Coincidence

I was just finishing reading my charity shop copy of James Ellroy's LA Confidential and deciding it would have to go in the recycling bin (too much racist language) when I realised that the film version was on TV. I watched a tiny bit of it, and was intrigued to see how much they had changed the plot- and also weeded out the incomprehensible LA slang that made the book so difficult to read. What was interesting was to see the actors. Because the book is so stuffed with words, it's the personalities of the protagonists that you imagine, not what they look like. The men are often described in grades of bulk rather than through variations of facial features, although there's a lot of talk about plastic surgery. I think in my head I had imagined them all as being incredibly ugly, because their thoughts and actions are so hideous. The film stars look normal, because we can't see inside their brains to register the darkness inside them. It's odd to read a book that is so utterly pointless,…