οκέι πλάκα έχει αλλά μέχρι εκεί. Διαβάστε το δεν θα χάσετε τίποτα!
* Αν είστε ζούμερς και δεν καταλαβαίνετε τι γράφω γκούγκλ: "βίντεοκλάμπ", "ενοικίαση ταινίας", "dvd".
September 21, 2016
Can I drop the f-bomb on this site? I have several questions to ask after finishing this book and they all require the word.
This book is crazy. This isn't your standard "psycho bad guy fights moralistic good guy" story, because that's boring. Manchette makes this much more interesting by having everyone just go insane. People are shot, people beaten to death, shopping centers are set on fire. Doesn't that sound like fun?
This book is crazy. This isn't your standard "psycho bad guy fights moralistic good guy" story, because that's boring. Manchette makes this much more interesting by having everyone just go insane. People are shot, people beaten to death, shopping centers are set on fire. Doesn't that sound like fun?
November 26, 2023
Edit 26/11/23: Μόλις κυκλοφόρησε η μετάφραση του βιβλίου διά χειρός Σταύρου Παπασταύρου με τίτλο "Τί τρέλα, τί παλάτια" από τις εκδόσεις Άγρα! Το προμηθεύτηκα ήδη!
Ο Jean-Patrick Manchette είναι από τους μάστορες του νεο-πολάρ, καθώς και ο μπαμπάς του κάθε Ferey ή Le Corre που ανεβάζετε για να πείτε πως κάτι ξέρετε να διαβάζετε. Οκ, πέρα από την πλάκα: ο Manchette όντως είναι ο μπαμπάς μας και αυτό το αποδεικνύει κάθε βιβλίο που μπορεί να διαβάσεις και να είναι δικό του.
Το Mad and the Bad ανήκει στα αμετάφραστα στην ελληνική έργα του, κακώς κατά την γνώμη μου. Κεντρική χαρακτήρας η Τζούλι, μια κοπέλα με ακραία ψυχολογικά προβλήματα που βγαίνει από το τρελάδικο μετά την πρόσληψη της από έναν πλούσιο αρχιτέκτονα (που προσλαμβάνει αποκλειστικά ΑΜΕΑ και άλλους προβληματικούς) σαν νταντά του κακομαθημένου ανιψιού του. Όταν όμως η κοπέλα και το παιδί μπαίνουν στο στόχαστρο μερικών εγκληματιών πληρωμένων να τους σκοτώσουν τότε αρχίζει ένα κυνηγητό γεμάτο αίμα και ανατροπές βγαλμένο από ταινία.
Σίγουρα σε κάποιους θα φανεί κλισέ μετά από τόσες ταινίες που βγήκαν το '80 και το '90. Το βιβλίο όμως γράφτηκε το '72, οπότε ναι, όντως ο Machette είναι ο μπαμπάς σας. Πρόκειται για ένα ξεκάθαρο θρίλερ με λιγότερο κραυγαλέα πολιτικά στοιχεία από το ύστερο έργο του, που όμως καταλήγει για τους σκεπτόμενους γροθιά στο στομάχι. Οι χαρακτήρες είναι καλογραμμένοι από τον πρώτο ως τον τελευταίο, ενώ ο λόγος όπως πάντα είναι σύντομος αλλά απέριττος.
Πρόκειται για ένα από τα καλύτερα βιβλία του και μια καλή επιλογή για ένα σύντομο ανάγνωσμα.
Ο Jean-Patrick Manchette είναι από τους μάστορες του νεο-πολάρ, καθώς και ο μπαμπάς του κάθε Ferey ή Le Corre που ανεβάζετε για να πείτε πως κάτι ξέρετε να διαβάζετε. Οκ, πέρα από την πλάκα: ο Manchette όντως είναι ο μπαμπάς μας και αυτό το αποδεικνύει κάθε βιβλίο που μπορεί να διαβάσεις και να είναι δικό του.
Το Mad and the Bad ανήκει στα αμετάφραστα στην ελληνική έργα του, κακώς κατά την γνώμη μου. Κεντρική χαρακτήρας η Τζούλι, μια κοπέλα με ακραία ψυχολογικά προβλήματα που βγαίνει από το τρελάδικο μετά την πρόσληψη της από έναν πλούσιο αρχιτέκτονα (που προσλαμβάνει αποκλειστικά ΑΜΕΑ και άλλους προβληματικούς) σαν νταντά του κακομαθημένου ανιψιού του. Όταν όμως η κοπέλα και το παιδί μπαίνουν στο στόχαστρο μερικών εγκληματιών πληρωμένων να τους σκοτώσουν τότε αρχίζει ένα κυνηγητό γεμάτο αίμα και ανατροπές βγαλμένο από ταινία.
Σίγουρα σε κάποιους θα φανεί κλισέ μετά από τόσες ταινίες που βγήκαν το '80 και το '90. Το βιβλίο όμως γράφτηκε το '72, οπότε ναι, όντως ο Machette είναι ο μπαμπάς σας. Πρόκειται για ένα ξεκάθαρο θρίλερ με λιγότερο κραυγαλέα πολιτικά στοιχεία από το ύστερο έργο του, που όμως καταλήγει για τους σκεπτόμενους γροθιά στο στομάχι. Οι χαρακτήρες είναι καλογραμμένοι από τον πρώτο ως τον τελευταίο, ενώ ο λόγος όπως πάντα είναι σύντομος αλλά απέριττος.
Πρόκειται για ένα από τα καλύτερα βιβλία του και μια καλή επιλογή για ένα σύντομο ανάγνωσμα.
