Farewell, My Lovely
Ratings39
Average rating3.9
Not quite as fun to read as the first book, The Big Sleep.
I still loved the snappy dialog, but the not entirely coherent plot was a little more off-putting with this one. With more period jargon and quite a bit of casual racism, it was harder to ignore that this was written the better part of a century ago definitely dulled my enjoyment.
I think I'll skip to The Long Goodbye and then call it done for this series.
To be honest, when I started reading [b:Farewell, My Lovely 2050 Farewell, My Lovely Raymond Chandler https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1465778099l/2050.SY75.jpg 1263111], I thought I was reading a novel written by Joe Friday. A novel where men were men and women were dames, dolls, broads, or hags. I almost didn't finish it, but I'm glad I did.The books was published in 1940 and it shows. I'm old enough to catch a lot of the references, but many of them went beyond me too. Still, Chandler's style of writing is so engaging, you want to figure out what he's alluding to. His overall ability to set the mood is a wonder to behold. Of course, because of the time period, minor characters or people furniture are often referred by race and not always in a positive light. His main character, Private Detective Philip Marlow is far from politically correct.Still, his description are beyond compare. “He opened the door with a fingertip, as though opening the door himself dirtied him a little.”“Twenty minutes sleep. Just a nice doze. In that time, I had muffed a job and lost eight thousand dollars. Well, why not? In twenty minutes, you can sink a battleship, down three or four planes, hold a double execution. You can die, get married, get fired and find a new job, have a tooth pulled, have your tonsils out. In twenty minutes, you can even get up in the morning. You can get a glass of water at a night club—maybe.”The sparse dialog is just as moody and revealing. “You,” Nulty said, and looked at his toothpick to see if it was chewed enough.“Any luck?”“Malloy? I ain't on it any more.”“Who is?”“Nobody ain't. Why? The guy lammed. We got him on the teletype and they got readers out. Hell, he'll be in Mexico long gone.”Overall, this book was a lesson in how to write a crime thriller. Authors, take note!
The second Philip Marlowe book - classic pulp fiction / pulp noir / hardboiled genre. This is great, I enjoyed it as much as the first, and it just oozes quotes.
The short sentences, the short chapters, the narration style, it all just works.
Look elsewhere for plotlines better explained than I could!
“Cute little redhead” she said slowly and thickly. “Yeah, I remember her. Song and dance. Nice legs and generous with ‘em.”-It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.-She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.-I didn't say anything. I lit my pipe again. It makes you look thoughtful when you're not thinking. -I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance. I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.-I used my knee on his face. It hurt my knee. He didn't tell me whether it hurt his face.-The eighty-five cent dinner tasted like a discarded mail bag and was served to me by a waiter who looked as if he would slug me for a quarter, cut my throat for six bits, and bury me at sea in a barrel of concrete for a dollar and a half, plus sales tax.-“It's a swell theory,” I said. “Marriott socked me, took the money, then he got sorry and beat his brains out, after first burying the money under a bush.”