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A review by jwsg
Later Novels and Other Writings: The Lady in the Lake / The Little Sister / The Long Goodbye / Playback / Double Indemnity (screenplay) / Selected Essays and Letters by Frank MacShane, Raymond Chandler
3.0
This is going to have to be a five-in-one review for (i) The Lady in the Lake; (ii) The Little Sister; (iii) The Long Goodbye; (iv) Playback and perhaps some of the essays in this collection. I loved how this volume I picked up at the library is one of those navy blue cloth-bound Library of America editions. And I suppose that there's an inscription just inside the cover that reads "With the friendship of the people of the United States of America, US Embassy Singapore" signifies Chandler's standing in the American literary pantheon.
It's been a while since I've read a mystery novel and I believe it's my first time reading an American mystery novel at that. My earlier encounters with the genre were limited to Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle and GK Chesterton. Philip Marlowe is quite a stark difference from Poirot, Holmes and (definitely) Miss Marple, to say the least. Your stereotypical hard-boiled American detective, portrayed in countless Hollywood productions with his square jaw, dark (but slightly battered) good looks, cigarette, battered Homburg and hard drinking ways. But the Lady in the Lake was fantastic. Gripping plot, good pacing and characterisation - going through the 200 pages was a breeze. 4 stars for this novel.
The Little Sister was 16 pages longer than the Lady in the Lake but it felt like 160. A friend had earlier commented that the Lady in the Lake had "a new, exciting piece of information at the end of every chapter, but he is constantly misdirecting you so that even if you did guess the ending, he's pushed so many different alternatives in front of you, tantalizingly, that you still feel like the reveal is a true revelation." I felt with the Little Sister, Chandler took this technique - which worked so well in the Lady in the Lake - to the extreme; he wove so many threads, threw in so many sub-plots and random bits of information that the plot (if you could call that loosely constructed morass a plot) unravelled into sheer pandemonium. Too much going on at the same time. Closer to the complexities of real life? Perhaps. But what's the point/fun in that? I also wanted to stab Orfamay Quest if Marlowe didn't get round to it first. 2 stars at most for this novel.
Thankfully, Chandler bounced back in the Long Goodbye, which clocked in at a whopping 317 pages. In this novel, Marlowe is embroiled in the mystery of Terry Lennox, a down-and-out man he befriends and is suspected of brutally murdering his rich wife Sylvia Potter before escaping to Mexico (with Marlowe's help) and committing suicide. Marlowe is also hired by the beautiful Eileen Wade to keep an eye on her unstable writer husband Roger. Naturally, the two stories are connected but how? 3 stars for this one.
The final novel in the collection - Playback - provides a fairly strong finish. In Playback, Marlowe is hired to follow Eleanor King/Betty Mayfield who is apparently trying to escape something in her past. Along the way, a dead body surfaces and Marlowe finds himself embroiled in yet another mystery. 3 stars for this one. [Spoiler alert:] What sets Playback apart from the other novels in the collection is that for once, there is there is no ex-husband involved in the murder.
It's been a while since I've read a mystery novel and I believe it's my first time reading an American mystery novel at that. My earlier encounters with the genre were limited to Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle and GK Chesterton. Philip Marlowe is quite a stark difference from Poirot, Holmes and (definitely) Miss Marple, to say the least. Your stereotypical hard-boiled American detective, portrayed in countless Hollywood productions with his square jaw, dark (but slightly battered) good looks, cigarette, battered Homburg and hard drinking ways. But the Lady in the Lake was fantastic. Gripping plot, good pacing and characterisation - going through the 200 pages was a breeze. 4 stars for this novel.
The Little Sister was 16 pages longer than the Lady in the Lake but it felt like 160. A friend had earlier commented that the Lady in the Lake had "a new, exciting piece of information at the end of every chapter, but he is constantly misdirecting you so that even if you did guess the ending, he's pushed so many different alternatives in front of you, tantalizingly, that you still feel like the reveal is a true revelation." I felt with the Little Sister, Chandler took this technique - which worked so well in the Lady in the Lake - to the extreme; he wove so many threads, threw in so many sub-plots and random bits of information that the plot (if you could call that loosely constructed morass a plot) unravelled into sheer pandemonium. Too much going on at the same time. Closer to the complexities of real life? Perhaps. But what's the point/fun in that? I also wanted to stab Orfamay Quest if Marlowe didn't get round to it first. 2 stars at most for this novel.
Thankfully, Chandler bounced back in the Long Goodbye, which clocked in at a whopping 317 pages. In this novel, Marlowe is embroiled in the mystery of Terry Lennox, a down-and-out man he befriends and is suspected of brutally murdering his rich wife Sylvia Potter before escaping to Mexico (with Marlowe's help) and committing suicide. Marlowe is also hired by the beautiful Eileen Wade to keep an eye on her unstable writer husband Roger. Naturally, the two stories are connected but how? 3 stars for this one.
The final novel in the collection - Playback - provides a fairly strong finish. In Playback, Marlowe is hired to follow Eleanor King/Betty Mayfield who is apparently trying to escape something in her past. Along the way, a dead body surfaces and Marlowe finds himself embroiled in yet another mystery. 3 stars for this one. [Spoiler alert:] What sets Playback apart from the other novels in the collection is that for once, there is there is no ex-husband involved in the murder.