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Philip Marlowe #2
Farewell, My Lovely
Philip Marlowe has been out of work for a while when he witnesses the felon Malloy loudly questioning a nightclub manager about the whereabouts of his ex-girlfriend, Velma. When Malloy shoots the manager and goes on the lam, Marlowe is pulled into a dangerous chain of events that will end only when he solves the case.
Farewell, My Lovely is the second novel to feature author Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled detective, Philip Marlowe. Since he first appeared in Chandler’s The Big Sleep in 1939, this famous character has come to define modern ideas of the private investigator. Farewell My Lovely was the first Marlowe story to be adapted for film.
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292 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1940
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About the author
Raymond Chandler
450 books5,740 followersRaymond Thornton Chandler was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in Black Mask, a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published seven novels during his lifetime (an eighth, in progress at the time of his death, was completed by Robert B. Parker). All but Playback have been made into motion pictures, some more than once. In the year before his death, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America.
Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is a founder of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers. The protagonist of his novels, Philip Marlowe, like Hammett's Sam Spade, is considered by some to be synonymous with "private detective". Both were played in films by Humphrey Bogart, whom many consider to be the quintessential Marlowe.
The Big Sleep placed second on the Crime Writers Association poll of the 100 best crime novels; Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Lady in the Lake (1943) and The Long Goodbye (1953) also made the list. The latter novel was praised in an anthology of American crime stories as "arguably the first book since Hammett's The Glass Key, published more than twenty years earlier, to qualify as a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happened to possess elements of mystery". Chandler was also a perceptive critic of detective fiction; his "The Simple Art of Murder" is the canonical essay in the field. In it he wrote: "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world."
Parker wrote that, with Marlowe, "Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious—an innocent who knows better, a Romantic who is tough enough to sustain Romanticism in a world that has seen the eternal footman hold its coat and snicker. Living at the end of the Far West, where the American dream ran out of room, no hero has ever been more congruent with his landscape. Chandler had the right hero in the right place, and engaged him in the consideration of good and evil at precisely the time when our central certainty of good no longer held."
Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is a founder of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers. The protagonist of his novels, Philip Marlowe, like Hammett's Sam Spade, is considered by some to be synonymous with "private detective". Both were played in films by Humphrey Bogart, whom many consider to be the quintessential Marlowe.
The Big Sleep placed second on the Crime Writers Association poll of the 100 best crime novels; Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Lady in the Lake (1943) and The Long Goodbye (1953) also made the list. The latter novel was praised in an anthology of American crime stories as "arguably the first book since Hammett's The Glass Key, published more than twenty years earlier, to qualify as a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happened to possess elements of mystery". Chandler was also a perceptive critic of detective fiction; his "The Simple Art of Murder" is the canonical essay in the field. In it he wrote: "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world."
Parker wrote that, with Marlowe, "Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious—an innocent who knows better, a Romantic who is tough enough to sustain Romanticism in a world that has seen the eternal footman hold its coat and snicker. Living at the end of the Far West, where the American dream ran out of room, no hero has ever been more congruent with his landscape. Chandler had the right hero in the right place, and engaged him in the consideration of good and evil at precisely the time when our central certainty of good no longer held."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,726 reviews
December 4, 2013
Definitely my favorite Chandler, beating out The Big Sleep by a star and more than a dozen memorable lines. This book is absolutely soaking in quotables and may have the best prose of any noir I’ve ever read. Add in a classic main character and a solid plot and you have a nice shiny bundle of win.
PHILIP MARLOWE:
Chandler’s iconic PI is an arrogant alcoholic who fails every PC test you can formulate. He’s racist (from what I recall he insults African-Americans, Japanese and Native Americans and maybe others), homophobic and sexist enough that I would blackjack him on the braincase before he ever got within 10 yards of either of my daughters.
