I was told once by a director interested in one of my novels to forget everything you think you know about Tarantino, that off-camera he is a sweet guy who just loves movies. Few filmmakers have the fame and fortune as QT, it is a unique position for a natural-born storyteller. I know a few people who find the public persona of QT to be annoying. He is a throw-back that doesn’t seem to give a shit about what is politically correct or trendy at the moment. I have always enjoyed listening to QT do interviews since he went on Charlie Rose to promote Pulp Fiction, if he was talking I was listening. I have learned a lot about storytelling. The interviews feel like the conversations that I got stuck in at the video stories with the film nerd clerk, and the reason is he was and is still that guy. My tribe in a sense.
As a filmmaker, I think QT is one of the best who has ever lived. Hyperbole? Sure but have you seen Inglorious Basterds? The opening scene and the piano bar scenes break every screenwriting rule and they are two of the best scenes ever on the silver screen. Writing for film and writing a novel are totally different. Yeah, William Peter Blatty directed the hell out of Exorcist III but Stephen King also made Maximum Overdrive.
The biggest complaint I have read is that this novel “Read like an amateur’s first draft.” Well technically speaking it is. The thing is QT is one of our greatest writers but this is his first time using this format, and the reality is many writers and serious writers are complaining that this book needed greater and deeper editing. I reject that notion but let's come back to that.
I have had several friends complain about the asides on film, that yes that comes off more like QT than the character Cliff Booth speaking. Several of them said they quit reading, that it took them out of the story. It is too bad as I do think QT settled into the novel. This is not to say it is perfect, this novel is a companion to the film and I am not sure it would work as a stand-alone. That said, now I dying to read a QT novel without the crutch of a film.
As to the editing. QT is a rule breaker. Take the Piano bar in Basterds as a prime example. It is a scene, away from the main POV characters, it stops the story dead, it spends way too much time building tension with words. The dialogue becomes Hitchcock’s famous bomb under the table. I write a scene like that in a screenplay, and I will be told NO over and over. You can’t do that, it won’t work. QT has changed history, he played with time and structure in film. Do all the experiments work? No, but most of them do as he is a master filmmaker. He breaks the rules and in film he knows exactly what he is doing. In prose those experiments probably work on your average reader, but editors and novelists like me are going to notice them like throbbing red thumb.
Imagine you are an editor working for Harper and you are given the job of editing Tarantino. As a novelist, he is guilty of breaking rules that editors would reject other authors for committing. The POV shifts from one character to another in consecutive paragraphs. Cliff Booth the tough guy stunt’s thoughts roll into an essay on Kurasawa movies, which he attempts to keep in character but just comes off as a disjointed QT film commentary. (I was fine with it) That is why bitter writers who would never be allowed to indulge like that are probably annoyed.
Even when it is awkward and my novelist’s brain rejects some of the choices on the surface, the storytelling part of my brain loves it. Fuck the rules, I like this rough stuff, I think the novel benefits from the messy execution in many ways. The reality is I want QT films essays, and I can keep the characters straight because I have seen the movie, and this author was working with the reality that 99% of the readers would have the film in their head. That is a reality that QT the novelist mind-melding with his reader KNOWS.
The in-character asides for Rick Dalton, and for Sharon Tate worked better than the ones for Cliff. Rick’s thoughts about old Hollywood and Italian films felt perfect, while Cliff’s list of top-five Kurasawa movies seemed forced. (Aside I think QT owes us an essay about how his Kurasawa list differs from Cliff’s) Although some of the Cliff scenes were better than the film. QT who was paying tribute to novelizations he read when he was young smartly changed parts of the story.
You see often when Alan Dean Foster novelized Alien, or Dennis Etchison did The Fog they were working from early scripts. So QT writing a cool alternate history where he was handed an early script to write from, this novel has a different ending. Things that work in a film might not work in the novel. In some of the asides he writes chapters of Lancer tie-ins based on the episode Rick Dalton was filming was another rule-breaking moment. But it was fun and part of the groove he got into.
