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A review by destrier
Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
2.0
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.