He’s also mesmerizing and fills up the page with his presence. His entertainment value is off the charts and he cracks wiser than anyone this side of Sam Spade. But whereas Hammett’s Spade is all slick, smoky quips and cat-like grace, Marlowe is the “other side of the tracks” version. He’s unkempt, rugged and surly and his words are crusty with barbs.
Whereas Spade’s every move seems coordinated and cross-referenced like a well-rehearsed play, Marlowe is all reaction, counterpunch and intuitive hunches.
However, like Spade, he’s also smart (much more than he usually lets on) and has a knack for clear thinking and being able to read people. Best of all though, the man is incapable of cutting slack or giving inches and is saltier than the Pacific Ocean.
THE PLOT:
A convoluted series of mini-mysteries all stemming from Marlowe’s search for the ex-girlfriend of a just released from prison man-mountain named Moose Malloy. Fairly typical noir stuff but very well executed and paced to perfection by Chandler.
THE WRITING:
Finally…the prose. The real star of the show. I would say Chandler’s writing is a masterful example of noir. There may be others as good but it is hard for me to imagine any better. I would put Chandler’s prose into 3 separate and equally impressive categories that you don’t usually see from a single pen. First, you have a whole host of “I have to remember that” lines that are just fun to read. Quotes like:
“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.”
“‘Who is the Hemingway person at all?’
A guy that keeps saying the same thing over and over until you begin to believe it must be good.”
“I didn’t say anything. I lit my pipe again. It makes you look thoughtful when you’re not thinking.”
“It was a nice walk if you liked grunting.”
“She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.”
“I like smooth shiny girl, hardboiled and loaded with sin.”
“A Harvard boy. Nice use of the subjunctive mood. The end of my foot itched, but my bank account was still trying to crawl under a duck.”
Second, Chandler has a wonderful facility for painting descriptions so that you feel like you’re walking right beside Marlowe and he does it in such sparse, efficient style.
Finally, there are the passages that aren’t just clever quips or snappy dialogue, but that convey a real sense of emotion.
“She hung up, leaving me with a curious feeling of having talked to somebody that didn’t exist.”
“…a sudden flashing movement that I sensed rather than saw. A pool of darkness opened at my feet and was far, far deeper than the blackest night. I dived into it. It had no bottom.”
“There was just enough for to make everything seem unreal. The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love.”
That is the trifecta of writing. Brilliant, sharp and fun….descriptive, informative and polished…and evocative, moving and powerful.
Yes, 5.0 stars and a definite must read for fans of noir, mysteries or just superb prose.
HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!
PHILIP MARLOWE:
Chandler’s iconic PI is an arrogant alcoholic who fails every PC test you can formulate. He’s racist (from what I recall he insults African-Americans, Japanese and Native Americans and maybe others), homophobic and sexist enough that I would blackjack him on the braincase before he ever got within 10 yards of either of my daughters.
He’s also mesmerizing and fills up the page with his presence. His entertainment value is off the charts and he cracks wiser than anyone this side of Sam Spade. But whereas Hammett’s Spade is all slick, smoky quips and cat-like grace, Marlowe is the “other side of the tracks” version. He’s unkempt, rugged and surly and his words are crusty with barbs.
Whereas Spade’s every move seems coordinated and cross-referenced like a well-rehearsed play, Marlowe is all reaction, counterpunch and intuitive hunches.
However, like Spade, he’s also smart (much more than he usually lets on) and has a knack for clear thinking and being able to read people. Best of all though, the man is incapable of cutting slack or giving inches and is saltier than the Pacific Ocean.
THE PLOT:
A convoluted series of mini-mysteries all stemming from Marlowe’s search for the ex-girlfriend of a just released from prison man-mountain named Moose Malloy. Fairly typical noir stuff but very well executed and paced to perfection by Chandler.
THE WRITING:
Finally…the prose. The real star of the show. I would say Chandler’s writing is a masterful example of noir. There may be others as good but it is hard for me to imagine any better. I would put Chandler’s prose into 3 separate and equally impressive categories that you don’t usually see from a single pen. First, you have a whole host of “I have to remember that” lines that are just fun to read. Quotes like:
“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.”
