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A review by lgpiper
Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
4.0
A classic pulp-fiction detective novel. The stuff of Guy Noire...or Bogie. I'm sure other reviewers can give you a better sense than I as to story line. This is the second of Raymond Chandler's novels about the private eye named Philip Marlowe. It seems that Marlowe is a wise-ass who is always sticking his nose where it doesn't belong and getting bonked for his troubles. Half the time, you can't figure out why he's putting himself in such obvious danger. In the end, it makes sense, sort of.
I was amazed at how racist we all were in 1940. Perhaps I shouldn't be, given that I grew up in Baltimore before the civil rights movement caught fire, but I was. Racist stereotypes and characterizations just seemed natural in those times, I guess. Several of the epithets for black people were new to me.
I'm looking forward to getting The Big Sleep, the first of the Marlowe novels, and one of my favorite Humphrey Bogart movies.
-------------------------- 21 September 2021 ------------------------
For some reason, I got stuck with rather a number of crappy books in the past few months. So, I decided I should begin re-reading books I'd read previously, and which I knew would continue to be GoodReads. I thought of Jane Austen, but I knew my friend, Michael, would gag at the thought. So, why not Raymond Chandler instead? The one weird thing about reading Chandler is that all the scenes are in black and white in my mind, and the main character, Philip Marlow, looks and behaves like Humphry Bogart..
I was amazed at how racist we all were in 1940. Perhaps I shouldn't be, given that I grew up in Baltimore before the civil rights movement caught fire, but I was. Racist stereotypes and characterizations just seemed natural in those times, I guess. Several of the epithets for black people were new to me.
I'm looking forward to getting The Big Sleep, the first of the Marlowe novels, and one of my favorite Humphrey Bogart movies.
-------------------------- 21 September 2021 ------------------------
For some reason, I got stuck with rather a number of crappy books in the past few months. So, I decided I should begin re-reading books I'd read previously, and which I knew would continue to be GoodReads. I thought of Jane Austen, but I knew my friend, Michael, would gag at the thought. So, why not Raymond Chandler instead? The one weird thing about reading Chandler is that all the scenes are in black and white in my mind, and the main character, Philip Marlow, looks and behaves like Humphry Bogart..