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rachelp's review
3.0
This was a fairly quick read at just over 200 pages. The characters weren't very well developed. I didn't really feel a connection with any one of them. The story itself was entertaining and I couldn't decide whether to give it three or four stars. Because even if I didn't feel much for the characters themselves, I was definitely connected to the story.
meeners's review
3.0
this is one of those books that defy the star-rating system, offering a reading experience composed of equal parts fascination and repulsion. it's a noir novel in the true sense of the term, where the protagonist is the victimizer (and, here, also the victim) and the ending is one that offers satisfaction to nobody at all, not one goddamn soul. you don't root for anybody in these kinds of novels, and what comeuppance there is contains no consolation or atonement or peace or purpose, just a bitterness, and an emptiness. why read such books? well, because they can be breathtaking in their ugliness, sometimes. and because sometimes it's relevatory to have the sheen of the world stripped away.
rendezvous in black basically replicates the plot of woolrich's earlier the bride wore black, but with one key difference: here, it's the man who seeks revenge against the people he thinks are responsible for the death of his sweetheart - not by killing them, but by killing or otherwise going after the women they love, and thus (he thinks) inflicting the same nightmare onto the men. the gender politics are utterly fascinating, especially if one takes this plot doubling to be a deliberate gesture, rather than the unfortunate outcome of woolrich's long and miserable decline*. fascinating, and abhorrent. i almost used "but" there instead of "and," but i think "and" it is and must be. because if the plot replication is deliberate, that means woolrich was really pushing the envelope in thinking about the gendered dynamics of crime through different kinds of victimizer/victim doublings. and yet it still profoundly troubles me that in this book, women remain "pure" victims who are subordinate to, and dependent on, the autonomous male antagonists. and YET i also find myself haunted by that shift into martine's perspective that comes in the fifth rendezvous, which one can read as a singular and chilling indictment of said gender problems, or rather the way those problems are made structurally necessary to the noir genre itself. (reading that bit, i thought of the scene between anton chigurh and carla jean moss in no country for old men, the film. it had some of the same feeling to it.)
GAHHHH as you can tell from the above paragraph, my thoughts are rather incoherent right now. this is partially the fault of my brain but i think it also has something to do with the book, which frankly is a mess of ludicrous improbabilities but still manages to get the mind working in ways your regular ol' potboiler can't. i don't know if i liked this book, but i would recommend it (with reservations). how does that translate into star ratings? it doesn't. but 3 is good enough for now.
*cornell woolrich's life was, as they say, stranger than fiction. swift hollywood fame followed by even swifter obscurity, a love-hate relationship with his mother that would make freud proud, closeted homosexuality, health issues that included diabetes and alcoholism and gangrene (!!), and so on. from the introduction: "On September 25, 1968, he died of a stroke, leaving two novels, a collection of short stories, and an autobiography unfinished. He had prepared a long list of titles for stories he'd never even begun, and one of these captures his bleak world view in a single phrase: 'First You Dream, Then You Die.'"
rendezvous in black basically replicates the plot of woolrich's earlier the bride wore black, but with one key difference: here, it's the man who seeks revenge against the people he thinks are responsible for the death of his sweetheart - not by killing them, but by killing or otherwise going after the women they love, and thus (he thinks) inflicting the same nightmare onto the men. the gender politics are utterly fascinating, especially if one takes this plot doubling to be a deliberate gesture, rather than the unfortunate outcome of woolrich's long and miserable decline*. fascinating, and abhorrent. i almost used "but" there instead of "and," but i think "and" it is and must be. because if the plot replication is deliberate, that means woolrich was really pushing the envelope in thinking about the gendered dynamics of crime through different kinds of victimizer/victim doublings. and yet it still profoundly troubles me that in this book, women remain "pure" victims who are subordinate to, and dependent on, the autonomous male antagonists. and YET i also find myself haunted by that shift into martine's perspective that comes in the fifth rendezvous, which one can read as a singular and chilling indictment of said gender problems, or rather the way those problems are made structurally necessary to the noir genre itself. (reading that bit, i thought of the scene between anton chigurh and carla jean moss in no country for old men, the film. it had some of the same feeling to it.)
GAHHHH as you can tell from the above paragraph, my thoughts are rather incoherent right now. this is partially the fault of my brain but i think it also has something to do with the book, which frankly is a mess of ludicrous improbabilities but still manages to get the mind working in ways your regular ol' potboiler can't. i don't know if i liked this book, but i would recommend it (with reservations). how does that translate into star ratings? it doesn't. but 3 is good enough for now.
*cornell woolrich's life was, as they say, stranger than fiction. swift hollywood fame followed by even swifter obscurity, a love-hate relationship with his mother that would make freud proud, closeted homosexuality, health issues that included diabetes and alcoholism and gangrene (!!), and so on. from the introduction: "On September 25, 1968, he died of a stroke, leaving two novels, a collection of short stories, and an autobiography unfinished. He had prepared a long list of titles for stories he'd never even begun, and one of these captures his bleak world view in a single phrase: 'First You Dream, Then You Die.'"
cspiwak's review
4.0
best mystery I have read in quote some time. You probably know the plot, devastated young man loses his fiancée due to cruelly careless act and sets his heart on revenge. Yes , some of the language is hokey, but the plot is so well done, it actually may manage to surprise you. After reading hundreds, maybe thousands of mysteries and lots of tv and movies, I thought no one could maintain suspense and create surprise anymore. Cornell woolrich delivers
invertible_hulk's review
4.0
A fun noir novel from the 40s (I think) -- Woolrich is seen as the grandfather of the Noir genre.
The main character is named Johnny Marr.
Over the course of the story, he has a fight with man whose last name is Morrissey.
Spooky.
A must-read for any Smiths fan.
The main character is named Johnny Marr.
Over the course of the story, he has a fight with man whose last name is Morrissey.
Spooky.
A must-read for any Smiths fan.
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