Chamber: Grisham vs Turow
Mike Strock
>>I've found them going steadily downhill, considered as books, though I
>>thought The Client was quite good as a movie treatment. Better than
>>The Pelican Brief, where I couldn't help wondering why the heroine
>>didn't just post her idea on the net. My credulity no longer stretches
>>to include a McGuffin which is a single copy of a research paper.
Mary Ellen (and others)....
I've read all of Grisham's books so far, and liked the Client the best
of all. I have recently finished the Chamber and liked it, although I
thought it wasn't up to par with the other books that Grisham has
written.
You mention above about "...thought The Client was quite good as a movie
treatment." - I did not know that this movie was out yet. I also saw
The Firm (didn't care for it) and the Pelican Brief, which I thought was
a good adaptation of the book.
One thing about Grisham I have found though. I sometimes have compared
him to Scott Turow, although I much prefer Grisham. Scott Turow's first
book was EXCELLENT, in my opinion (Presumed Innocent). So, I purchased
his next book in hardback when it first came out (The Burden of Proof).
I have to say that it is the most difficult to follow book I think I've
ever tried to read. And in all the time I've had the book, I've only
been able to get through the first 3 chapters or so before I put it
down.
But Grisham I can read straight through, and find his books quite
enjoyable. Scott Turow disappeared (AFAIK) after "The Burden of Proof"
was released. I hope that doesn't happen to Grisham, given that it
seems that "The Chamber" is getting much the same response as Turow's
"Proof"...
Thoughts? Are there any other authors out there of this same type of
genre which are good?
Thanks!
Mike Strock
mst...@eskimo.com
* RM 1.4 B0013 * Careful, we don't want to learn from this. - Calvin
Ton Lenssen
Bill Garrett
|>
|> I've read all of Grisham's books so far, and liked the Client the best
|> of all. I have recently finished the Chamber and liked it, although I
|> thought it wasn't up to par with the other books that Grisham has
|> written.
<shudder>
I never thought Grisham was a good writer, and he's getting worse.
Everyone's entitled to their own opinions; this is mine. His books read
like novelizations of movies -- ie, mostly plot synopsis, poor
characterization, all the dumb "hooks" that sell movies in the US --
and poor ones, at that. ATTK was readable, Firm was annoying, and
Pelican Brief was plain lousy. I traded it to a used bookstore as
soon as I finished it. After that disaster, I'm not buying any more
of his books, and I probably wouldn't even waste my time reading them
if they were given to me for free.
|> One thing about Grisham I have found though. I sometimes have compared
|> him to Scott Turow, although I much prefer Grisham. Scott Turow's first
|> book was EXCELLENT, in my opinion (Presumed Innocent). So, I purchased
|> his next book in hardback when it first came out (The Burden of Proof).
|> I have to say that it is the most difficult to follow book I think I've
|> ever tried to read. And in all the time I've had the book, I've only
|> been able to get through the first 3 chapters or so before I put it
|> down.
I've read three of Turow's books: Presumed Innocent, Burden of Proof,
and Pleading guilty (came out about a year ago). I liked Burden the best,
with Presumed a close second. Pleading Guilty was interesting, but in
it Turow experiments with a different style of writing, a monologue by
the main character. I consider Turow far superior to Grisham.
--
Bill Garrett "Life would be so much easier if we
gar...@cs.unc.edu could just look at the source code."
MikeP81576
>Thoughts? Are there any other authors out there of this same type of
>genre which are good?
Wow, I'm impressed. Someone actually willing to read beyond Grisham
and Turrow. If only the rest of the fair-weather readers in America
would also wake up and smell the coffee.
Mike
MikeP81576
Garrett) writes:
>Pelican Brief was plain lousy. I traded it to a used bookstore as
>soon as I finished it. After that disaster, I'm not buying any more
>of his books, and I probably wouldn't even waste my time reading
them
>if they were given to me for free.
Ditto in spades. I was really into him until PB. Yuck.
Mike
kim g helliwell
>I've read three of Turow's books: Presumed Innocent, Burden of Proof,
>and Pleading guilty (came out about a year ago). I liked Burden the best,
>with Presumed a close second. Pleading Guilty was interesting, but in
>it Turow experiments with a different style of writing, a monologue by
>the main character. I consider Turow far superior to Grisham.
>--
>Bill Garrett "Life would be so much easier if we
>gar...@cs.unc.edu could just look at the source code."