“‘Who is the Hemingway person at all?’
A guy that keeps saying the same thing over and over until you begin to believe it must be good.”
“I didn’t say anything. I lit my pipe again. It makes you look thoughtful when you’re not thinking.”
“It was a nice walk if you liked grunting.”
“She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.”
“I like smooth shiny girl, hardboiled and loaded with sin.”
“A Harvard boy. Nice use of the subjunctive mood. The end of my foot itched, but my bank account was still trying to crawl under a duck.”
Second, Chandler has a wonderful facility for painting descriptions so that you feel like you’re walking right beside Marlowe and he does it in such sparse, efficient style.
1644 West 54th Place was a dried-out brown house with a dried-out brown lawn in front of it. There was a large bare patch around a tough-looking palm tree. On the porch stood one lonely wooden rocker, and the afternoon breeze made the unprunned shoots of last year’s poinsettias tap-tap against the cracked stucco wall. A line of stiff yellowish half-washed clothes jittered on a rusty wire in the side yard.Those descriptions materialized in front of me more than pages of less polished prose could accomplish. It felt like I was there.
…
I was looking into dimness at a blowsy woman who was blowing her nose as she opened the door. Her face was gray and puffy. She had weedy hair of that vague color which is neither brown nor blond, that hasn’t enough life in it to be ginger and isn’t clean enough to be gray. Her body was thick in a shapeless outing flannel bathrobe many moons past color and design.
Finally, there are the passages that aren’t just clever quips or snappy dialogue, but that convey a real sense of emotion.
“She hung up, leaving me with a curious feeling of having talked to somebody that didn’t exist.”
“…a sudden flashing movement that I sensed rather than saw. A pool of darkness opened at my feet and was far, far deeper than the blackest night. I dived into it. It had no bottom.”
“There was just enough for to make everything seem unreal. The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love.”
That is the trifecta of writing. Brilliant, sharp and fun….descriptive, informative and polished…and evocative, moving and powerful.
Yes, 5.0 stars and a definite must read for fans of noir, mysteries or just superb prose.
HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!
April 22, 2026
Mr. Philip Marlowe is six feet tall and weighing 190 lbs. man, women find quite attractive, maybe a tough guy to many onlookers in a sleazy and a low -paying occupation too, but is not a superhero, no eyes in the back of the head when someone smashes his skull with a club from behind, bigger stronger men can and do beat him to a bloody pulp, still the private detective is relentless and will get up... A kind of honestly is his code, yet does bend a little for his needs... constantly smoking cigarettes, drinking hard liquor and chasing careless women, not always he doesn't partake while sleeping. In a routine cheap case , (when he can collect his fee) of trying to find a runaway, a Greek husband, Marlowe on Central Avenue in Los Angeles 1940 gazes at the titanic and dangerous Moose Malloy, on an incessant mission, this former jailbird is six and a half feet tall, 260 lbs., dwarfs the amazed private eye, the recent unwisely released bank robber, is looking for his lost love the mysterious cute redhead Velma, enters the shady establishment the Florian nearby, he worked in eight long years ago then a nightclub now a gambling den, ( not legal, but in this city, no questions are asked) soon a man goes flying out the door landing in the gutter, the dumb Moose returns grabs Philip like he's a paper doll and takes him upstairs, his shoes hardly touch the steps, after a brief argument the bouncer bounces very high, Mr. Malloy opens the door ( he wants information, now) not realizing things have changed... to an office in the back, does not get any...a homicide occurs the unstoppable force has been let loose . The cops don't trust Mr. Marlowe even the honest ones, asking him many questions and they do not like his answers, threatening to take away his license he has heard that before, finally, let him walk out of their dingy downtown police headquarters, however all the troubles aren't any of his concern... A new case that pays well 100 bucks just to be a bodyguard, his client the nervous Mr. Lindsay Marriott, maybe a loathsome gigolo, he dresses well though and has good manners, involved with the wife of a multi -millionaire among others, the beautiful Mrs. Lewin ( Helen) Grayle but money doesn't smell, ( not always) things go dark and when Philip awakes at night in the lonely canyon, his client is no more...Marlowe will have to travels through the unsavory, with corruption everywhere he goes, mostly in the nearby small town of Bay City, ( Santa Monica)... meeting... pretentious quacks, political bosses dirty cops, drug pushing doctors visiting gambling boats off the coast, the rich creeps too even a "good girl", (who scares him ) and with little help to solve several murders... Raymond Chandler describes Los Angeles as nobody before or after has, the underbelly and upper crust all of it, he knows how to write, his plots are not what's important in his novels but characterization, style, pace, atmosphere and witty dialogue that few authors can ever reach or even attempt , talent is inherited, out of many only the giants will climb the heights of this eternal scribe.