Let’s talk about things I liked better in the novel. Cliff in the movie comes off as more likable in part because of the screen presence of Brad Pitt. I think one of the best signs of the novel working is I actually stopped seeing Brad Pitt in my head. The Cliff Booth I was seeing was a bit more beat-up, a rougher edge. We know more clearly about his history as a killer in the war, but unlike the film we understand that he has gotten away with murder, more than once. I thought this part also explained Cliff well…
“Cliff never wondered what Americans would do if the Russians, or the Nazis, or the Japanese, or the Mexicans, or the Vikings, or Alexander the Great ever occupied America by force. He knew what Americans would do. They’d shit their pants and call the fucking cops.”
The Bruce Lee scene that seemed to offend people is in this context. Cliff as a character would have seen Lee as just another actor. Now in the Acknowledgments QT talks about the old school Hollywood actors that told him stories. The uncomfortable truth is stories of that type were probably told about Bruce Lee. I don’t understand why Bruce Lee was so sacred when QT is writing about lots of Hollywood figures of the era.
While I think the Sphan ranch scenes ultimately worked better in the film however there was a great example of what QT added in the novel in the chapter from Charlie Mason’s POV.
“The Kids at the ranch weren’t hip to exactly how much Charlie wanted to be a rock star. How much he wanted fame, money, and recognition. Because to them, Charlie preached against those base desires.
They thought Charlie was on a spiritual path to enlightenment.
They thought Charlie’s true desire was to pass on that enlightenment.
They thought Charlie’s goal was to create a new world order guided by that enlightenment and love for all Mankind.
They believed Charlie had a higher purpose, because he told them he did, and they believed him. It never would occur to them that he’d ditch all that horseshit in a minute to put on revolutionary war outfit and trade places with Mark Lindsay.”
I really love this passage and all the moments between Rick Dalton and the young actor Trudi. This was important to me because it might be easy to think the scene worked on the power of the performances. Anyone who has read the QT scripts knows the power of these scenes is often on the page. That is really evident here.
“Well thank you, Trudi,” Now falsely modest again. “But I Don’t think I won the scene.”
“Well, of course you did,” dismissing his protest. “You had all the dialogue but,” she warns him. “In our big scene tomorrow, that’s another story. So watch out.”
Reading those scenes kinda made me feel sad for the people who quit reading early. QT clearly got into the process as the writing moved along.
I know some have questioned what this really added to the story. They’re spoilers so at this point you have been warned but to me, they speak to why this novel exists separate from the movie. Back to Cliff and likability, As a character, he was not meant to be likable, but Brad Pitt gave him that. In reality, Cliff is meant to be messy and complicated. The novel does this so much better.
This leads me to another aspect I really liked about this novel. I read lots of modern Science Fiction and horror. A good thing about the modern scene is many of the writers are smart, ethical caring people. Part of modern writing seems to be likable characters. I personally like interesting characters. I don’t have to like Cliff, in fact when in the inner monologue he thinks about things that are awful and sexist for one example I was happy to read it in a weird way. Let characters be wrong, messy, and assholes. Not just obvious villains.
The other reason this novel is cool and needed to exist is the alternate history of it all. QT is not different from many screenwriters who develop backstories and history that mostly stay off-screen. Here we get insights into this alternate Rick Dalton world. We learn that QT in this universe casts Trudi in a 1999 remake of John Sayles script for the Gangster film Lady in Red. I really enjoyed these tidbits.
Is this a crucial read? Do you love QT’s writing? Not his films, but his storytelling in pure form. I do, so I was glad to read it. It is not even my favorite QT film, even if it may be his best. I really only have one QT movie I don’t like in Death Proof and even that I appreciate. I’m a fan of the writer and this world. So yeah I think it is worth reading but now I want QT to write a proper novel.
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