Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.91 AVERAGE
3.91 AVERAGE
Loved these books. Chandler is a much more subtle writer than he appears.
The Best Hardboiled Novel Ever?
Review of the Random House Audio audiobook (2021) narrated by [a:Scott Brick|44554|Scott Brick|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1377113754p2/44554.jpg] of the original Alfred A. Knopf hardcover edition [b:Farewell, My Lovely|58284619|Farewell, My Lovely (Philip Marlowe #2)|Raymond Chandler|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1623070986l/58284619._SX50_.jpg|1263111] (1940)
[5 rating, especially for the narration performance in the audiobook]
I've read Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely several times. The first time was probably as early as 1975, since I still own a copy of the Robert Mitchum movie tie-in edition [b:Farewell, My Lovely|7148395|Farewell, My Lovely (Philip Marlowe, #2)|Raymond Chandler|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405265409l/7148395._SY75_.jpg|1263111]. I still find new dialogue and metaphors to enjoy though, such as the above exchange between a heavy-handed cop whom Marlowe keeps calling Hemingway for no apparent reason. Hemingway wasn't offended by the swipe at his early Gertrude Stein influenced repetition style though. He called Chandler the only detective novelist worth reading.
Audible recently made this 2021 audiobook edition a $5 Special Offer and I snapped it up immediately as it has the great veteran audiobook narrator [a:Scott Brick|44554|Scott Brick|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1377113754p2/44554.jpg] as its reader. I then discovered that there is an entire 2021 Raymond Chandler / Philip Marlowe series narrated by Brick, so I'm bound to get a few more of them in the future. They share the cover art with the 1988 Vintage Crime / Black Lizard paperbacks, presumably due to a Random House umbrella tie-in.
Farewell, My Lovely was formed by Chandler recycling 3 of his earlier short stories. These come together very well unlike some later Chandler books where plot points sometimes remained unresolved. It is the atmosphere and characterization that is the key draw and the actual solving of the crimes is almost secondary.
As expected, the narration by Scott Brick was excellent. Chapter intermissions were highlighted by the use of film noir-like music to heighten the atmosphere.
Other Reviews
The DetNovel.com summary via Web.Archive details the plot (Spoilers Obviously) but is excellent for explaining several literary allusions in Chandler's metaphors.
Trivia and Links
Farewell, My Lovely has been adapted three times for film, although the early versions did not use the book's title. The 1975 version directed by Dick Richards had Robert Mitchum in the Philip Marlowe role and a trailer can be seen here and the entire film here. This version, although reasonably faithful overall, has an increased level of gunfights, making it seem like more of a mob movie.
The 1944 version was released under the title Murder My Sweet dir. Edward Emytryk with Dick Powell in the Philip Marlowe role. A trailer can be seen here.
The 1942 version used the Raymond Chandler plot and adapted it as the 3rd outing for actor George Sanders' series character The Falcon in The Falcon Take Over dir. Irving Reis. I did not find a trailer for it.
Review of the Random House Audio audiobook (2021) narrated by [a:Scott Brick|44554|Scott Brick|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1377113754p2/44554.jpg] of the original Alfred A. Knopf hardcover edition [b:Farewell, My Lovely|58284619|Farewell, My Lovely (Philip Marlowe #2)|Raymond Chandler|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1623070986l/58284619._SX50_.jpg|1263111] (1940)
[5 rating, especially for the narration performance in the audiobook]
"But this Hemingway stuff is what really has me down."
"A gag," I said. "An old, old gag."
"Who is this Hemingway person at all?"
"A guy that keeps saying the same thing over and over until you begin to believe it must be good."
"That must take a hell of a long time," the big man said. - dialogue excerpt from Chapter 24 of Farewell, My Lovely
I've read Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely several times. The first time was probably as early as 1975, since I still own a copy of the Robert Mitchum movie tie-in edition [b:Farewell, My Lovely|7148395|Farewell, My Lovely (Philip Marlowe, #2)|Raymond Chandler|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405265409l/7148395._SY75_.jpg|1263111]. I still find new dialogue and metaphors to enjoy though, such as the above exchange between a heavy-handed cop whom Marlowe keeps calling Hemingway for no apparent reason. Hemingway wasn't offended by the swipe at his early Gertrude Stein influenced repetition style though. He called Chandler the only detective novelist worth reading.
Audible recently made this 2021 audiobook edition a $5 Special Offer and I snapped it up immediately as it has the great veteran audiobook narrator [a:Scott Brick|44554|Scott Brick|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1377113754p2/44554.jpg] as its reader. I then discovered that there is an entire 2021 Raymond Chandler / Philip Marlowe series narrated by Brick, so I'm bound to get a few more of them in the future. They share the cover art with the 1988 Vintage Crime / Black Lizard paperbacks, presumably due to a Random House umbrella tie-in.
Farewell, My Lovely was formed by Chandler recycling 3 of his earlier short stories. These come together very well unlike some later Chandler books where plot points sometimes remained unresolved. It is the atmosphere and characterization that is the key draw and the actual solving of the crimes is almost secondary.
As expected, the narration by Scott Brick was excellent. Chapter intermissions were highlighted by the use of film noir-like music to heighten the atmosphere.
Other Reviews
The DetNovel.com summary via Web.Archive details the plot (Spoilers Obviously) but is excellent for explaining several literary allusions in Chandler's metaphors.
