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Don Winslow's SAVAGES - Post-Release (Spoilers)

post #1 of 30
6/23/10 at 6:19pm
Thread Starter 
Since this is one of the most hotly anticipated summer releases by us cool dudes in the crime fiction thread, and since some of us have already read it via ARCs or being generally awesome, I wanted to create a place to discuss the book without spoiling it for anyone in the main thread.

This book is a masterpiece, a modern-day Butch and Sundance, and one of those crime novels that smashes through the genre ghetto and stands on its own as literature, as a great book. It really is pure unfiltered Winslow, and while I'd still recommend Dawn Patrol or Frankie Machine for those interested in an introduction to his work, it does not disappoint.

It's also heartbreaking -- there's a speech in there about California that ripped my heart out and stomped on it, because one of the brilliant things about it is that in talking about California, in talking about these rich kids who aren't too far removed from Seth and Ryan of The O.C. or any of the brats on The Hills, Winslow is talking about us. And by us, I don't just mean America, but like I said in the main thread, my generation.

This book is nothing short of a flash-bang into the ADD-addled brain of Generation Y. It deserves to be the next great cult classic, it deserves to be passed down from older brother to younger sibling, and if there's any justice in the world, Ben, Chon, and O replace Tyler, Marla, and Jack as the go-to antiheroes for the next decade to come.

It's so, so, so, so good. Plus, graphic sexual content, shameless Republican-bashing, and violence!
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post #2 of 30
6/23/10 at 11:10pm
Concur. Its absolutely amazing. Started laughing as I realized how often Don foreshadows the ending.
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post #3 of 30
7/6/10 at 2:20am
Its out next week, people. Get excited. Savages is the book of the current generation.
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post #4 of 30
7/9/10 at 9:45pm
I just finished this last night and I have to echo the love it's getting. My only other exposure to Winslow so far is Power of the Dog, so it was interesting to see how he has progressed as a writer with his prose becoming more sparse and kinetic. Which isn't meant to denigrate his older style, but just stands in contrast to it. To his credit, Winslow wrote the first book in a long time that I read in one sitting, finishing it in just a few hours.

I was surprised to see how much I ended up caring for the characters, especially their fate at the end. I would have loved to have seen another book with the three of them, but the ending was perfect and I wouldn't change a thing about it.
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post #5 of 30
7/12/10 at 3:45pm
Guys, Savages is out. Go, buy, thank me and Rath.
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post #6 of 30
7/19/10 at 12:09am
I knew that I should have kept my ass out of Borders last week but I broke down and picked this up. It was fantastic but 100% not what I expected. It was poetry with a double penetration. Has there ever been double penetration in literature before?

Moving on from the dp, I loved and hated the ending. It was beautiful how they chose to go together. The absolute love that they had for each other. Of course the "American" in me wanted a happy ending where they get away clean but it was just perfect the way it went down.
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post #7 of 30
7/19/10 at 12:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BorisTheCheese View Post
I knew that I should have kept my ass out of Borders last week but I broke down and picked this up. It was fantastic but 100% not what I expected. It was poetry with a double penetration. Has there ever been double penetration in literature before?

Moving on from the dp, I loved and hated the ending. It was beautiful how they chose to go together. The absolute love that they had for each other. Of course the "American" in me wanted a happy ending where they get away clean but it was just perfect the way it went down.
With all the allusions to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the fact that the girl is named Ophelia made it the only possible ending. I'm curious how Stone will do it(As he's adamant about not taking any of the bite out) and how Winslow did it in the script.
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post #8 of 30
12/1/10 at 12:45pm
Thread Starter 
As PK is to HuffPo, so am I to the NY Times. Maslin picks Savages as one of the best books of the year:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/bo...html?ref=books
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post #9 of 30
12/1/10 at 1:56pm
Glad to see. I'm plowing through the rest of this right now, and it's really great.
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post #10 of 30
12/1/10 at 3:58pm
Thread Starter 
Heh. Jake said plowing in a Savages discussion.
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post #11 of 30
12/1/10 at 4:59pm
I'd give one of my nuts for a chick like O. Probably the left one because I found a weird lump on it the other day.
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post #12 of 30
12/1/10 at 11:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by RathBandu View Post
As PK is to HuffPo, so am I to the NY Times. Maslin picks Savages as one of the best books of the year:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/bo...html?ref=books
Yeah, I called him this afternoon to see if he saw that. His publisher is ecstatic.
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post #13 of 30
12/2/10 at 4:32am
That ending is absolutely beautiful, just equally tragic and incredibly tender. As I mentioned in the crime thread, I really love the fact that Chon, Ben and O just love each other in different ways, O get's two very different lovers, she get's to have rough sex with Chon and with Ben, she get's an attentive lover, she pretty much get's to have her cake and eat it too, she get's to have a three way and there's no hangup's or jealousy the next morning.
I also like the fact that the book presents us with two very different women who drive most of the story along and their differing attitudes towards men.
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post #14 of 30
12/3/10 at 1:13pm
I just finished this, and HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT.

