In Miami, Chili Palmer was a gangster, but now he's in Hollywood, helping his friend Harry Zimm to make a film. However, the movie business is as dangerous as Chili's old business and a new enemy soon wants him out of the way. "Penguin Readers" is a series of simplified novels, film novelizations and original titles that introduce students at all levels to the pleasures of reading in English. Originally designed for teaching English as a foreign language, the series' combination of high interest level and low reading age ...
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In Miami, Chili Palmer was a gangster, but now he's in Hollywood, helping his friend Harry Zimm to make a film. However, the movie business is as dangerous as Chili's old business and a new enemy soon wants him out of the way. "Penguin Readers" is a series of simplified novels, film novelizations and original titles that introduce students at all levels to the pleasures of reading in English. Originally designed for teaching English as a foreign language, the series' combination of high interest level and low reading age makes it suitable for both English-speaking teenagers with limited reading skills and students of English as a second language. Many titles in the series also provide access to the pre-20th century literature strands of the National Curriculum English Orders. "Penguin Readers" are graded at seven levels of difficulty, from "Easystarts" with a 200-word vocabulary, to Level 6 (Advanced) with a 3000-word vocabulary. In addition, titles fall into one of three sub-categories: "Contemporary", "Classics" or "Originals". At the end of each book there is a section of enjoyable exercises focusing on vocabulary building, comprehension, discussion and writing. Some titles in the series are available with an accompanying audio cassette, or in a book and cassette pack. Additionally, selected titles have free accompanying "Penguin Readers Factsheets" which provide stimulating exercise material for students, as well as suggestions for teachers on how to exploit the Readers in class.
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Add this copy of Get Shorty to cart. $4.44, new condition, Sold by Fabulous Fiction Book Store rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Oxford, MA, UNITED STATES, published 1991 by Dell Publishing Company.
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Throughout his career as a writer of westerns and of crime fiction, Elmore Leonard (1925 -- 2013) showed a strong and varied sense of place. His justly famous novel "Get Shorty" (1990) is largely set in Hollywood with important tie-ins to Miami and to Las Vegas. The novel tells the story of a small-time loan shark in Miami, Chili Palmer, who finds himself in Hollywood pursuing two deadbeats. Chili, a movie lover, works to enter the film industry through a debt he is trying to collect from a high-rolling producer of schlock horror and monster films. The plot soon becomes heavily complex as a sharp satire on the film industry, a multi-layered crime story, a character study of Chili, and more.
The thing about this book -- is that it is fun to read. With all its violence, double-crossing, and profanity it has a lightness of touch that softens the greed, nastiness, and criminality of much of the story. Leonard developed an inimitable writing style that is on full display in "Get Shorty". It consists of snappy, realistic dialogue combined with sharply-etched descriptions of people and places. Leonard doesn't waste words. This novel includes backstories on several characters that add more depth to the book than I have found in some of Leonard's other works.
The story has a mirroring effect in the way it ties in events of real life with their depiction in film and with the depiction of both life and film in the novel. Chili Palmer develops a story for a film that is based on his own ongoing activity of chasing down a debtor who has fooled the airlines into paying his wife a large settlement resulting from what they think is his death in a plane crash. Chili in his turn is pursued by another Miami mobster for disagreements between the two that happened twelve years earlier. Chili pursues his mark to Las Vegas and then to Hollywood. His own idea for a film becomes entangled with a different proposed film scenario proposed by his new friend, the producer of junk horror movies. Chili also must fend off several other gangsters that make their appearance in the book. The intrepid Chili manages to interest a highly-paid actor, Martin Weir, in his film, largely by showing Weir how to act like a loan shark (or a "shylock"). It isn't a matter of breaking legs. "Look at me" says Chili throughout the book, and the debtor realizes he is owned. Chili gradually acquires a romantic interest in Hollywood in the person of a beautiful, intelligent middle-aged actress from the monster films who wants to get back into pictures. She too finds her way into Chili's proposed movie.
The book depicts shady businesses and locations in the Miami underworld, the life of high-stakes Las Vegas gambling, Hollywood and its famous and its struggling, the drug trade, and -- the Los Angeles airport. The story is told with panache. The plotting sometimes is confusing but the book moves ahead on the strength of its individual scenes and Leonard's writing.
In 1995, Leonard's novel became the film "Get Shorty" starring John Travolta as Chili. The film modifies the book and is easier to follow. The film also helps the viewer to visualize the characters and the places described in detail. The novel explores the relationship between books, film and real life and it helped me to see the interpretation of the book through the film which has become well-known in its own right.
"Get Shorty" is an entertaining, exuberant read with, I think, some thought and depth lying just below the surface.