Trivia and Links
Farewell, My Lovely has been adapted three times for film, although the early versions did not use the book's title. The 1975 version directed by Dick Richards had Robert Mitchum in the Philip Marlowe role and a trailer can be seen here and the entire film here. This version, although reasonably faithful overall, has an increased level of gunfights, making it seem like more of a mob movie.
The 1944 version was released under the title Murder My Sweet dir. Edward Emytryk with Dick Powell in the Philip Marlowe role. A trailer can be seen here.
The 1942 version used the Raymond Chandler plot and adapted it as the 3rd outing for actor George Sanders' series character The Falcon in The Falcon Take Over dir. Irving Reis. I did not find a trailer for it.
Two books in, Chandler is famous and ended up inspiring some great movies, yet he can't write like Dashiell Hammett, Ross MacDonald, Rex Stout, or Alistair MacLean. I'm not sure how Humphrey Bogart was cast for the tall, handsome, lantern-jawed Marlowe in some films, but Bogart nailed the world-weariness and added a lot of charisma that the character in the novels lacks. (The 1975 Farewell gets Robert Mitchum instead, who is certainly...tall.)
Women have about the same appeal and descriptions as drinks, cars, and guns. The romance is all sexless and between tough men over coffee or scotch, or on a boat at night. They are the only ones who can connect to Marlowe emotionally. That's not necessarily a drawback, but it is interesting. Women fare well compared to Asian, native, Mexican, Italian, or black characters. The language and themes haven't aged well, although they seem intended to offend a bit at the time more than coming from a deeper racist agenda.
My primary complaint is none of these. It is that Farewell is long, convoluted, and boring despite incorporating Ian Flemming levels of wild set change and wilder characters. The patter is hit or miss and the multiple dream sequences, drugged sequences, and two-deep metaphors make some sections hard to even follow. Thankfully, they largely don't matter, either, as those sections are just filling out how Marlowe got from A to B after being drunk, sapped, etc. Falling back on the structure of the British detective novel at the very end is weak (and one of the characters even says so!) Much better to end a noir mystery novel without the explicit explanation, everyone gunned down, and "It's only Chinatown, Jake" for the reader/viewer to work out by themselves or walk away from.
I like that it begins with the crime (murder) in more-or-less plain sight and is not a whodunnit but a who-is-who relationship and identity unravelling. I like the 40's tough guys.
Women have about the same appeal and descriptions as drinks, cars, and guns. The romance is all sexless and between tough men over coffee or scotch, or on a boat at night. They are the only ones who can connect to Marlowe emotionally. That's not necessarily a drawback, but it is interesting. Women fare well compared to Asian, native, Mexican, Italian, or black characters. The language and themes haven't aged well, although they seem intended to offend a bit at the time more than coming from a deeper racist agenda.
My primary complaint is none of these. It is that Farewell is long, convoluted, and boring despite incorporating Ian Flemming levels of wild set change and wilder characters. The patter is hit or miss and the multiple dream sequences, drugged sequences, and two-deep metaphors make some sections hard to even follow. Thankfully, they largely don't matter, either, as those sections are just filling out how Marlowe got from A to B after being drunk, sapped, etc. Falling back on the structure of the British detective novel at the very end is weak (and one of the characters even says so!) Much better to end a noir mystery novel without the explicit explanation, everyone gunned down, and "It's only Chinatown, Jake" for the reader/viewer to work out by themselves or walk away from.
I like that it begins with the crime (murder) in more-or-less plain sight and is not a whodunnit but a who-is-who relationship and identity unravelling. I like the 40's tough guys.
Wherein ex-con Moose Malloy searches for his lost love, Velma, and Philip Marlowe doggedly (drunkenly) confronts good LA cops, crooked Santa Monica cops, and a grotesquery of gigolos, charlatans, and high-society drug peddlers. FML has more than a little in common with Hammett’s “The Dain Curse,” and Marlowe is still a cartoonish lout, in many ways, but you can see Chandler beginning to outgrow the Black Mask school here.
I loved this one. I enjoy the hard-boiled detective genre though. There's a movie based on it too, Murder My Sweet. They are both great. I have several [b:Raymond Chandler|2052|The Big Sleep|Raymond Chandler|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41AGA624Z5L._SL75_.jpg|1222673] books lined up ready to read when I am craving my next hard boiled book!
A private dick finds himself in the wrong place at the right time to get caught up in melodrama involving jewel thieves, a murder, a fortune-teller, a couple more murders, corruption, gangster's molls and all manner of seediness.
So we have all the makings of a rollicking tale, and Raymond Chander's second novel is very much that. With a punchy prose-style, his tone of voice, his oft-imitated (but seldom matched style) overcomes any sense of ludicrousness of the plot twists and turns.
Well worth chasing down and reading.
So we have all the makings of a rollicking tale, and Raymond Chander's second novel is very much that. With a punchy prose-style, his tone of voice, his oft-imitated (but seldom matched style) overcomes any sense of ludicrousness of the plot twists and turns.
Well worth chasing down and reading.
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I enjoyed the dry humour in this, although it's definitely of its time, with the racism of 1940s America. I didn't understand some of the slang and cultural references, but it was a good read nonetheless.
I do enjoy Marlowe… his snarky and has a wicked sense of humor… still ignoring words used back then, I figured out more details in this one that the first one… the next few aren’t available in audio so will miss the 30’s cop “accent” from Elliot Gould…
Big fan of Raymond Chandler, and this book did not disappoint. Great writing and clever story. Racial slurs of the era bother me, a sad reminder of our history of racism.