I want to read it again.
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post #15 of 30
12/3/10 at 3:30pm
Thread Starter 
That is exactly how I felt, although my reaction was more of a "...wait, what?" Then I re-read the end about twenty times to make sure I had read what I had just read.
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post #16 of 30
12/3/10 at 3:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake View Post
I just finished this, and HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT.

I want to read it again.
While being brilliant, it's also insanely readable, like The Dawn Patrol, Power of the Dog, Bobby Z, and California Fire and Life.

Gentleman's Hour hits the states this July.
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post #17 of 30
12/10/10 at 10:13am
In this week's Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King names Savages one of his ten best books of 2010.
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post #18 of 30
12/10/10 at 9:06pm
I was going to get this book anyway but now I really want to get it. King already has one of my favorite books of the year on the list, Last Night In Twisted River.
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post #19 of 30
2/16/11 at 3:11pm

I'm bumping this thread as I just finished reading it. I'm just literary dumb because I didn't see that ending until it happened. I don't care that I didn't catch the foreshadowing it.. It was perfect, sad.. It was like 10 emotions rolled up into one and while I didn't cry I had that little catch in my throat for dual reasons. The poetic ending of Ben, Chonny and O and realizing the fact that I might've read my favorite book ever. Like the master craftsman that creates his once in a lifetime work of art and from then on compares every subsequent piece lacking I fear that same to happen to me and the books I read. I know I'm heaping the praise on this book but I just can't help it.

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post #20 of 30
2/16/11 at 4:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by thecallahan View Post

I'm bumping this thread as I just finished reading it. I'm just literary dumb because I didn't see that ending until it happened. I don't care that I didn't catch the foreshadowing it.. It was perfect, sad.. It was like 10 emotions rolled up into one and while I didn't cry I had that little catch in my throat for dual reasons. The poetic ending of Ben, Chonny and O and realizing the fact that I might've read my favorite book ever. Like the master craftsman that creates his once in a lifetime work of art and from then on compares every subsequent piece lacking I fear that same to happen to me and the books I read. I know I'm heaping the praise on this book but I just can't help it.


 

I'm thrilled you liked it. It's not my favorite of his, but I love it. I think his best book is The Power of The Dog, but The Dawn Patrol and California Fire and Life are fine examples of thrillers for intelligent adults, The Dawn Patrol especially, it's easily one of the best P.I. novels ever written.  Back to Savages though, he does things with narrative and structure that I didn't even know you could do in prose. Each page was a treat precisely because I didn't know  how he'd mangle proper sentence structure or have a lack of a consistent tense and somehow turn it into art. The foreshadowing of the ending is great because it's subtle, but also really obvious once you finish it. (The earliest hint is naming a character Ophelia, but then saying she's the girl to their Butch and Sundance and in the movie, the girl lives, so that puts doubt on if she'll survive her ordeal, it could easily go either way. )

 

I've gotten several people to read it just by turning them to page 55 and showing them the rant about Republican politicians and their pundits.

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post #21 of 30
2/20/11 at 4:27pm

I'm proud to say that our very own RathBandu has been blurbed from his review on January Magazine on the cover of the paperback out March 15th.

 

http://januarymagazine.blogspot.com/2010/07/crime-fiction-savages-by-don-winslow.html

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post #22 of 30
2/20/11 at 6:19pm

Wrong thread.

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post #23 of 30
2/20/11 at 6:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by NathanW View Post

Is 'The Way Home' by George Pelecanos any good? I really liked The Turnaround but I'm not sure about The Way Home.


Wrong thread, but it's worth a read. It's very different from what he usually writes.

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post #24 of 30
2/21/11 at 11:26am

Grats, Rath!

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post #25 of 30
3/19/11 at 4:27pm

Don't want to link to rival sites, but casting for Savages is all over the net.  Who they might have for Chon is fucking perfect casting.

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post #26 of 30
3/19/11 at 10:36pm

Yep, good role for Kitsch after a couple of blockbusters.

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post #27 of 30
3/19/11 at 10:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Subotai View Post

Yep, good role for Kitsch after a couple of blockbusters.



Shame about Jennifer Lawrence, not a big fan of Olivia Wilde.

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post #28 of 30
4/22/11 at 9:57am

Gee, it would be great if CHUD would report on this Oliver Stone movie.  O has been cast. PAQU has been cast. Dennis the DEA Agent has been cast.


 

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post #29 of 30
4/22/11 at 3:05pm

http://www.chud.com/49103/half-of-hollywood-finds-work-in-oliver-stones-savages/

 

Ms Rappe to the rescue.

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post #30 of 30
4/22/11 at 3:44pm
Interesting cast aside, I really hope Stone doesn't screw this up.
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