Pop. 1280 (1964)

Fast read

Think of a demented dark Sheriff Andy Taylor without Barney Fyffe. This book doesn't demand much. Just buckle up and go along for the ride. This is the first time I've read Jim Thompson although he is considered one of the best crime writer's of his day. ( )

I don’t think Jim Thompson is my kind of author. I didn’t care for the broken English or the characters. ( )

Es la primera novela de Jim Thompson que leo (gracias a mi hermano) y a pesar de que le llaman "escritor de novelitas", o "pulp king", esta novela está muy bien. Falla el final, que se me hace apresurado y que deja cabos sueltos. Pero el resto de la novela es fantástico. El prota es un sheriff glotón, vago, cuyo método de supervivencia es nunca detener ni incomodar a nadie a no ser que no haya más remedio y que el detenido no sea alguien importante o con dinero. Al principio vemos al típico personaje medio limitado, bonachón y sentimos pena por él. Pero a lo largo de la novela nos sorprenderá, él y los otros personajes. Nadie es exactamente lo que parece ser.

La lectura es entretenida, tiene puntos muy buenos y salvo el remate del final, como digo, está muy bien hecha. Un rato muy bien empleado.

Uno de mis puntos favoritos:

- So you're with the Talkington Agency," I said. "Why, god-dang if I ain't heard a lot about you people! Let's see now, you broke up that big railroad strike, didn't you?"
-"That's right." He showed me the tooth again. "The railroad strike was one of our jobs."
-"Now, by golly, that really took nerve," I said. "Them railroad workers throwin' chunks of coal at you an' splashin' you with water, and you fellas without nothin' to defend yourself with except shotguns and automatic rifles! Yes, sir, god-dang it, I really gotta hand it to you!"
-"Now, just a moment, Sheriff!" His mouth came together like a buttonhole. "We have never -- " ( )

Another masterful work of crime noir from Jim Thompson. He operates on two levels, here. First, there is the matter of the story, the plot. Pop. 1280 fits firmly within its genre. But despite the recurring iconography and conventions of that genre, it still creates one surprise and shock after another. Twist upon twist occurs, until the ultimate twist at book's end completely throws the reader for a loop.

The second level is that of psychology. The protagonist, Sheriff Nick Corey, will immediately remind readers of Thompson's other masterpiece, The Killer Inside Me, and of its hero, Sheriff Lou Ford. In fact, Ford and Corey are forged out of the same satanic pit, the same psychopathology, the same madness, and amoral abyss. I also wonder if there is something of an American Rasputin at play in this work. For the only clue to the time in which Pop. 1280 takes place is a line in which Corey wonders whether the Russian Czar will be overthrown by the Bolsheviks. It is something, at least, upon which I could not shake myself as I read on.

A final comparison between The Killer Inside Me and Pop. 1280 can be seen in their their level of descriptiveness. The Killer Inside Me is a much denser work, its psychology much more layered than that revealed in Pop. 1280. Lou Ford's evil acts grab out and clutch the reader, leaving him gasping at Ford's violence and brutality. Nick Corey's violence, on the other hand, almost seems to take place off stage. And the dialogue, the narration, and the style of prose almost seems lyrical. Corey, the malevolent mastermind, the ultimate manipulator, achieves his acts as if an angel, one part of lightness but mostly of darkness. He becomes the modern day Lucifer, and Thompson becomes a contemporary Milton. ( )

Sociopathic small town Sheriff schemes and double-crosses his way around his small village - framing friends and family, banging broads - apparently on a mission from god - the ending is somewhat unsettling. ( )