

There are plenty of namedrops and needledrops to boot.Įxpanding on the movie’s mythology, the novel takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour of 1969 LA through every nook and cranny, building a lusher world around the reader. A retromania in bright colours make up the palette.

The occasional shift to a character POV provides access to their inner thoughts and consciousness. The god’s eye view offers a distanced perspective, so as to not be easily coloured by matters of morality. Writing fan fiction for his own story, he employs a cinematic vernacular entirely his own. In its novel treatment, he is playing in a sandbox already packed with his familiar toys and ephemera. Tarantino’s alt-history diorama, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, was a sun-soaked elegy to the bygone Hollywood of his boyhood memories. Review: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood A Novel by Quentin Tarantino So, it should come as no surprise that his debut outing as a novelist reads like a motion picture. Such a structure helps tie together all the historical coincidences, self-contained scenes and hyperviolent climaxes into a coherent, if not seamless, narrative. His films share the ambitions and anatomy of a novel, divided into clear-cut chapters. Quentin Tarantino’s love for the printed word has always been in bold.