July 27, 2014
Eccentric, wealthy businessman, former architect Michel Hartog arrives at a swanky country asylum to collect Julie Ballanger, a young woman who’s lived there, voluntarily, for 5 years. She’s leaving to be employed as a nanny for Hartog’s young nephew, Peter aka “the snotty brat.” Hartog inherited his wealth unexpectedly when his brother and sister-in law died in a plane crash, and their deaths left him in charge of the family fortune and the well-being of his nephew, the heir. Now Hartog has hired a former mental patient as a nanny. What’s wrong with this picture?
If you listen to Hartog’s driver, Hartog has a reputation as a philanthropist for hiring people who have physical or mental problems. Hartog’s home is a “house of defectives.”
Julie nodded. The driver handed her the drink. He had poured himself a Ricard. He drank half of it and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
“Physically, you are better built than Old Polio.”
“Old Polio?”
“The nursemaid before you. Completely off her rocker. Fifty if she was a day. And an idiot. What about you? What’s your thing?”
“I don’t understand at all,” said Julie. “My thing? What do you mean?”
“The thing that’s screwy with you.”
“I’m cured,” Julie stated.
“The hell you are!” exclaimed the driver. “The boss’s way of doing good is over the top. He only hires retards. He sets up factories for cripples to work in, can you figure that?”
“Not really.”
“Those guys who go around in little motorized wheelchairs? He’s got them working on a production line! In this house it’s the same baloney. The cook is epileptic. The gardener has only one arm, pretty handy for using the shears. His private secretary is blind. His valet suffers from locomotor ataxia–no wonder his meals arrive cold! The snotty brat’s old nanny–well I told you about her. As for you, you must know yourself.”
Hartog is certainly very odd, but his first scene at the asylum shows us that he’s not a nice man, so does he hire Julie from some sort of philanthropy or contrariness or is there something deeper at play?…..
Julie’s introduction to Hartog’s nephew is not reassuring; Peter is a difficult child, and Hartog, who encourages Julie to drink, is strangely repellent, with a smile which “resembled the coin slot of a parking meter.”Julie is not the only one who hits the booze hard in Hartog’s house; it’s “a drinker’s paradise,” and even the valet downs Guinness with his breakfast omelet. Hartog runs his home in a paradoxical fashion. On one hand, he whimsically expects his employees to be available whenever he pleases, sharply dressed and ready to perform their duties, but on the other hand, he indulges certain vices. Thrust into this new stressful environment, Julie washes down tranquilizers with alcohol.
Although we never get the whole story of Julie’s past life, some information is revealed in fragmented hints, but these crimes are only the external projections of something much deeper. Julie who claims to be “allergic” to the police is politically alienated from bourgeois society. Hartog plucks her from an insane asylum, hands her a job, a wardrobe full of clothing and a regular paycheck. He expects her to be impressed and grateful:
“What do you think of me?” Hartog asked. “What do you know about me? Do you get the feeling you are in a fairy tale?”
“I don’t believe in fairy tales.”
“Okay. But what then?”
“You are a soap, oil, and detergent magnate. You are rich and you are a philanthropist.”
“Let’s not exaggerate.”
“You do Good. You are probably trying to compensate for the feeling of being a usurper. Because your wealth is not the fruit of your own labor. Only the death of your brother and his wife made you the owner of it. You must have developed a strong sense of guilt, even if you had no wish for them to die. Anyway, one always wishes for the death of one’s brother at some level.”
“Congratulations!” said Hartog in a toneless voice. “Is that what they teach at the asylum?”
“It’s not an asylum. It’s an open establishment. I could have left any time I wanted.”
“But you stayed there for five years. Why?”
“You’ve seen my records. You know why.”
While this is a crime story, The Mad and the Bad also contains a socio-political undercurrent. Hartog expects gratitude from Julie for offering her ‘another chance,’ but he also wants to see awe–awe for his wealth and his accomplishments. But Julie is unimpressed. She sees Hartog as an unexceptional human being with the advantage of controlling a fortune:
“Quite the little rebel,” he observed. “I know all about you. Pickpocket. Arsonist. Congratulations.”
“Of course you do,” replied Julie. “It’s all in my file.”
“You, all you poor people, are just too stupid. You go about things in the dumbest way.”
“Everyone can’t inherit money.”
Hartog shrugged.
“For my part I do something with my inheritance. You people wouldn’t know what to do with one.”
I’m not going to reveal much of the plot–the back cover of the book reveals more than I intend to address here. But since this is a crime novel, a hit man and his sloppy henchmen enter the scene, and Julie’s brief re-entrance into society comes to a screaming halt. Suddenly, she finds herself back in a life on the run, and all of her old survival skills return. Julie describes herself as looking like a “post-op transsexual,” but this is just a reflection that Julie eschews bourgeois society’s signifiers of the feminine ideal; in reality she’s fit, attractive, handy with weaponry and adept at survival. As the book continues, there’s a parallel metamorphosis that takes place as both Julie and Thompson, the hitman with a nagging ulcer, return to primal behaviour.
The Mad and the Bad is a deeply subversive novel and contains the same sharply observed criticisms of bourgeois society that are found in Fatale. As the novel continues, Julie’s ‘madness’ becomes questionable, and as her violent history morphs into her violent present, she is removed farther from society’s norms and sinks deeper into self-preservation. Her past insanity is seen mal-adjustment–a reaction to the hypocrisy of a decadent, materialistic society and a drive to anti-social behaviours; she simply opted to no longer live in the world and voluntarily retired to the asylum where, drugged and removed from aggravation, she was “cured.” Her re-entry into society has turned into a nightmare, and those same anti-social behaviours that sent her into the asylum in the first place, now allow her to survive. Another character, Fuentès, a failed idealist, has also rejected society, and in his case, he’s not locked up in an asylum, but chooses to isolate himself in a bizarrely constructed building whose labyrinth design grants security and is a testament to his individualism. Is Fuentès, another fringe dweller, also mad, or is his abandonment of society a signifier of sanity?