February 16, 2020
I love Goodreads it has really enhanced my reading experience. And at the same time added to my anxiety. There are too many great books to read. I have at least 3k physical books on my TBR pile in my office that has really turned into a book storage space. When another reader posts something about one of my favorite books, I stop and think about how much I loved that book. That’s what happened recently with Farewell My Lovely. I dropped what I was reading and read it again. I don’t have time to reread books not with with such a tall TBR pile that continually beckons…and yet I do because that’s what the reading experience is all about. Great reads.
I’ve read Farewell my Lovely a number of times and with each reading I catch something I’d missed. This book is timeless and one of the greats with the voice and turn-of-phrase that many have tried to duplicate and have failed. I highly recommend this book.
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series.
I’ve read Farewell my Lovely a number of times and with each reading I catch something I’d missed. This book is timeless and one of the greats with the voice and turn-of-phrase that many have tried to duplicate and have failed. I highly recommend this book.
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series.
October 10, 2025
I started reading Raymond Chandler's novels to deepen my understanding of thriller culture. I thought I would find the same cliché of the solitary and invincible detective laying down the law in the streets of Los Angeles. So yes, it's partly true, but the novel is not just a story of gangsters. The essential lies in Chandler's talent: the atmosphere, intrigue, and writing are remarkable.
The story begins with an unusual encounter. Marlowe meets a man who is distinguished by a build "no wider than a tank truck." The behemoth enters a bar frequented by African Americans, and in less than a minute, one of the customers is ejected from the establishment—an excellent glide. The detective, intrigued, enters the bar. And here, he is drawn into a torturous story that will take him to the living rooms of a millionaire, a medium or an alcoholic slut, a clandestine clinic, or the holds of a boat transformed into a casino.
I particularly liked Chandler's style. He knows how to be lyrical and uses images like that of a beetle stuck in a police building to illustrate Marlowe's state of mind. And then there are these images that I find lovely. Here are two examples: "The moist air was cold as the ashes of a dead love" and "the voice became as cold as a canteen meal." The novel is very well written and has an old-fashioned touch (busty blondes, crooked police officers, Italian mobsters), giving it a natural charm. A favorite!
The story begins with an unusual encounter. Marlowe meets a man who is distinguished by a build "no wider than a tank truck." The behemoth enters a bar frequented by African Americans, and in less than a minute, one of the customers is ejected from the establishment—an excellent glide. The detective, intrigued, enters the bar. And here, he is drawn into a torturous story that will take him to the living rooms of a millionaire, a medium or an alcoholic slut, a clandestine clinic, or the holds of a boat transformed into a casino.
I particularly liked Chandler's style. He knows how to be lyrical and uses images like that of a beetle stuck in a police building to illustrate Marlowe's state of mind. And then there are these images that I find lovely. Here are two examples: "The moist air was cold as the ashes of a dead love" and "the voice became as cold as a canteen meal." The novel is very well written and has an old-fashioned touch (busty blondes, crooked police officers, Italian mobsters), giving it a natural charm. A favorite!
