Drive and Driven. The novels (or rather novellas) tell the story of a mysterious man who is known as Driver. And Driver drives. Like a son of a bitch. That’s all you need to know about the character so far.
The plot is simple, too. In the first novel some assholes double-cross Driver and think it’s a good idea to mess with a vindictive and clearly autistic dude in a pissing contest. In the second novel other assholes, who don’t know how to mind their own damn business, think that Driver got soft, his power of autism diminished, and it is a good reason to mess with him over some old grudges. In both instances, Driver proves them wrong and kills everyone with extreme prejudice. The end. Congratulations, you just read Drive and Driven.
On a more serious note, I was left with a somewhat weird feeling from reading those novels. I would dare to say there was some uncertainty. I enjoyed them. I really did. I mean, the first novel is just hardboiled noir in the best traditions of Dashiell Hammett’s Operative and Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer. Just a story of a man who doesn’t need too many reasons to cause damage. There’s no woman, there’s no love, there’s actually nothing to justify the character’s thirst for blood except a rather weird code of honor and pragmatic approach to dealing with problems. That’s how I understood it. You can prove me wrong.
The second novel has more subtext. Now Driver goes for revenge because his fiancee got killed. Without spoiling too much, I can just say that the second novel feels like a game of Uno where both parties didn’t read rules and all they do are pulling out the Uno reverse cards on each other. And Driver pulls the winning combination, of course.
Anyway, I loved the way the violence was depicted. In both novels. It was mundane, easygoing, as if nothing special actually happened. Gave a good feeling of desensitized character for whom drinking beer and eating tacos are pretty much the same activities as breaking someone’s neck. I really enjoyed the action scenes. They were short, precise, and very matter-of-factly. Gave some strange pace to the novels. You know, usually violence is an outburst, culmination of sorts, but here it was of the same importance as say Driver’s attempt to understand the meaning of the word he found in a book. Didn’t seem exciting or intense for the character.
Now, the main problem I have is with the character himself. I don’t know what Sallis tried to pull off, but my wild guess that Driver should’ve been this hard to the core, cool under pressure dude who spits one-liners now and then. Yet, when I read the novel, it felt like he was just detached from the reality and autistic to a point where his perception of the world turned everything into an ongoing call out.
I was dead sure Drive was a spoof of noir as a genre. I mean, while reading the dialogues it felt like Sallis managed to grab the absurdity of the hardboiled noir as a genre and laugh it out through tough talking characters who tried to be macho so hard they responded in one-liners without even listening to each other. Dialogues felt as a pre-text for characters to sound tough, as if they had memorized all the cool phrases from favorite movies and just waited for an excuse to use them. Felt like the author just caught and framed this constant pissing contest of machismo and masculinity. Apparently I was wrong, and it was a serious novel. Well, not for me. I had a different kind of blast with it.
And while I enjoyed Driver as an action hero capable of taking out the best of the best like they are nothing, there was one minor part that somehow stayed with me and somewhat spoiled the enjoyment. Somewhere in the beginning of the first novel Sallis writes that Driver was awkward and clumsy, couldn’t run without falling for his dear life. But he could drive. Like a son of a bitch.
And as he wrote that, the next thing Driver does is kill two hitmen with a grace of a professional assassin. And after that, he goes on with his killing spree. And kills. And kills. And kills. And kills. Turns out Driver is a martial arts expert and strong enough to break someone’s neck with his bare hands (actually one hand, because the other was somewhat so-so). He also shoots like a boss, knows how to disarm, spy on his enemies, lock pick and in general every encounter is just Driver’s pure badassery. The only instance where Driver gets hurt is when he trips in the bathroom and cuts his hand and even then he just grabs the shard of glass and sends it straight into the forehead of the assassin with a shotgun.
You get where I’m going with it? Yeah, it’s strange how a clumsy guy, who can’t run straight, suddenly turns out to be an absolute beast in hand to hand combat. I mean, it felt as if you put 10 in the intelligence of your character and expect it to somehow translate into buff that will up your 1 agility all the way to 11. It’s weird, okay? I was brought up on classic Fallout games. If you are weak and clumsy, you’re weak and clumsy (unless you use lots of drugs and boosters to balance things out before suffering the withdrawal… or just cheat).
And don’t get me wrong. I’m all for tough and mean characters. I’m all for guys who can do some damage. Go on a rampage and be the most dangerous man in the room. That’s classic. But if the novel is a serious hardboiled noir, then I expect a little more logic behind the character. While his actions made sense, it wasn’t obvious how the hell he got all those skills. I mean, the only explanation in the novel is that he is actually very attentive to details, and also hung around Mexicans with guns and stunt actors on the movie sets, while it never implied that he actually practiced any of it longer than a day or two. Or maybe it was implied, and I just missed it. Can happen, correct me if I’m wrong.
The main problem for me is that Driver is basically Jason Bourne. While I had a weird feeling I already saw it somewhere while reading the first novel, including the final fight, the second one made me just say, yep, that’s Jason Bourne right there Identity and Supremacy. And no, I have no idea whether Sallis was inspired by Bourne movies (I think Driver is more relevant to the movie-Bourne rather than the book-Bourne), but it felt like I read a novel about Jason Bourne. Especially when Driver turned into hunter and was all about being stealthy, smart, all over the place, and five steps ahead of everyone else, while mocking his enemies and constantly reminding them that they messed the wrong guy. In both novels.
On the other hand, when I read action scenes, especially in the first novel, I couldn’t help but think about ultra-violence straight from Hotline Miami. And yes, I know that Hotline Miami was inspired by Drive (the movie), so it’s only natural that you can see the resemblance in the novel. And it’s particularly funny when you remember that in the novel Driver preferred jazz or something like that to retrowave. I think at one point he even had a meltdown (very manly one, by the way) because his favorite station wasn’t playing jazz anymore, but some modern crap (if I were a critic I would’ve suggested it was a subtle hint that things were about to change).
Now a little revelation. I didn’t see the movie. I know that Ryan Gosling did a great job portraying Driver. And I also know about memes and the main punchline, which is I drive. In the novel, by the way, it made me burst out laughing, because it came out of nowhere through the monologue from the main character, the longest one he ever said by the way, and I just imagined the face of the dude on the other side of the table who just heard all of this and wasn’t sure how he should react to this information.
Anyway, again, I see Drive as a dark comedy. And I love it that way. I mean, personally, it doesn’t work for me as something serious. But when I imagine it all going on in the world where everything doesn’t make sense and yet everyone delivers their lines with straight face, it’s just a comedic gold. A perfect jab at the typical macho action-world where the only thing that really matters is how tough you talk and how you walk the walk. I learned a lot from it.