There are moments when Julie seems aware of her delusions, but there are other times when she can’t control herself. One scene in which a preacher emphasizes the symbiotic relationship between religion, the government and the police seems to awaken something in Julie:
She had to get rid of all these bastards who were out to destroy her. This was no time to lose her head. She would have loved to open fire with a machine gun and create a bloodbath.
It’s no coincidence that one of the book’s destructive, brilliantly explosive scenes takes place in a large department store–a temple to consumerism. Violence detonates with a darkly humorous edge as Julie is pushed to extremes in order to shock the customers and shop assistants out of their stupor. Yes, Julie uses the location for her purposes, but as the tranquilizers wear off and she blazes across France, Julie comes alive, all those old skills ignite, and we cheer her on.
Manchette shows that while the ‘bad’ are predictable, the ‘mad’–those who reject society–are not. This is the fourth Manchette novel I’ve read, and my favourite to date.
Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith & with an introduction from James Sallis.
If you listen to Hartog’s driver, Hartog has a reputation as a philanthropist for hiring people who have physical or mental problems. Hartog’s home is a “house of defectives.”
Julie nodded. The driver handed her the drink. He had poured himself a Ricard. He drank half of it and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
“Physically, you are better built than Old Polio.”
“Old Polio?”
“The nursemaid before you. Completely off her rocker. Fifty if she was a day. And an idiot. What about you? What’s your thing?”
“I don’t understand at all,” said Julie. “My thing? What do you mean?”
“The thing that’s screwy with you.”
“I’m cured,” Julie stated.
“The hell you are!” exclaimed the driver. “The boss’s way of doing good is over the top. He only hires retards. He sets up factories for cripples to work in, can you figure that?”
“Not really.”
“Those guys who go around in little motorized wheelchairs? He’s got them working on a production line! In this house it’s the same baloney. The cook is epileptic. The gardener has only one arm, pretty handy for using the shears. His private secretary is blind. His valet suffers from locomotor ataxia–no wonder his meals arrive cold! The snotty brat’s old nanny–well I told you about her. As for you, you must know yourself.”
Hartog is certainly very odd, but his first scene at the asylum shows us that he’s not a nice man, so does he hire Julie from some sort of philanthropy or contrariness or is there something deeper at play?…..
Julie’s introduction to Hartog’s nephew is not reassuring; Peter is a difficult child, and Hartog, who encourages Julie to drink, is strangely repellent, with a smile which “resembled the coin slot of a parking meter.”Julie is not the only one who hits the booze hard in Hartog’s house; it’s “a drinker’s paradise,” and even the valet downs Guinness with his breakfast omelet. Hartog runs his home in a paradoxical fashion. On one hand, he whimsically expects his employees to be available whenever he pleases, sharply dressed and ready to perform their duties, but on the other hand, he indulges certain vices. Thrust into this new stressful environment, Julie washes down tranquilizers with alcohol.
Although we never get the whole story of Julie’s past life, some information is revealed in fragmented hints, but these crimes are only the external projections of something much deeper. Julie who claims to be “allergic” to the police is politically alienated from bourgeois society. Hartog plucks her from an insane asylum, hands her a job, a wardrobe full of clothing and a regular paycheck. He expects her to be impressed and grateful:
“What do you think of me?” Hartog asked. “What do you know about me? Do you get the feeling you are in a fairy tale?”
“I don’t believe in fairy tales.”
“Okay. But what then?”
“You are a soap, oil, and detergent magnate. You are rich and you are a philanthropist.”
“Let’s not exaggerate.”
“You do Good. You are probably trying to compensate for the feeling of being a usurper. Because your wealth is not the fruit of your own labor. Only the death of your brother and his wife made you the owner of it. You must have developed a strong sense of guilt, even if you had no wish for them to die. Anyway, one always wishes for the death of one’s brother at some level.”
“Congratulations!” said Hartog in a toneless voice. “Is that what they teach at the asylum?”
“It’s not an asylum. It’s an open establishment. I could have left any time I wanted.”
“But you stayed there for five years. Why?”
“You’ve seen my records. You know why.”
While this is a crime story, The Mad and the Bad also contains a socio-political undercurrent. Hartog expects gratitude from Julie for offering her ‘another chance,’ but he also wants to see awe–awe for his wealth and his accomplishments. But Julie is unimpressed. She sees Hartog as an unexceptional human being with the advantage of controlling a fortune:
“Quite the little rebel,” he observed. “I know all about you. Pickpocket. Arsonist. Congratulations.”
“Of course you do,” replied Julie. “It’s all in my file.”
“You, all you poor people, are just too stupid. You go about things in the dumbest way.”
“Everyone can’t inherit money.”
Hartog shrugged.
“For my part I do something with my inheritance. You people wouldn’t know what to do with one.”
I’m not going to reveal much of the plot–the back cover of the book reveals more than I intend to address here. But since this is a crime novel, a hit man and his sloppy henchmen enter the scene, and Julie’s brief re-entrance into society comes to a screaming halt. Suddenly, she finds herself back in a life on the run, and all of her old survival skills return. Julie describes herself as looking like a “post-op transsexual,” but this is just a reflection that Julie eschews bourgeois society’s signifiers of the feminine ideal; in reality she’s fit, attractive, handy with weaponry and adept at survival. As the book continues, there’s a parallel metamorphosis that takes place as both Julie and Thompson, the hitman with a nagging ulcer, return to primal behaviour.
The Mad and the Bad is a deeply subversive novel and contains the same sharply observed criticisms of bourgeois society that are found in Fatale. As the novel continues, Julie’s ‘madness’ becomes questionable, and as her violent history morphs into her violent present, she is removed farther from society’s norms and sinks deeper into self-preservation. Her past insanity is seen mal-adjustment–a reaction to the hypocrisy of a decadent, materialistic society and a drive to anti-social behaviours; she simply opted to no longer live in the world and voluntarily retired to the asylum where, drugged and removed from aggravation, she was “cured.” Her re-entry into society has turned into a nightmare, and those same anti-social behaviours that sent her into the asylum in the first place, now allow her to survive. Another character, Fuentès, a failed idealist, has also rejected society, and in his case, he’s not locked up in an asylum, but chooses to isolate himself in a bizarrely constructed building whose labyrinth design grants security and is a testament to his individualism. Is Fuentès, another fringe dweller, also mad, or is his abandonment of society a signifier of sanity?
