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A review by iggy63
Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
5.0
Chandler is simply a joy to read. He’s the standard to which all other crime fiction writers are held. He’s a good model for all writers, if you ask me. If you don’t like it, you don’t like the genre. Every page is brimming with mood, setting and great dialogue. I like how he carefully describes each character as they are introduced, and he paints each scene remarkably well. I once told my kids that a great book can conjure up such vivid images in your head that it’s as if you’re watching a movie, and that’s the miracle of reading. Chandler is one of the best in that regard.
In this one, Marlowe is on the trail of a missing torch singer, and so is her ex, and enormous brute named Moose Malloy. The trail leads to jewel thieves, big time gamblers, a mysterious fortune teller, crooked cops, drug dealers, gorgeous dames, and the usual cast of colorful secondary characters. I have learned that many of Chandler’s novels were cobbled together from some of his short stories. After finishing this one, I felt like I read two stories. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but readers looking for every plot point to tie nicely together at the end may be a bit surprised.
There are plenty of great lines and passages in this one, of course. Many can be found in the sidebar on GoodReads. This one had me grinning from ear to ear:
“We went down three steps to the living room. The carpet almost tickled my ankles. There was a concert grand piano, closed down. On one corner of it stood a tall silver vase on a strip of peach colored velvet, and a single yellow rose in the vase. There was plenty of nice soft furniture, a great many floor cushions, some with gold tassels and some just naked. It was a nice room if you didn’t get rough. It was the kind of room where people sit with their feet in their laps and sip absinthe through lumps of sugar and talk with high affected voices and sometimes just squeak. It was a room where anything could happen except work.”
Ah, Marlowe!!!
In this one, Marlowe is on the trail of a missing torch singer, and so is her ex, and enormous brute named Moose Malloy. The trail leads to jewel thieves, big time gamblers, a mysterious fortune teller, crooked cops, drug dealers, gorgeous dames, and the usual cast of colorful secondary characters. I have learned that many of Chandler’s novels were cobbled together from some of his short stories. After finishing this one, I felt like I read two stories. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but readers looking for every plot point to tie nicely together at the end may be a bit surprised.
There are plenty of great lines and passages in this one, of course. Many can be found in the sidebar on GoodReads. This one had me grinning from ear to ear:
“We went down three steps to the living room. The carpet almost tickled my ankles. There was a concert grand piano, closed down. On one corner of it stood a tall silver vase on a strip of peach colored velvet, and a single yellow rose in the vase. There was plenty of nice soft furniture, a great many floor cushions, some with gold tassels and some just naked. It was a nice room if you didn’t get rough. It was the kind of room where people sit with their feet in their laps and sip absinthe through lumps of sugar and talk with high affected voices and sometimes just squeak. It was a room where anything could happen except work.”
Ah, Marlowe!!!