James Lee Burke's Louisiana

I was surprised to discover that James Lee Burke is in his 70s. I thought he was in his late 50s or early 60s. Like Philip Roth and other writers, Burke proves that F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong when he said there are no second acts in American life.

Burke is best known for his Dave Robicheaux novels. He started off writing literary fiction but had a tough time selling his work. With the Robicheaux books, he achieved wild success. I haven't read many of his books, not really that drawn to his line of grotesquely comic crime fiction. While at the library the other day, I decided to pick up his latest book, "The Glass Rainbow," which I've found highly entertaining.

Unlike Elmore Leonard, Burke doesn't shun describing the landscape, and his poetic evocations of southwest Louisiana, Acadian territory (Burke refuses to use the derogatory but popular term Cajun), rekindle my love for my native state. As with Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles, Burke's New Iberia turns into a character, along with the rest of the towns along Bayou Teche, which he turns into a mythic, mystical force.

Burke can bog down in patches of surprisingly bad writing, and the plot often strains credibility. The dialogue veers from sharpness and originality to tone-deaf banality. The characters and male-female relationships lack depth. Yet, Burke overcomes these weaknesses with his strong, forceful, evocative voice.

What I'll remember is the vision of Acadiana as a ruined paradise, its creative, funny and industrious people tragically exploited first by the ante-bellum planter class and then the oil companies and other capitalist overlords. Burke has a strong sense of the region's history, culture and traditions. At times, his philosophical musings run away from him. At others, his thoughts on the ruination of the Acadian paradise are deeply moving. A flawed writer who succumbs to the shortcomings of the farcical grotesque crime genre, Burke more often than not reaches true transcendence. 

 

Comments

[Tim Suermondt]

Well put, Louis.

[patsy lockley]

i love james lee burke, have read all his books -he is very human.