There are moments when Julie seems aware of her delusions, but there are other times when she can’t control herself. One scene in which a preacher emphasizes the symbiotic relationship between religion, the government and the police seems to awaken something in Julie:
She had to get rid of all these bastards who were out to destroy her. This was no time to lose her head. She would have loved to open fire with a machine gun and create a bloodbath.
It’s no coincidence that one of the book’s destructive, brilliantly explosive scenes takes place in a large department store–a temple to consumerism. Violence detonates with a darkly humorous edge as Julie is pushed to extremes in order to shock the customers and shop assistants out of their stupor. Yes, Julie uses the location for her purposes, but as the tranquilizers wear off and she blazes across France, Julie comes alive, all those old skills ignite, and we cheer her on.
Manchette shows that while the ‘bad’ are predictable, the ‘mad’–those who reject society–are not. This is the fourth Manchette novel I’ve read, and my favourite to date.
Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith & with an introduction from James Sallis.
August 27, 2020
If you've ever been taped or glued inside a piano, where your face was placed just so so that the pounding of the keys in a feroce staccato made the hammers smash into your face repeatedly, then you'll know what it's like to read a Manchette novel. They are fast, bloody, quick, terse to the point of rudeness and you'll feel like about a quarter of an hour worth of violence breezed by you in real time so quick will you read these.
The plot is simple: a troubled young woman is taken out of her psychiatric treatment to be the nanny to a little orphan boy, the nephew of a famous architect. Hired killers appear to kill her and the boy. Lots and lots of people get killed during the ensuing chase. There is also quite a bit of vomiting.
It's rare to read a novel that can keep a lively pace like a film of it would, but Manchette definitely nailed that down.
The plot is simple: a troubled young woman is taken out of her psychiatric treatment to be the nanny to a little orphan boy, the nephew of a famous architect. Hired killers appear to kill her and the boy. Lots and lots of people get killed during the ensuing chase. There is also quite a bit of vomiting.
It's rare to read a novel that can keep a lively pace like a film of it would, but Manchette definitely nailed that down.
January 20, 2024
Ένα τρισχαριτωμένο τουρλουμπούκι, ξεκάθαρα γραμμένο δεκαετίες πριν η πολιτική ορθότητα ευνουχίσει, σαλπιγγοράψει και υστερεκτμήσει τα πάντα, από το δημόσιο λόγο μέχρι τα φυλλάδια του σουπερμάρκετ.
Μια “αστυνομική” περιπέτεια, που σημασία δεν έχει να βρεις τον “κακό”, είναι σχεδόν δεδομένος από τις πρώτες σελίδες, αλλά σε καλεί να την ακολουθήσεις στις σουρεαλιστικές της πτυχές, με τους εξίσου σουρεάλ (ιδίως για τα μέτρα της σημερινής εποχής) χαρακτήρες και το ασύνηθες πλέον φινάλε, όπου όλοι σκοπρίζουν στα τρία σημεία του ορίζοντα (ο Μανσέτ τον ακρωτηρίασε και αυτόν και χάθηκε το τέταρτο) γλείφοντας τις πληγές τους ή εκσπερματώνοντας πάνω από τις σούπες ανυποψίαστων πελατών σε γκουρμέ εστιατόρια -WHAT? -what? (δεν έχει καν σημασία).
Η ιστορία είναι απλή, ένα αγοράκι και η γκουβερνάντα του απ(αγ)άγονται. Η γκουβερνάντα έχει μόλις εξέλθει από άσυλο φρενοβλαβών, το παιδί είναι ορφανό και η συνέχεια είναι γεμάτη απολαυστικές ατάκες, πιστολίδι και κλοπές αυτοκινήτων. Το ζουμί είναι στην ατμόσφαιρα που δημιουργείται, ένα κράμα νουάρ και σουρεάλ με εξαιρετικές ισορροπίες μεταξύ των δύο αυτών στοιχείων.
Τριάρι, αλλά τίμιο τριάρι, διαβάζεται πολύ ευχάριστα με δυο ανάσες (εντάξει, αν έχετε μικρά πλεμόνια δε φταίω εγώ).
Υ.Γ. Στη μυθολογία παρελθουσών δεκαετίων, έγινε απόπειρα να ενταχθούν τμήματα του έργου του Μανσέτ σε θύλακες (εξτρεμιστικούς στα όρια του… μυστικισμού) πολιτικού λόγου. Όχι. Το έργο δεν είναι πολιτικό, οι όποιες αναφορές είναι απλές, καθόλου κρυπτικές και συνήθως έχουν και… υποσημείωση του μεταφραστή/επιμελητή.
Μια “αστυνομική” περιπέτεια, που σημασία δεν έχει να βρεις τον “κακό”, είναι σχεδόν δεδομένος από τις πρώτες σελίδες, αλλά σε καλεί να την ακολουθήσεις στις σουρεαλιστικές της πτυχές, με τους εξίσου σουρεάλ (ιδίως για τα μέτρα της σημερινής εποχής) χαρακτήρες και το ασύνηθες πλέον φινάλε, όπου όλοι σκοπρίζουν στα τρία σημεία του ορίζοντα (ο Μανσέτ τον ακρωτηρίασε και αυτόν και χάθηκε το τέταρτο) γλείφοντας τις πληγές τους ή εκσπερματώνοντας πάνω από τις σούπες ανυποψίαστων πελατών σε γκουρμέ εστιατόρια -WHAT? -what? (δεν έχει καν σημασία).