I guess I had the misfortune to read Pleading Guilty first, and figured
that I would ever after give Turow a miss; I hated PG! I couldn't get
into the character at all--I thought he was a sniveling apologist for
his own moral weaknesses.
I will grant that Turow is an entirely different order of author than
Grisham (at least, up to "The Chamber"; more on that in a minute), so I
can't really understand why you are comparing them. They are in a
different league.
...Except when it comes to "The Chamber". I just finished it, and I think
it is a much more serious book than any other Grisham effort. I found it
both thought-provoking and moving. I think this book puts Grisham right
up there in the same (or higher) league with Turow.
So how about a deal? I'll give Turow another chance, and you give
Grisham another chance. OK?
Kim Helliwell
kim g helliwell
>What about Nancy Taylor Rosenberg's "Mitigating Circumstances"?
yuck! Couldn't get past the first chapter! It seemed so trite, somehow.
Karl....@syntex.com
> >Pelican Brief was plain lousy. I traded it to a used bookstore as
> >soon as I finished it. After that disaster, I'm not buying any more
> >of his books, and I probably wouldn't even waste my time reading
> them
> >if they were given to me for free.
>
> Ditto in spades. I was really into him until PB. Yuck.
>
Oh, good. I thought I was the only one who didn't like PB. I just couldn't
buy the premise: a law student figures out why _two_ supreme court justices are
murdered and no one else can?? I didn't believe that one for a second. And then
she successfully out-smarts the bad guys? As I was reading, I thought "she
should have been dead a fourth of the way through the book".
I'm not at liberty to judge the quality of Grisham's work, but after that
novel, I was not inclined to read another. I heard enough about "The Firm"
(the book), but just didn't bother to pick it up.
Ton Lenssen
>t...@suppnet1.support.nl (Ton Lenssen) writes:
Maybe it is (trite). I managed to read it to the end, but lost track of the
plot in the last chapters. I meant to mention a book of an author of the same
type as Turow and Grisham, as Mike Storck asked. By this "type" I understand
"legal novels". Of course the books of Grisham are thrillers, but Turow
writes more of a novel. There is more psychology and character-building in
his "The burden of proof" than in any of the books of Grisham (or all together).
What I am interested in, so, is the genre of the "legal novel". Just being a
European I would very much like to get more information on American "legal
novels".
Ton.
Mary Ellen Curtin
>I've found them going steadily downhill, considered as books, though I
>thought The Client was quite good as a movie treatment.
Mike Strock <mst...@eskimo.com> replied
>I did not know that this movie was out yet.
What I meant was, it *reads* like a movie treatment rather than a
novel. Not surprising, given that the movie rights to his books have
been selling for enormous sums before the books even hit the stands.
As Bill Garrett <gar...@cs.unc.edu> said,
>His books read
>like novelizations of movies -- ie, mostly plot synopsis, poor
>characterization, all the dumb "hooks" that sell movies in the US --
>and poor ones, at that.
Mark goes on to say
>One thing about Grisham I have found though. I sometimes have compared
>him to Scott Turow, although I much prefer Grisham. Scott Turow's first
>book was EXCELLENT, in my opinion (Presumed Innocent).
I believe his first book was actually _One-L_, an account of his first
year at Harvard Law School. I think it's the basis for _The Paper
Chase_.
To my taste, Turow is generally superior to Grisham. Grisham writes
stories with a great deal of action, and there's no denying that the
pages keep on turning. But Turow is more interested in the problem of
motive.
I think the interest in motive is what makes mysteries the most widely
read, and possibly the most popular of genre categories (I don't know
if romances sell more titles and, if so, whether they do so by selling
more books each to fewer people). I don't know of any other genre that
has so many authors that automatically make the best-seller lists: Dick
Francis, Scott Turow, John Grisham, Tony Hillerman, Sara Paretsky, Sue
Grafton, Elmore Leonard, Ruth Rendell, the Kellermans, etc., etc. . . .
IMHO, this is because motive is a perpetually interesting problem, and
the combination of motive questions with danger and excitement is very
hard to resist.
One reason I like Turow so much, especially _The Burden of Proof_, is
that his books don't contain unnecessary violence. In fact, they are
just about the only modern mysteries (if that's what they are) that
pass what I modestly call "the Curtin test": "thou shalt not multiply
dead bodies beyond the minimum needed for the plot." TBoP passes with
flying colors because it is not really about whodunnit, but whydunnit.
Yours mysteriously,
Mary Ellen
internet: <p01...@psilink.com>
postal: 9 Titus Mill Rd., Pennington, NJ 08534, USA