February 7, 2017
First of all I'm so partial to R.Chandler's books that I'd easily give only the titles three stars,and this gem is definitely a five-star title.
Apart from this sentimental love-and-hate story,I’m ALWAYS impressed by the characters speaking like they carry a book of wit and humor,to the point that I’ll start picking up sharp-edged setences from here and add them to my daily conversation.
The plot is a bit comlicated with rugged and overused narrative and minor parts,but the main irresistible characters beautifully cancel them out.
Of his novels,I'd say this is one of the best character-driven ones.
It was published in 1940,and the content is somewhat old fashioned,but every time I open this book,I can meet timeless Philip Marlowe,a man of principle.Just for this reason,I'll be reading it forever.
Apart from this sentimental love-and-hate story,I’m ALWAYS impressed by the characters speaking like they carry a book of wit and humor,to the point that I’ll start picking up sharp-edged setences from here and add them to my daily conversation.
The plot is a bit comlicated with rugged and overused narrative and minor parts,but the main irresistible characters beautifully cancel them out.
Of his novels,I'd say this is one of the best character-driven ones.
It was published in 1940,and the content is somewhat old fashioned,but every time I open this book,I can meet timeless Philip Marlowe,a man of principle.Just for this reason,I'll be reading it forever.
July 10, 2017
"She's a nice girl. Not my type."
"You don't like them nice?" He had another cigarette going. The smoke was being fanned away from his face by his hand.
"I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin."
Hey, copper, it's how I talk, see? Mahhhhhh
This was exactly what the doctor ordered after a blitz of wonderful yet terribly earnest books, one after the other. This classic noir was everything I needed. A handsome private dick (ahem), a heist of some rare jade jewels, mysterious beauties, lots of alcohol, clever wisecracks, and great writing.
"You don't like them nice?" He had another cigarette going. The smoke was being fanned away from his face by his hand.
"I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin."
Hey, copper, it's how I talk, see? Mahhhhhh
This was exactly what the doctor ordered after a blitz of wonderful yet terribly earnest books, one after the other. This classic noir was everything I needed. A handsome private dick (ahem), a heist of some rare jade jewels, mysterious beauties, lots of alcohol, clever wisecracks, and great writing.
June 23, 2020
Uno de los pendientes de Chandler.
La trama se desarrolla más lentamente que en otras ocasiones y el nudo central se encalla un poco ya que da la sensación de que el autor alarga innecesariamente la novela y este hecho le resta valor a un inicio trepidante y a un final al más puro estilo Marlowe.
Tiene todos los ingredientes "Hard Boiled" de siempre, aunque no es tan "perfecta" como "El sueño eterno" o "La dama del lago".
One of Chandler's list .
The plot unfolds more slowly than others occasions and the central knot becomes a bit stranded since it gives the feeling that the author unnecessarily lengthens the novel and this fact substrats value to a fast-paced beginning and an end in the purest Marlowe style.
It has all the "Hard Boiled" ingredients of all time, although it is not as "perfect" as "The big sleep" or "The lady of the lake".
La trama se desarrolla más lentamente que en otras ocasiones y el nudo central se encalla un poco ya que da la sensación de que el autor alarga innecesariamente la novela y este hecho le resta valor a un inicio trepidante y a un final al más puro estilo Marlowe.
Tiene todos los ingredientes "Hard Boiled" de siempre, aunque no es tan "perfecta" como "El sueño eterno" o "La dama del lago".
One of Chandler's list .
The plot unfolds more slowly than others occasions and the central knot becomes a bit stranded since it gives the feeling that the author unnecessarily lengthens the novel and this fact substrats value to a fast-paced beginning and an end in the purest Marlowe style.
It has all the "Hard Boiled" ingredients of all time, although it is not as "perfect" as "The big sleep" or "The lady of the lake".