Η ιστορία είναι απλή, ένα αγοράκι και η γκουβερνάντα του απ(αγ)άγονται. Η γκουβερνάντα έχει μόλις εξέλθει από άσυλο φρενοβλαβών, το παιδί είναι ορφανό και η συνέχεια είναι γεμάτη απολαυστικές ατάκες, πιστολίδι και κλοπές αυτοκινήτων. Το ζουμί είναι στην ατμόσφαιρα που δημιουργείται, ένα κράμα νουάρ και σουρεάλ με εξαιρετικές ισορροπίες μεταξύ των δύο αυτών στοιχείων.
Τριάρι, αλλά τίμιο τριάρι, διαβάζεται πολύ ευχάριστα με δυο ανάσες (εντάξει, αν έχετε μικρά πλεμόνια δε φταίω εγώ).
Υ.Γ. Στη μυθολογία παρελθουσών δεκαετίων, έγινε απόπειρα να ενταχθούν τμήματα του έργου του Μανσέτ σε θύλακες (εξτρεμιστικούς στα όρια του… μυστικισμού) πολιτικού λόγου. Όχι. Το έργο δεν είναι πολιτικό, οι όποιες αναφορές είναι απλές, καθόλου κρυπτικές και συνήθως έχουν και… υποσημείωση του μεταφραστή/επιμελητή.
July 24, 2014
Like a Luc Besson movie using 100% of its brain. This is an early Manchette, and doesn't have the brooding existentialism of, say, The Prone Gunman, but it does have enough inventive mayhem for a half-dozen action flicks. This is only the fourth Manchette novel translated into English; I hope the rest follow soon.
July 1, 2021
An extra star just because this book is completely wacked. True, it's not as good as The Prone Gunman or Three to Kill, but it has the Manchette signature of comic brutality and a messed-up protagonist you want to win – in this case, a tough young woman straight from a sanitarium. Originally published in 1972 as Ô dingos, ô châteaux!, it's finally available in English from NYRB, keenly translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. From the first page, describing a hitman after an ugly murder in the first sentences:
And just because I had it at hand, I read the equally mad Jacques Tardi version alongside. Two spicy helpings, just like the choucroute.
The killer resolved to give up his trade. Soon. Every time it was worse. For the last ten hours he had been unable to eat or drink anything. Now that he had killed, hunger gnawed at him in the most repellent way. Eventually he reached the station buffet. He ordered a choucroute and devoured it. He ordered another, which he savored.
And just because I had it at hand, I read the equally mad Jacques Tardi version alongside. Two spicy helpings, just like the choucroute.
July 15, 2015
Yeah sure, Mad and Bad displays the typical Manchette style, it's a matter of factly violent novel, an indictment of the spurious nature of the petite bourgeois lifestyle, but it's also a little too explicit in its critiques for my liking, reliant on characters that are almost caricature to help make his points about France in the 70s. He wrote ten novels in ten years according to James Sallis in the introduction, an introduction that felt far more interesting and well constructed than the entirety of Manchette's novella.
November 30, 2023
A violent farce of a hired hitman tale. The baddie is a cliché of the immensely rich evil psychopath who wants to kill his orphaned nephew to ensure he never reaches an age where he inherits the fortune left by his father, currently being enjoyed by the uncle. The ridiculousness of it starts early with the evil uncle playing the long game by employing disabled, ex-drug addicts and mentally ill people to work in his factories for the sole purpose of making it seem perfectly normal to hire a woman who has been sectioned and spent months in a secure unit to be his nephew’s nanny. He can then frame her for his nephew’s murder.
In reality he has hired an English hitman who suffers from ulcers to kill the boy and his nanny. This leads to a strange mash-up of callous violence and discussions of bland food and retching as he hunts down his targets. He is accompanied by a trio of hapless goons who bring a slapstick element to proceedings and make it clear that the inept and sick assassins are no match for the girl who protects her charge with a lioness like tenacity.
It has all the features of an action movie, car chases, a shoot out in a department store, help from a fringe character who is not all he seems and little depth to the characters. They all are one-dimensional aids to move the action on.
Fast paced, violent, humorous and forgettable (which is why I haven’t used names, I can’t remember any of them). Did read somewhere that it was a satire on French society/politics of the time but if it is the case it was lost on me.
In reality he has hired an English hitman who suffers from ulcers to kill the boy and his nanny. This leads to a strange mash-up of callous violence and discussions of bland food and retching as he hunts down his targets. He is accompanied by a trio of hapless goons who bring a slapstick element to proceedings and make it clear that the inept and sick assassins are no match for the girl who protects her charge with a lioness like tenacity.
It has all the features of an action movie, car chases, a shoot out in a department store, help from a fringe character who is not all he seems and little depth to the characters. They all are one-dimensional aids to move the action on.
Fast paced, violent, humorous and forgettable (which is why I haven’t used names, I can’t remember any of them). Did read somewhere that it was a satire on French society/politics of the time but if it is the case it was lost on me.
November 8, 2014
crime fiction and ultra-violence don't typify my literary tastes, but jean-patrick manchette's the mad and the bad (ô dingos, ô châteaux!) is quite a bit of fun. with bullets, bodies, and bloodshed aplenty, manchette's novel moves with a frenzied and furious pace. despite thinly constructed characters, predictable plotting, short chapters, and staccato prose, the mad and the bad is nonetheless an entirely gripping and engrossing read. infusing some political commentary amidst the copious savageries, the french novelist and screenwriter's murderous tale is more than mere gratuitous mayhem. dark and deranged, the mad and the bad is a punishing trek through the french countryside.
