Synopsis/blurb...........Is Manuela Aloe a gift from heaven or the girlfriend from hell? From the moment Britt Rainstar starts seeing the curvaceous heiress, he finds himself menaced by vicious dogs, stalked by pistol-packing skeletons, and attacked by an unseen assailant in a hospital lobby. Couldn't Manny just send flowers?My last Jim Thompson read was 3 years ago in October 2010, back when I was recording what I had read books-wise but wasn’t penning any thoughts on them. The book at that time was The Alcoholics and to be truthful I can’t really remember what I thought of it, good, bad or indifferent.This time around The Rip-Off was my Goodreads Pulp Fiction group read for September. Published posthumously around 1985, the book has mixed reviews on Amazon US. The 1-star reviews outnumber the 4-stars by 3 to 2, with a couple in-between and no-one rating it as a 5.My thoughts...... short-ish at 220-odd pages which was a plus point, particularly in view of the fact that the menacing of Britt Rainstar and the whole plot or premise of the book, I felt indifferent to. Some on-line comments on the book, regard it as an attempt by Thompson to pen a comedic novel, something I wouldn’t necessarily agree with though it did have some humorous moments. I felt a lack of tension as the book unfolded and irrespective of Rainstar’s ultimate fate at the end, I was already looking forward to my next read.Thompson doesn’t shy away from describing some of the bodies less savoury functions and I guess he was ahead of his time in respect of trying to push boundaries a bit further. Nothing too graphic, but did it add to the story, or was it included to satisfy his own whims? Who knows? As a separate observation, one thing is probably sure though, I don’t think too many of his protagonists died lacking for sex.The posthumous nature of the book’s appearance after his death has me wondering whether it was an attempt to cash in on his restored reputation. Had it been rejected and refused when he was alive? Too weak? Some publishing notes at the front of my Corgi paperback copy, advise that when he died in 1977, none of his books were available in print in the US. Critical opinion of Thompson has grown in the intervening years and he is ranked with other hard-boiled masters such as McCoy, Chandler and Hammett. The critics probably didn't have The Rip-Off in mind when re-evaluating his place in the pantheon.Toying between a 2 and a 3, on balance I’ll give it a 2 from 5. Not the worst book I have ever read, by a long shot, and whilst I didn't want to attack myself with a scissors when reading I would hesitate to recommend it.I have read and enjoyed a fair few of Jim Thompson’s books in the past and will do again in the future, and if this is his weakest at least it’s out of the way.I acquired my copy second hand recently, as I couldn't find the original among the chaos of my library.
Published for the first time long after his death, The Rip-Off is hardly essential Thompson, and lacks the bite of his more well-known novels. Still, there's something to be said about his more madcap books, and The Rip-Off is up there with The Golden Gizmo as one of Thompson's more cartoonish stories. The plot follows Britt Rainstar, a down-on-his-luck writer (Thompson always wrote what he knew) who, in a seeming parody of pulp novels, meets a femme fatale and suffers multiple attempts on his life by a mysterious assailant as he begins working for an enigmatic corporation. I'm not entirely sure if Thompson intended for The Rip-Off to be serialized—as that's how it was originally published—but it reads as if was. The story is propelled by wild twists and cliffhangers, and while some of them feel somewhat unearned, these moments give the novel an excellent pace, as the narrator is propelled from event to event without much say in things. Overall, it's a light, enjoyable read, though Thompson often stoops to crudeness instead of opting for the clever innuendo of his previous works. The Rip-Off did teach me the expression "tighter than a popcorn fart," though, so I guess the uninspired vulgarity isn't ALL bad.
What do You think about The Rip-Off (2014)?
The main character seems a bit foolish. The temporal location is off somehow.. Somewhat futuristic in the corporateishness of it all, but a bit of the past as well, where a martini costs $1.50?!? Interesting read overall, but it kinda starts in the middle, goes into flashback, and then returns to present..Kindof like a Tarrantino flick without the edge and revitalization of a mid '70s star.
—Lacee
Wow: this one is crazy, even by Big Jim standards. One damn thing after another, and a female urination fetish throughout. Something like a mystery, only without humans acting as humans do, and a surprise killer who wears makeup, may look like a goblin, and comes completely from out of nowhere. Also, the narrator is Native American, but to what end I find it impossible to guess. (Not that there needs to be an end to being a Native American, but he talks about it so frequently that I thought the book might do--well, something with it. Unless the whole thing is some sort of allegory for the American treatment of natives, in which case, ugh.)This one really hammers home the "preposterous" in "preposterously entertaining."
—Michael Meeuwis
[5/10] Everything all right, Britt?Absolutely perfect, I said bitterly. How else could it be for a guy with a schizoid wife, and a paranoid girlfriend? If one of them can't send me to prison or the electric chair, the other will put me in the nuthouse or the morgue! Britton Rainstar is in a fine mess, but frankly no more than he deserves. Heir to a famous Native American name, son of a university professor hunted by the McCarthysts, owner of a once luxurious, now dillapidated mansion, he is out of work, pennyless and mixed in some seriously unhealthy love affairs. No one wants trouble, dammitt, but you don't avoid it by turning your back on it. The more you run, the more you have chasing you, scolds detective Claggett, possibly the only person who isn't trying to profit from Britton Rainstar's weaknesses. The bank repossessed his car, the insurance company is burying him in late payment charges and penalities, the city council put a garbage dump on his property, his wife might press murder charges on him if he stops sending her blood money and his new girfriend just set a killer doberman on him in an access of jealousy.Britt response to all these troubles? Absolutely nothing. He puts his head in the sand, crosses his arms and waits for the the issue to go away. The author explains his atitude as protective camouflage, as an intelligent man hiding his talents in order to avoid notice and to stay out of trouble, but I was unconvinced, and for a novel presented in the first person, this lack of enthusiasm for the main narrator has a major negative impact on my overall rating. I also found the prose generally lacklustre and too liberal with the swear words, but that may be an aftereffect of my annoyance with Britt's passivity. ( Any damage you do, I imagine, is the result of not doing; just letting things slide. You don't have the initiative to deliberately hurt anyone. says the same Claggett). Britt is goofy where I was expecting a tragic victim of persecution, and maybe a better way to enjoy the novel is to look at it as an example of screwball comedy instead of existentialist noir. The final confrontation between the cowardly and clueless Britt and his tormentors sure qualifies as hilarious. If that was the intention of the author, than my rating is too low. If I was meant to take things seriously, my rating is too high.Still, I want to give Jim Thompson another chance, and for that I would go for his highest rated novel here: The Killer Inside Me.
—Algernon
