Style
Thompson's stories are about grifters, losers, sociopaths and psychopaths—some at the fringe of society, some at its heart—their nihilistic world-view being best-served by first-person narratives revealing a frighteningly deep understanding of the warped mind. There are no good guys in Thompson's literature—most everyone is abusive, opportunistic, or simply biding time until an appropriate opportunity for such behavior presents itself.
Despite some positive critical notice, Thompson's novels were essentially lost in the crowd among dozens of peer writers such as??? who also were churning out crime novels; only after his best years as a writer did Thompson achieve a measure of fame. Yet that neglect might stem from his novels' style: the crime novels are fast-moving and compelling but sometimes sloppy and uneven. Thompson wrote quickly with little revision or editing (many novels were written in a month); using his newspaper experience he wrote concise, evocative prose quickly and with little editing.
Yet at his best his novels were among the most effectively and memorably written genre pieces. He also managed unusual and highly successful literary tricks: for example, halfway though A Hell Of A Woman, the first-person narrator Frank "Dolly" Dillon has a mental breakdown; the sides of his personality then take turns narrating the story's chapters, alternately violently psychotic (telling the sordid tale that actually happened) or sweet-natured and patient (telling the idealized fantasy that did not happen). In the final page of the original manuscript the two sides of Dillon's broken personality appear together as two separate columns of text. The publisher disliked that, and instead alternated the two narrations in one, long paragraph, alternating standard Roman type and italicised type. Thompson disliked the change, thinking it confusing and difficult for the reader.
For most of his life Jim Thompson drank heavily; the effects of alcoholism often featured in his works, most prominently in The Alcoholics (1953) which is set in a detoxification clinic. Donald E. Westlake, who adapted The Grifters for the screen, observed that alcoholism had a great role in Thompson's literature though it tended to be tacit and subtle. Westlake described typical personal relationships in Thompson novels as pleasant in the morning, argumentative in the afternoon, and abusive at night—behavior common to the alcoholic Thompson's style of life but which he elided from the stories.
Read more about this topic: Jim Thompson (writer)
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“The authoritarian child-rearing style so often found in working-class families stems in part from the fact that parents see around them so many young people whose lives are touched by the pain and delinquency that so often accompanies a life of poverty. Therefore, these parents live in fear for their children’s future—fear that they’ll lose control, that the children will wind up on the streets or, worse yet, in jail.”
—Lillian Breslow Rubin (20th century)
“Carlyle must undoubtedly plead guilty to the charge of mannerism. He not only has his vein, but his peculiar manner of working it. He has a style which can be imitated, and sometimes is an imitator of himself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)