*translated from the french by donald nicholson-smith (apollinaire, lebord, vaneigem, lefebvre, et al.)
stiff-backed, glass in hand, he left through the side door, and julie hesitated for a moment before pouring herself a brandy, which she downed, standing, in a single gulp, reminded of a time when, freezing cold at dawn, she would stand at a bar and wash down black coffee with four shots of calvados at the start of a day of wandering, tears, fatigue, and despair.
*translated from the french by donald nicholson-smith (apollinaire, lebord, vaneigem, lefebvre, et al.)
July 26, 2014
It's odd to read such a violent book when such violence is happening in another part of the world, but then... it all becomes a spectacle of sorts. Jean-Patrick Manchette's "The Mad and the Bad" is classic violent crime noir. The narration is a woman with mental problems with a rich little boy with a sick hired killer with a stomach problem, who is hired to kill her and the child. It's a beautifully tight book, that has no wasted words or scenes. In a way Manchette reminds me of Richard Stark, in that his prose writing is very un-poetic and is tied to a culture that likes it literature violent and absurd. A wonderful book.
September 15, 2022
کتاب سراسر از خشونت و قتل و خونریزیه. یعنی اگر یه کارگردانی بخواد از روی این رمان فیلم بسازه جز رده بندی بالای 15 قرار میگیره. من از کتابهای خشن خوشم میاد اما این یکی من رو با کلی سوال رها کرد! انگار شما دارین تو یه مقطع زمانی یک هفته ای جلو میرین بدون اینکه هیچ پیش زمینه قبلی ای از ماجرا ها داشته باشین و بدونین در نهایت ماجرا به کجاکشیده میشه! می تونست طولانی تر و با جزئیاتب یشتری ماجرا پیش بره. انگار که داستانی که ما شاهدش هستیم فقط و فقط منوط به حضور ژولی شخصیت زن داستانه. یعنی قبل و بعد از حضور ژولی ما چیزی نمیبینیم . این قضیه گیج کننده بود برام. و خب یه بخش هایی از ماجرا و شخصیت ها حضورشون واقعا اضافی بود
July 23, 2017
“As he closed the door behind him, he had time to recoil at the sight of Thompson standing against the wall beside the hinges. Then Thompson stabbed him in the heart with a rigid hacksaw blade mounted on a large cylindrical hilt with a circular sheet-metal guard. While the guard prevented the blood from spurting, Thompson pumped the cylindrical hilt vigorously, and the homosexual’s heart was sliced into two or more pieces. The victim opened his mouth and a single spasm shook him. His rump struck the door and he slumped forward dead.”
This is the opening paragraph of Jean Patrick-Manchette’s “The Mad and the Bad”. If the reader thinks that things can only calm down from there, they would be mistaken. Very, very mistaken.
I’m not even sure where to begin with this book. There isn’t a whole lot of time for character development other than some early background info on the story’s “heroine”, a young woman recently released from an insane asylum into the care of a millionaire who likes to employ the disabled and mentally ill. We also meet Hartog and Peter. The former is the aforementioned millionaire, the latter his 6 year old nephew left to him after the death of his brother. Lastly, there is Thompson. He would be the charming killer for hire (with an ulcer) introduced to us in the opening paragraph.
There is a kidnapping early in the story but after that it is difficult to sum up what happens simply because there is so much chaos. I should say instead that this book takes chaos and wraps it in wanton destruction, finally smothering it in an anarchic secret sauce. Manchette seems to take glee in destroying as much of the landscape he describes as humanly possible while simultaneosly wreaking as much physical damage to his characters as well.
What else can I really say. It’s madness, but a very cathartic and fun kind of madness I thoroughly enjoyed.
This is the opening paragraph of Jean Patrick-Manchette’s “The Mad and the Bad”. If the reader thinks that things can only calm down from there, they would be mistaken. Very, very mistaken.
I’m not even sure where to begin with this book. There isn’t a whole lot of time for character development other than some early background info on the story’s “heroine”, a young woman recently released from an insane asylum into the care of a millionaire who likes to employ the disabled and mentally ill. We also meet Hartog and Peter. The former is the aforementioned millionaire, the latter his 6 year old nephew left to him after the death of his brother. Lastly, there is Thompson. He would be the charming killer for hire (with an ulcer) introduced to us in the opening paragraph.
There is a kidnapping early in the story but after that it is difficult to sum up what happens simply because there is so much chaos. I should say instead that this book takes chaos and wraps it in wanton destruction, finally smothering it in an anarchic secret sauce. Manchette seems to take glee in destroying as much of the landscape he describes as humanly possible while simultaneosly wreaking as much physical damage to his characters as well.
What else can I really say. It’s madness, but a very cathartic and fun kind of madness I thoroughly enjoyed.
June 28, 2017
If the Monty Python team could ever be induced to write a noir novel, this is the kind of novel they might write. I don't mean that it's full of jokes -- although there are a few, and I found that, despite myself, I was grinning much of the time as I read -- but that it has the same sort of manic, over-the-top inventiveness that we came to associate with the Pythons.
Michael Hartog is a fabulously wealthy architect whose wealth and success are entirely due to the fact that his elder brother, heir to the family fortune, died with his wife in a plane crash. Unfortunately, this left Hartog with not just the money but his seven-year-old nephew, the brattish, tantrum-wielding Peter. Getting rid of Peter would render Hartog's life a whole lot rosier . . .
So he hires the flaky Julie straight out of mental hospital to be Peter's nanny and sets up with the obsessive English hitman Thompson an elaborate scheme whereby the crazed Julie, out of custody after all these years, will seem to kidnap Peter and then kill both the little boy and herself.
Of course, the scheme goes wrong. Julie may be crazy but she's not nuts -- and she's not stupid either. Moreover, neither of the bad guys has reckoned with the strength of the bond she almost immediately forms with Peter. Julie fights back with devastating effectiveness, and soon Thompson and his two thuggish heavies find themselves pursuing nanny and child across France.
