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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

BRICK OUTHOUSE: A Jack Reacher novel

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miss wonderstarr

06:21 / 15.08.06

Yet one major flaw in my opinion is that Reacher is so uninformed about coffee. He can tell whether a pistol is the German copy of a Japanese import, what kind of bullet it takes, whether it can be adapted illegally to a certain silencer, how many the US military bought in 1990 and so on, but when it comes to coffee he just likes it strong. Hot. Black.

You would think someone who claims an actual addiction to coffee, has been drinking it since age 5 (or so... The Enemy) and clearly loves and needs the stuff would be more discriminating. He'd care about the national origin of his coffee; at least about how it was made. Reacher, though, is fine with stewed stuff in a cafeteria as long as there's a lot of it. He tells you the Army had the best coffee and that they shipped it out in big drums. You can't imagine that Gulf War joe is really the best in the world. Maybe that explains it? The coffee he became addicted to as an Army brat is shit coffee.

21:31 / 15.08.06

I think he'd consider it an affectation to know much about coffee - like drinking it any way other than black and strong. I can easily believe a guy who doesn't own anything but the clothes he wears is just addicted to the bitter, caffeinated rush of coffee-as-such and doesn't care about the details.

miss wonderstarr

22:17 / 15.08.06

I guess, but he is half French and loves Paris (and has a surprising grounding in various types of literature) so he's not entirely opposed to the finer side of culture.

Maybe if you're addicted to something (like alcohol) you don't care about the subtleties, you just want the kick, like you say. I don't know: the junkies in Irvine Welsh novels (my main source of info about heroin addiction) seem to discriminate quite a bit in terms of drug quality and type. And as someone who drinks a fair amount of coffee herself, I think good coffee has a much harder kick than bad.

I sometimes wish L. Child was reading this thread. He does apparently participate in his own website.

00:46 / 16.08.06

Do you really think Lee Child is one guy? I have the strong impression its a pen name used by a stable of authors.

I dunno about the coffee, I kind of think you're right. But he spent almost his whole life on bases, probably drinking the same crap. Good coffee is an acquired taste, it seems plausible to me he just never acquired it.

miss wonderstarr

18:24 / 16.08.06

I am on Reacher's first adventure now. It jars a little, for the following reasons:

~ big spoilers already given in later books (which I read earlier), namely Without Fail

~ Reacher is only 6 months out of the military, and kind of light-hearted and easy-going: he also has a fairly keen interest in music (seems to be blues) that seems to have been largely forgotten in the later novels (I think he gets into a Shania Twain song by chance during One Shot, and he enjoys another pop song on the radio in Tripwire I think, but he seems to give up the practice of listening to a personal jukebox in his head after this book).

~ Reacher's voice doesn't seem quite so well grounded. Would an American say "this lot were pretty good", referring to a band? That sounds very English to me.

~ Just diminishing returns. You know every time an eligible woman crops up, it'll go through this process:

1. She looked good. Very good. Nice breasts.

2. She smiled. Reacher wanted her. More than anything. He kissed her, hard and long.

3. She was wearing some kind of flimsy underwear. Then she wasn't wearing it anymore. Obstacle surmounted.

4. Next morning, they ate eggs and drank pints of coffee.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

19:19 / 16.08.06

I think he gets into a Shania Twain song by chance during One Shot

It was Sheryl Crow. It sounded good to his ears.

I actually found that very distancing...

miss wonderstarr

19:25 / 16.08.06

I feel the same about his love for Howling Wolf, Bobby Bland and Wild Child Butler in Killing Floor, mainly because I don't know what they sound like ~ but I can see how Sheryl Crow could put a person off Reacher, too.

Then again, I found exactly the same lipcurling distancing when Ian Rankin's "Rebus" harps on about music ~ even though I actually like some of the music he mentions (eg. The Fall). That's probably partly because Rebus sounds like such a trampy old uncle, in a horrible flat, spending his time mooching around nasty pubs, but also because you can't help feeling the author is speaking when the character praises certain tracks, and it seems clumsy somehow.

20:30 / 16.08.06

I'm reading Killing Floor now, and it's the first Reacher novel I've read...

miss wonderstarr: Reacher is only 6 months out of the military, and kind of light-hearted and easy-going

That's something I'm actually really enjoying. Especially where (spoilers, I suppose) he's in prison trying on someone's glasses in front of the mirror -ha ha, it's me in glasses then I killed some Nazis who were coming at me in a 3:1 ratio (Nazi:Reacher). It's quite charming, seems to feed into what was said upthread about the childlike quality; he is so hard he can kill prison toughs without really thinking about it, but his idea of fun is singing his favourite songs in his head.

