As long as we're slinging literary soundtracks...

[Mark Thibodeau]

Figured I might as well send along a link to my own compiled
soundtrack for / slash / review of PIMP, the pseudo-autobiographical
novel by Iceberg Slim. Oh, and yes, if I wrote it today, I would never
say that it was "perhaps one of the first novels to have a built-in
soundtrack". Thanks for educating me, P-List, now as ever!

Cheers!
yer old pal Jerky

***

So there's this book, PIMP, written by Iceberg Slim, also known as
Robert Beck, also known as Robert Lee Maupin. First published in 1969,
PIMP has sold over 2 million copies over the years, and it hasn't been
out of print ever since. Equal parts autobiography, confessional,
manifesto and training manual, PIMP provides the reader with a 3D,
Technicolor expose of a much-maligned profession to which many have
aspired, but few have had the brains and ruthless chill to pull off.

Iceberg spent over 20 years pimping hard on some of the fastest tracks
in the nation, eventually giving up the game after his last prison
stint. He seems to have turned to writing almost out of desperation,
and it's a good thing he did. If he'd focused his ample talents on a
different pursuit - say real estate or some other such straight con -
the world would have been denied one of the most gripping,
entertaining and - yes - important voices of the Black Experience in
20th Century America.

Let me be clear about this - PIMP is one hell of a book. I recommend
it to any and all admirers of good writing. Iceberg's prose is sharp
and clean. He is equally adept at philosophical rumination as he is at
good, old fashioned story telling. His viscerally drawn,
slang-drenched evocation of a bygone era when the pimp bestrode the
ghetto like an ebony colossus left me laughing, cringing in horror,
and shaking my head in disbelief. Occasionally, I was even deeply
moved. His set pieces pick you up and sweep you away. You can't help
but keep turning pages. You don't want to know what comes next, you
need to know. What a voice. What a talent. What a book.

Continued (with detailed soundtrack) at...

http://dailydirtdiaspora.blogspot.ca/2011/03/pimp-literary-soundtrack.html
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l