As with the other Manchette novels I've read, this is pretty short and, as the action almost never flags for more than a fraction of a second, it's a quick read. Add in that Donald Nicholson-Smith's translation is really quite superb and it's no wonder that I enjoyed The Mad and the Bad so very much.
Michael Hartog is a fabulously wealthy architect whose wealth and success are entirely due to the fact that his elder brother, heir to the family fortune, died with his wife in a plane crash. Unfortunately, this left Hartog with not just the money but his seven-year-old nephew, the brattish, tantrum-wielding Peter. Getting rid of Peter would render Hartog's life a whole lot rosier . . .
So he hires the flaky Julie straight out of mental hospital to be Peter's nanny and sets up with the obsessive English hitman Thompson an elaborate scheme whereby the crazed Julie, out of custody after all these years, will seem to kidnap Peter and then kill both the little boy and herself.
Of course, the scheme goes wrong. Julie may be crazy but she's not nuts -- and she's not stupid either. Moreover, neither of the bad guys has reckoned with the strength of the bond she almost immediately forms with Peter. Julie fights back with devastating effectiveness, and soon Thompson and his two thuggish heavies find themselves pursuing nanny and child across France.
As with the other Manchette novels I've read, this is pretty short and, as the action almost never flags for more than a fraction of a second, it's a quick read. Add in that Donald Nicholson-Smith's translation is really quite superb and it's no wonder that I enjoyed The Mad and the Bad so very much.
April 17, 2016
After the extreme elegance and precision of Fatale, this feels rather eratic. But its' inventive-erratic -- startlingly harsh and odd sequences come out of nowhere, the protagonist tends to behave in much more interesting ways than many of her contemporaries, and the plot thrashes wonderfully. Super-weird villain too. So, very quick and readable, but it definitely feels like it was written earlier in his career. Lacks something in nuance and development. And what's with the -- I'm pretty sure -- computer generated blood pool on the cover? Much tackier than this requires.
August 9, 2014
Quick, brutal, addictive, too predictable, fun, Hammetty, over-the-top.
January 24, 2022
Why is everyone profusely sweating?
June 3, 2024
The "Bad" is this book and the "Mad" is me for having read it. Still better than Moby Dick.
July 21, 2023
translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith.
An apparently philanthropic architect who hires outcasts and the physically disabled hires Julie right out of a psychiatric care facility to be the nanny to his nephew Peter. On their first outing, Peter is kidnapped, along with Julie. She soon realizes she is being framed for the kidnapping. After a desperate escape, she goes on the run with Peter, trailed by a savage (and dyspeptic) killer.
This book is like Raymond Chandler on steroids, except also on PCP. Told with deadpan detachment, the story unfolds into pandemonium, with bullets flying, fire blazing, cars crashing into ravines, and heads getting smashed in. While the killers are amoral and vicious, Julie isn't much better. The character is a masterpiece of maternal mayhem, disgusted with everyone and everything but determined to save Peter. This book is so noir that the black humor and horror run together. But it’s not just blood and panic; Manchette's prose is crisp and sly. "His smile resembled the coin slot of a parking meter." Or: "The killer waved his hands vaguely, fighting off the temptation to crush the man’s cervical vertebrae." Manchette is new to me, but clearly I have been remiss is not discovering the French Jim Thompson!
An apparently philanthropic architect who hires outcasts and the physically disabled hires Julie right out of a psychiatric care facility to be the nanny to his nephew Peter. On their first outing, Peter is kidnapped, along with Julie. She soon realizes she is being framed for the kidnapping. After a desperate escape, she goes on the run with Peter, trailed by a savage (and dyspeptic) killer.
This book is like Raymond Chandler on steroids, except also on PCP. Told with deadpan detachment, the story unfolds into pandemonium, with bullets flying, fire blazing, cars crashing into ravines, and heads getting smashed in. While the killers are amoral and vicious, Julie isn't much better. The character is a masterpiece of maternal mayhem, disgusted with everyone and everything but determined to save Peter. This book is so noir that the black humor and horror run together. But it’s not just blood and panic; Manchette's prose is crisp and sly. "His smile resembled the coin slot of a parking meter." Or: "The killer waved his hands vaguely, fighting off the temptation to crush the man’s cervical vertebrae." Manchette is new to me, but clearly I have been remiss is not discovering the French Jim Thompson!
August 20, 2018
У Маншетта всего 12 романов. Почти все вышли в «чёрной серии» издательства Gallimard, подарившей миру слово «нуар». Семь романов экранизированы (Шаброль, Делон, Буассе), восемь - можно найти в переводе.
Начнем с рандомного. «В комнату вошел человек, которого Томпсон должен был убить. Это был педераст, соблазнивший сына одного промышленника. Увидев Томпсона, он вздрогнул. В следующий момент Томпсон вонзил ему в сердце негнущееся лезвие дисковой пилы, насаженное на толстую рукоятку…» Годное начало, сочное. Если вы привыкли судить французский крайм по экранизациям - могу вам лишь посочувствовать. В фильме от режиссера «Облавы» вместо педераста и кряжистого британца с пилой и повадками Паркера вы встретите только худосочного кубинца, который суетливо сбросит пьяную женщину с балкона.
Маншетт - радикальный левак, предпочитающий вместо Достоевского модных бихевиористов, поэтому персонажи его романов ведут себя зачастую непредсказуемо и глупо, а причиной этому могут стать боль в желудке, изжога или детские комплексы. Парижский архитектор получает после смерти старшего брата его миллионы, а также маленького говнюка-племянника, от которого он жаждет избавиться. Для убийства молокососа архитектор нанимает британского киллера, безупречного профессионала с целым набором нарушений в психосоматике. По плану киллера вина в смерти ребёнка целиком ляжет на плечи его новой няньки, которую совсем недавно выпустили из психушки.