September 11, 2023
a powerful follow up to ‘the big sleep’ and possibly even better. i haven’t been able to make up my mind just yet. both are towering achievements (not to mention intimidating as a writer) in detective fiction, but to my mind what chandler accomplished in the big sleep in regards to revealing the despair and depravity of the rich in a way that felt like pulling the curtain back just a tiny bit and not at all liking what you saw. revolting even.
and that’s reading it in 2023. which just shows you the timeless power of good storytelling.
which brings me to ‘farewell my lovely’ — a book which doesn’t have that unifying thematic quality, but what it makes up with in spades is chandler’s new found confidence in his writing ability after his debut. marlowe’s gritty sarcasm has been cranked up to 11, and it’s music to the ears, my friends. makes me want to walk around and answer everyone i know with sardonic replies that cut like a sharp knife, but only a few seconds later when the other person realizes the joke.
just fantastic dialogue all throughout.
and there’s a chapter where marlowe gets drugged and stumbles around trying to get a grip on things, that might be the funniest thing you’ll read all year. i was laughing out loud throughout.
to sum it up: i’m rereading this book as i post this.
that’s how good it is.
and that’s reading it in 2023. which just shows you the timeless power of good storytelling.
which brings me to ‘farewell my lovely’ — a book which doesn’t have that unifying thematic quality, but what it makes up with in spades is chandler’s new found confidence in his writing ability after his debut. marlowe’s gritty sarcasm has been cranked up to 11, and it’s music to the ears, my friends. makes me want to walk around and answer everyone i know with sardonic replies that cut like a sharp knife, but only a few seconds later when the other person realizes the joke.
just fantastic dialogue all throughout.
and there’s a chapter where marlowe gets drugged and stumbles around trying to get a grip on things, that might be the funniest thing you’ll read all year. i was laughing out loud throughout.
to sum it up: i’m rereading this book as i post this.
that’s how good it is.
June 26, 2024
It's impossible to think of anything that might be remotely fresh and interesting to say about this book. It's a classic of crime fiction; it was first published in 1940, and it's been reviewed thousands of times, mostly by people far more competent than I.
Suffice it to say that this is the second full-length novel featuring Los Angeles detective Philip Marlowe, following The Big Sleep, which had been published in 1939. Marlowe was the prototype for all the tough, wise-cracking P.I.s that would follow, and Chandler was really the first crime fiction writer to fully exploit the setting of Los Angeles. Scores of writers have followed in his footsteps, but very few have succeeded as well as Chandler did.
As the book opens, Marlowe is searching for a missing husband when he encounters a mountain of a man named Moose Malloy who is staring up at a bar above the barber shop where Marlowe had hoped to find the aforementioned missing husband. Malloy, fresh out of prison after an eight-year stretch, is looking for his lost love, Velma. Malloy hasn't heard from Velma in all of that time, but that has not quenched his affections for the woman who used to work in the bar.
Eight years is a long time, and in the interim, the bar, which used to be a white establishment, has now become an African-American one, although in 1940, no one would have described the place quite that politely. Well, one thing leads to another and Malloy drags Marlowe up the stairs and begins demanding answers from the people in the bar who, not surprisingly, have never heard of Velma.
Malloy winds up killing someone in the bar and takes off, leaving Marlowe to explain things to the cops. From that point on, Marlowe is entangled in Malloy's search. As a sideline, he also takes a job body guarding a guy who is trying to exchange cash for a valuable jade necklace that was stolen from a friend.
Neither job is simple and neither turns out very well, and before long, Marlowe is up to his neck in trouble with the cops and a whole lot of other people as well. Before it's all over, he'll be beat up, doped up, pushed around, and lied to, but it's all in the nature of the job.
The plot really doesn't make a lot of sense, but nobody reads Chandler for the plot. The book is beautifully written with one great line following another. Through Marlowe, Chandler rolls back the curtain and exposes the seamy side of pre-war L.A. It's not a pretty sight, and you sometimes get the impression that Marlowe might be the only honest, decent man in the state.