I also think (in this book) he does more hand-holding than having sex, overall. It's not like he doesn't enjoy sex - HE TOTALLY DOES - there just seem to be so many more opportunities for holding hands.

miss wonderstarr

21:15 / 16.08.06

Oh there is also a really good and unique (to me) bit in Killing Floor where you are party to Reacher PUTTING ON THE ACT OF BEING REACHER.

There's this page where he feels Roscoe (ouch! what next, a guy called Pistol) needs reassurance and stability, so Reacher controls his own qualms, forces himself to stop blinking and comes out with all this semi-believable bullshit about "You think four guys could stop me? They try it, they're going out of here in a pail. Stick with me and you'll be fine, babe."

There is one other comparable scene I've come across so far, in Echo Burning where he tucks his shirt into his pants ("some physical trainer girl had told him it made his torso look more triangular") and squeezes his steering wheel to pump up his biceps, again preparing to play a role.

It's interesting though that Reacher's almost superhumanly badass persona is shown in the first book to be partly a performance.

Happy Dave Has Left

15:33 / 17.08.06

Buying one on the way home, mainly cos I want to post to this thread.

Awesome.

17:56 / 17.08.06

I just noticed that my grocery store has an entire shelf of Reacher books, next to the magazines. I'll be joining you all soon, I think.

I don't really know anything about autism, but I get the popular impression that it can combine an incredibly specialist bank of knowledge with an innocence and naivety in other areas ~ and Reacher does have those qualities.

It's not just me, then? I'm awfully autism-centric these days, but that was the first thing I thought of reading the descriptions and quotes. I wonder if that was at all deliberate, or just an accident of characterization?

miss wonderstarr

22:14 / 17.08.06

Killing Floor, the debut novel, is thus far really flat for me... maybe because I've encountered all Reacher's patterns and traits before, in subsequent books. Personally I would still recommend One Shot as possibly the best, and certainly a good way in... not least because Reacher doesn't turn up for ages, and seems pretty underplayed compared to his other, melodramatic performances.

Happy Dave Has Left

08:02 / 18.08.06

Bought it last night. I did my dissertation on British espionage fiction. This is some kind of weird Brit/American Clancy/Le Carre mashup. It's fantastic. A lot of it reads as almost semi-parodic, like Bukowski's Pulp. Thanks for convincing me guys - will post more thoughts on this once I've chewed through a few more pages.

miss wonderstarr

08:17 / 18.08.06

Which novel did you go for, Dave?

Happy Dave Has Left

11:02 / 18.08.06

One Shot, happily. Reacher has just dropped the bombshell about why he's come to town, really. Bit of an enigma thus far - not getting much of the 'off the grid' chat as yet, just lots about coffee. Hot. Black. Strong. The right way.

Lycra, Reacher thought. Can't beat it.

Don't Yanks call it Spandex?

miss wonderstarr

14:13 / 18.08.06

Yes, apparently.

Spandex is the preferred name in North America and Australia, while elastane is most often used elsewhere, such as in Europe.

Another example of Child's American drag slipping. There is a chapter on "Jack Reacher and Englishness" in my forthcoming Earth-2 anthology, Brick Outhouse: Critical Reflections on Lee Child's Jack Reacher Novels, Coffeepress forthcoming 2008.

16:59 / 18.08.06

Actually, in Australia lycra and spandex are two different fabrics. You run them together overseas?

miss wonderstarr

17:28 / 18.08.06

The only time I've heard of spandex is in journalism about how ridiculous superheroes supposedly are.

Happy Dave Has Left

14:25 / 19.08.06

Check it out, the venerable Miss Snark praises Lee Child's writing. Miss Snark is awesome by the way, really great blog.

22:26 / 20.08.06

Spandex = shiny, Lycra not?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:43 / 20.08.06

I looked in my change jar. There was enough for a book. A book, and maybe a pint. Handy, I thought. The pub's close to the bookshop. But what book?
A Reacher. It had to be a Reacher.

00:24 / 21.08.06

The idea of buying a Reacher book and then taking it to the pub to the read is the best thing I have heard in ages! I am sorry that wasn't in short, terse sentences. I was overcome with excitement!

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

00:52 / 21.08.06

Try it! (I do it with most books, tbh... but it worked a charm with One Shot, so I hope the magic's still there!)

Happy Dave Has Left

09:33 / 21.08.06

This is a peach -

"He put the shirt in the sink to soak. He didn't want blood on a day-old shirt. A three day-old shirt maybe, but not a day-old one."

Awe-some!

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:24 / 21.08.06

Now about a third of the way through "The Visitor". It has too many quotable lines to go with ALREADY. I'll find some when I've got to the end.

miss wonderstarr

15:16 / 21.08.06

I just realised I only have two more Reacher novels before I'm forced to either buy the hardcover The Hard Way, or wait for it to come out in paperback.