Нянька оказывается очень смелой и везучей женщиной, но с одним серьезным изъяном. В дурку она попала, будучи изнасилована копом, поэтому при любой мысли о полиции впадает в истерику и панические атаки. В результате, сообщать в полицию никто из персонажей романа не спешит, что неизбежно подталкивает каждого к кровавой бойне во французском стиле. Ну, это когда люди с охотничьим ружьями бегают вокруг загородного дома или виноградника и систематически калечат друг друга.
Начнем с рандомного. «В комнату вошел человек, которого Томпсон должен был убить. Это был педераст, соблазнивший сына одного промышленника. Увидев Томпсона, он вздрогнул. В следующий момент Томпсон вонзил ему в сердце негнущееся лезвие дисковой пилы, насаженное на толстую рукоятку…» Годное начало, сочное. Если вы привыкли судить французский крайм по экранизациям - могу вам лишь посочувствовать. В фильме от режиссера «Облавы» вместо педераста и кряжистого британца с пилой и повадками Паркера вы встретите только худосочного кубинца, который суетливо сбросит пьяную женщину с балкона.
Маншетт - радикальный левак, предпочитающий вместо Достоевского модных бихевиористов, поэтому персонажи его романов ведут себя зачастую непредсказуемо и глупо, а причиной этому могут стать боль в желудке, изжога или детские комплексы. Парижский архитектор получает после смерти старшего брата его миллионы, а также маленького говнюка-племянника, от которого он жаждет избавиться. Для убийства молокососа архитектор нанимает британского киллера, безупречного профессионала с целым набором нарушений в психосоматике. По плану киллера вина в смерти ребёнка целиком ляжет на плечи его новой няньки, которую совсем недавно выпустили из психушки.
Нянька оказывается очень смелой и везучей женщиной, но с одним серьезным изъяном. В дурку она попала, будучи изнасилована копом, поэтому при любой мысли о полиции впадает в истерику и панические атаки. В результате, сообщать в полицию никто из персонажей романа не спешит, что неизбежно подталкивает каждого к кровавой бойне во французском стиле. Ну, это когда люди с охотничьим ружьями бегают вокруг загородного дома или виноградника и систематически калечат друг друга.
April 12, 2015
The Mad And The Bad is a suspense novel about a newly discharged mental patient hired to be a nanny to a rich young orphan. Shortly after the nanny starts her new job she and her young charge wind up running all across the French countryside dodging gunfire by a quartet of hired killers.
It's par for the course that suspense novels have people chasing each other firing guns relentlessly, but in order for it to be done well there needs to be some humor or romance or some character development in between the gunshots. Well, it doesn't happen here. It's just a lot of running around and little else.
I also knew the novel was in trouble when the only character in the book with any depth was the British killer Thompson. He had more personality than the nanny when he wasn't throwing up blood every three pages. And the kid was a dud, too. How someone can be six years old and never once mention his newly deceased parents defies reality.
It's par for the course that suspense novels have people chasing each other firing guns relentlessly, but in order for it to be done well there needs to be some humor or romance or some character development in between the gunshots. Well, it doesn't happen here. It's just a lot of running around and little else.
I also knew the novel was in trouble when the only character in the book with any depth was the British killer Thompson. He had more personality than the nanny when he wasn't throwing up blood every three pages. And the kid was a dud, too. How someone can be six years old and never once mention his newly deceased parents defies reality.
January 6, 2021
A violent neo-noir potboiler with radical political overtones which was so much fun to read that I finished it in one sitting. The plot concerns a recent releasee from a psychiatric institution who is brought into the employ of a wealthy and mysterious magnate and his aloof son with the charge of serving as the boy's nanny. Through a series of twists, she finds herself caught up in a ransom scheme led by a grizzled hitman in a perpetual state of gastrointestinal distress. The plot is taut and gripping and is underlied by a vicious anticapitalist commentary which remains incisive without ever being too on-the-nose. A fantastic late scene in a small-town grocery store reads like it jumped straight out of an action film, or maybe a comic book. It's no surprise that Manchette's works have been translated into graphic form on a number of occasions. If Guy Debord wrote fiction with Elmore Leonard by way of Roberto Bolaño, it might look something like this. Highly recommended.
July 5, 2016
Rarely have I so thoroughly disliked a book. I was looking for something light and entertaining, with a flavor of a different place and culture from my own. This just seemed senseless, a bloodbath of gratuitous violence. The characters seemed cartoonish, acting without normal human motivations of affection or even self interest. The introduction compares Manchette to Hammett or Chandler in the U.S., out to demonstrate that the crime novel could be "the great moral literature of our time." I found nothing in this book that grappled with the larger moral questions nor did I find it to be particularly French. I could easily imagine the same story set in America. Maybe I missed something but I'm certainly not going to spend time trying to figure out what...
June 29, 2016
Manchette translated Ross Thomas, Donald Westlake, and Watchmen; for this NYRB reprint James Sallis wrote a new intro and Ellroy blurbs "We must revere him now and rediscover him this very instant." Jesus what a book. Written in '72, in the general milieu of Simenon, Wahlöö/Sjövall, and Claude Chabrol.
The French title, with its warping of a classis Rimbaud line, is better: Ô dingos, Ô chateaux! Another French title of another Manchette book I am sure to pick up soon: Laissez bronzer les cadavres.
The French title, with its warping of a classis Rimbaud line, is better: Ô dingos, Ô chateaux! Another French title of another Manchette book I am sure to pick up soon: Laissez bronzer les cadavres.
August 26, 2014
This book describes a violent ride through the French countryside. The thin plot is dressed up with a few sentences of Marxist rhetoric and philosophic theory and overtones of existentialism to cover what was a badly written and senseless work with poorly drawn characters. Maybe the work was better in the original French - but crowning this guy the Raymond Chandler of France is way overblown. Mr. Chandler could write.
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