The Big Sleep may be one of the greatest crime novels ever written, and it's an impossible act to follow, even for Raymond Chandler. I like this book a lot, but I don't think it's quite on a par with the first book in the series. A solid 4.5 stars for me.
Suffice it to say that this is the second full-length novel featuring Los Angeles detective Philip Marlowe, following The Big Sleep, which had been published in 1939. Marlowe was the prototype for all the tough, wise-cracking P.I.s that would follow, and Chandler was really the first crime fiction writer to fully exploit the setting of Los Angeles. Scores of writers have followed in his footsteps, but very few have succeeded as well as Chandler did.
As the book opens, Marlowe is searching for a missing husband when he encounters a mountain of a man named Moose Malloy who is staring up at a bar above the barber shop where Marlowe had hoped to find the aforementioned missing husband. Malloy, fresh out of prison after an eight-year stretch, is looking for his lost love, Velma. Malloy hasn't heard from Velma in all of that time, but that has not quenched his affections for the woman who used to work in the bar.
Eight years is a long time, and in the interim, the bar, which used to be a white establishment, has now become an African-American one, although in 1940, no one would have described the place quite that politely. Well, one thing leads to another and Malloy drags Marlowe up the stairs and begins demanding answers from the people in the bar who, not surprisingly, have never heard of Velma.
Malloy winds up killing someone in the bar and takes off, leaving Marlowe to explain things to the cops. From that point on, Marlowe is entangled in Malloy's search. As a sideline, he also takes a job body guarding a guy who is trying to exchange cash for a valuable jade necklace that was stolen from a friend.
Neither job is simple and neither turns out very well, and before long, Marlowe is up to his neck in trouble with the cops and a whole lot of other people as well. Before it's all over, he'll be beat up, doped up, pushed around, and lied to, but it's all in the nature of the job.
The plot really doesn't make a lot of sense, but nobody reads Chandler for the plot. The book is beautifully written with one great line following another. Through Marlowe, Chandler rolls back the curtain and exposes the seamy side of pre-war L.A. It's not a pretty sight, and you sometimes get the impression that Marlowe might be the only honest, decent man in the state.
The Big Sleep may be one of the greatest crime novels ever written, and it's an impossible act to follow, even for Raymond Chandler. I like this book a lot, but I don't think it's quite on a par with the first book in the series. A solid 4.5 stars for me.
January 23, 2012
Philip Marlowe is looking for a woman's missing husband when he encounters Moose Malloy, a brute fresh out of prison, looking for his lost love Velma. Moose kills a man and Marlowe gets corralled into looking for the missing Velma. In the mean time, Marlowe gets another gig as a bodyguard and soon winds up with a corpse for a client. Will Marlowe find Velma and get to the bottom of things?
As I've said before, noir fiction and I go together like chronic constipation and heroin addiction. Farewell, My Lovely, Philip Marlowe's sophmore adventure, is one of the better noir tales I've ever read.
I wasn't completely sold on Farewell, My Lovely at first. It seemed like it took a little longer to get started than the Big Sleep. Once Marlowe got warmed up and I forgave it for not being The Big Sleep, I was completely absorbed by the writing. Chandler's poetic prose only got better in the gap between the Big Sleep and this book. There were even more quotable lines in this one. Chandler's similes reminded me of P.G. Wodehouse's at times, maybe the kind old Plum would write if he was in the grips of a powerful hangover.
"I lit a cigarette. It tasted like a plumber's handkerchief."
As for the plot, it's only slightly less convoluted than the Big Sleep. The two cases didn't intersect much until the end and I only guessed the big twist a paragraph or two before it happened. As with the previous book, the prose was the star of the show. Marlowe took so many blows to the head in this one that I had sympathy pains while reading it.
While I wouldn't say it's as good as The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely is a classic and not to be missed by noir fans. Four easy stars.