I could have sworn someone mentioned a Reacher novel called "Running Blind" on page one, which tricked me into believing there were maybe three more adventures still to come. I'll have to check that.

miss wonderstarr

15:19 / 21.08.06

Yeah...

I just read my first Jack Reacher novel, Running Blind. I wasted half a day on it, writing off all the important things I needed to do. I just couldn't stop reading it. The ending was so far past ridiculous it made that bullet-stopping pectoral sound like high realism. I will read more.

What's this "Running Blind", Jackie Susann? It's not listed on the front page of my copy, which includes them all from Killing Floor to One Shot. Could this be some Northern Lights/Golden Compass bait-and-switch?

miss wonderstarr

15:22 / 21.08.06

Re. Miss Snark:

You know Reacher is watching closely; you know he knows something about cops. Notice he never says "I knew this" or "I watched him get out of the car". You're just inside his head and careful choice of language and focus lets you know what Jack Reacher is about.

The quibble I have with this is that Lee Child's prose is just the same when we're inside Reacher's head as outside it. This isn't really some Henry Jamesian privileged access to Reacher's stream of thought processes: it's just the way Child writes. If it's third person, the language, rhythm, terminology, frame of reference, tone and so on are identical.

17:09 / 21.08.06

I picked up Tripwire on the recommendation of this thread. I raced through the book in no time at all because I couldn't put it down.
That said though when I'd finished I felt a little bit short-changed somehow. There's various bits and pieces that made Reacher as a character not ring true, made me think that he's been created as a hero for a series of thrillers rather than as a real person. This was particularly true when Reacher took a bullet and was fine because he was just so damn tough.
Still I reckon I'll be checking out some other Reacher books, as they're definately gripping page turners, and maybe I'm being a little harsh.

22:11 / 21.08.06

Um, I definitely read one called Running Blind that I got at my local library. Its about Reacher being wrongly targeted as a serial killer by the FBI's profilers and then recruited to help with their case. It is all tense and how it should be except for the end which is BEYOND STUPI

(Possibly its an alternate Australian title for one that's called something else in the States?)

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:55 / 21.08.06

Just looked online, and Running Blind is indeed the US title of The Visitor, coincidentally the one I'm in the middle of right now.

23:35 / 21.08.06

I can't believe I went to the trouble of capitalising 'beyond stupid', and then spelt it wrong.

miss wonderstarr

07:23 / 22.08.06

Good title for the next novel, though. BEYOND STUPI

07:31 / 22.08.06

I just finished Echo Burning last night, and I was pretty disappointed, I think. See, when I cast my mind back on it, the only bit of the book I really enjoyed was a description of Reacher smacking the crap out of two dudes in a bar, with a pool cue, which accounts for maybe one paragraph out of a 550 page book.

It certainly had an addictive quality about it, I did find it hard to put down and I do think this is due to the character of Reacher rather than anything in the prose style of the book. There's definitely some a frisson of excitement that comes with the story of a stranger riding into town and standing up to the bullies, and the book worked in the same way as Mad Max 2 or Shane, or any of the billions of pre-cursors. So I think I kept reading it in anticipation of the bad guys getting their come-uppance. When it came, though, it was often unsatisfying and unimaginative. Reacher goes to collect a debt off some rich racist landowner. What's he going to do? What ingenious intimadation is he going - oh he just threatened to throw his son off a balcony and the dude coughed up. It's nowhere near as pleasing as that bit in LA Confidential where they dangle the DA out the window.

So, I feel a bit 'meh' towards my first Reacher experience. The things people seem to praise him for - spare prose and tight plotting - don't ring true for me. At one point, I was practically skim reading, skipping to the end of the paragraphs to get to the point about where the story's going. That you can successfully do this suggests - surely - that large chunks of the book are more or less redundant. If you tried that with James Ellroy, you'd be lost after two pages. As for tight plotting, this didn't come off at all. If anyone can tell me who hired the 'watchers' whose activities open Echo Burning, and why I'd be very grateful. I'm pretty sure they were just forgotten about and left as an unexplained plot-hole.

I dunno. I'm tempted by Tripwire at the moment, just because I like the idea of him getting blasted in the face and having his brow stopping the shot, but I think that maybe the end of the affair.

08:34 / 22.08.06

The appeal to me, much more than 'tight plotting' or 'spare prose', is that at any moment, there is a statistically significant chance the next paragraph or sentence will come out of absolutely fucking nowhere. Its like, I love in 24 that whenever anyone has to deal with a problem, they always pick the most insane plan you could possible come up with (short of attacking the Mayor with hummus, I guess). Reacher does that, too, but instead of an insane plan he may just come out with some bizarro comment about internal organs or Dostoyevsky or who knows what else.

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