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3.91 AVERAGE
3.91 AVERAGE
These stories are really a guilty pleasure for me. I love Chandler's writing style -- it's odd at times, but when he's on, it's fantastic, all cool and smooth and dark. I love his descriptions (when he's not spending a whole page describing every single article of clothing worn by a character who's only going to get two pages of screentime). I like Marlowe! I like the mysteries and the mood and the dark, stylish picture he paints of 1930s Hollywood. But the racism, homophobia and misogyny here are so thick that at best it's ridiculous and at worst it makes me feel like I've been rolling in mud.
It's a well written, engaging tale, and Chandler'a use of language is mesmerizing, even if the dialog is a bit unrealistic.
But it's tough to get over the casual racism woven throughout the story. On the one hand, I suppose it's good that Chandler didn't ignore the existence of people who look different from him altogether, but I could have done without the stereotypical portrayals.
But it's tough to get over the casual racism woven throughout the story. On the one hand, I suppose it's good that Chandler didn't ignore the existence of people who look different from him altogether, but I could have done without the stereotypical portrayals.
I probably should have tried to read the Marlowe books in order. Going from The Long Goodbye to this one was very strange. For most of the book, the plot here feels very disjointed. In some cases, that seems intentional to impart a dreamlike state to things, given how much of this deals with addiction, drug use, and so on.
The ending to this is stronger, in a number of ways, than TLG, even though it's more abrupt. (TLG definitely gets to the point of OMG, they are actually going to Scour the Shire, aren't they?) I'm also amused by the Tolstoy-like nature of dramatis personae. Chandler introduces and discards characters with wild abandon.
And on a final note, ZOMG the racism. TLG was bad on that score, but this is just . . . WOW.
The ending to this is stronger, in a number of ways, than TLG, even though it's more abrupt. (TLG definitely gets to the point of OMG, they are actually going to Scour the Shire, aren't they?) I'm also amused by the Tolstoy-like nature of dramatis personae. Chandler introduces and discards characters with wild abandon.
And on a final note, ZOMG the racism. TLG was bad on that score, but this is just . . . WOW.
I liked this better than The Big Sleep (although I rated both at 4 stars). I thought Farewell My Lovely presented a tougher, more cynical Phillip Marlowe. I found it a very enjoyable read once I could turn off the PC editor in my brain to accept Chandler's use of language regarding women and race -- very different times and attitudes.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
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
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
One of those books that's really tough to rate. This is the second in the Philip Marlowe detective series, and like the first the style is absolutely brilliant but also like the first, the plot doesn't really make sense. Apparently Chandler said of his writing that the style was what mattered, not the substance but I kinda think that when it comes to a detective story, the plot actually being possible to follow is pretty damn important. He created his novels by weaving some of his earlier short stories together and boy can you tell. So I'm conflicted. Like I say, I love the style and the characterisation, all that is easily four stars, sometimes with glimpses of five stars. But it isn't satisfying to read. You keep hoping it's all going to pull together in the end, and while this one doesn't have a major plot hole like in The Big Sleep (who killed the chauffeur?!) the entire middle section of the novel with the psychic and the dope doctor is just random and not really connected to anything, and various characters flit in and out of the book without going anywhere and then you just get a rushed and very vague info dump at the end. Oh, and then there's the racism. That alone makes me want to drop the rating. But I've decided to give this four in honour of what is good about it, which is really good. It's just it also sucks a bit at times.
Been a while since I read Farewell, but the book still holds up. The writing is as sharp as ever and even though it looks as if the plot may be meandering a bit at the end, Chandler ties it up neatly by the time the book closes. The only thing that rubs me the wrong way is some of the language, which is certainly appropriate for the time, but makes me wince here and there when I slide across the racial epithets. It's interesting to me, because that's part of the reason I chose it for a summer book club selection to discuss with some colleagues of mine. I'm interested to see how that conversation will go given the state of racial politics in the US in 2016. I'm sad to admit that, in many ways, they're not much better now than when the book was published back in 1940.