As I've said before, noir fiction and I go together like chronic constipation and heroin addiction. Farewell, My Lovely, Philip Marlowe's sophmore adventure, is one of the better noir tales I've ever read.
I wasn't completely sold on Farewell, My Lovely at first. It seemed like it took a little longer to get started than the Big Sleep. Once Marlowe got warmed up and I forgave it for not being The Big Sleep, I was completely absorbed by the writing. Chandler's poetic prose only got better in the gap between the Big Sleep and this book. There were even more quotable lines in this one. Chandler's similes reminded me of P.G. Wodehouse's at times, maybe the kind old Plum would write if he was in the grips of a powerful hangover.
"I lit a cigarette. It tasted like a plumber's handkerchief."
As for the plot, it's only slightly less convoluted than the Big Sleep. The two cases didn't intersect much until the end and I only guessed the big twist a paragraph or two before it happened. As with the previous book, the prose was the star of the show. Marlowe took so many blows to the head in this one that I had sympathy pains while reading it.
While I wouldn't say it's as good as The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely is a classic and not to be missed by noir fans. Four easy stars.
September 29, 2016
Excerpts from a dinner honoring the 2016 winner of the Otis Chandler Award for Literary Criticism
Audience Question: You’re known for your essay on the Kantian aesthetic of disinterested judgment as seen in the works of James Joyce, William Gaddis, and Dan Brown. Are there other authors or titles that come to mind, perhaps even more focused on the primacy of style?
Steve: Well, let’s see… Maybe the first book I read where a certain shadowy deportment really popped as a pure statement of style was Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely. The book itself was a cannibalization of three earlier short stories of his. Whereas the stories were neatly contained as standalones, the edits in piecing them together were more slapdash, sacrificing both congruency and clarity in the process. Chandler responded saying, "My whole career is based on the idea that the formula doesn't matter, the thing that counts is what you do with the formula; that is to say, it is a matter of style.” And of course that hard-boiled, noir feel of his is prevalent to this day.
Audience Question: I may be taking you further afield, but is this visual, visceral style brought on by Chandler one that necessarily de-emphasizes plot?
Steve: I don’t think so. Style is not everything. (Nor is image, much as Andre Agassi would have us believe on Canon's behalf.) Furthermore, …
Audience Question: [interrupting what would surely have been an insightful elaboration on the topic of substance v. style] But think back to the movies. When you picture Bogie and Bacall in The Big Sleep, do you remember the on-screen chemistry and the wise guy patter, or is it a plot detail, something like the perp who stole the falcon, that stuck with you?
Steve: Actually, wasn’t that Dashiell…
Audience member: [blurting out] For me, it’s Bogie and Bacall. Even in black and white they sizzle.
Steve: Admittedly, HumpBac, as I like to call them (retrofitting a nickname) were iconic, but…
Another audience member: Those couple combo names have kind of run their course, don’t you think? Who’s even together at this point? Certainly not Brangelina. TomKat? – no. Zanessa? – no.
Yet another voice from the audience: What about Bennifer? Are they? It’s hard to keep track.
And another: I don’t think so. I suppose Lizard (that is, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton) were the first of the on-again, off-again power couples.
Host: I’m afraid we may be veering off course as litterateurs, my friends. This isn’t an episode of I Love Lucy, after all. Should we redirect ourselves? Steve?
Steve: Actually, that’s often how it works with me – seemingly on point for brief spurts before devolving into flapdoodle. Besides, I just thought of another one: Lucille Ball + Desi Arnaz. They’d be Ba, Bu, bu, b…
Susan (Steve's lovely): You’re mumbling in your sleep again.
Steve: Huh?
Susan: Must be another pizza dream.
Steve: Yeah, [shaking cobwebs from his head] that and the bibimbap I had for lunch. With extra hot sauce.
Susan: So what were you dreaming?
Steve: Ha, I think I was getting some kind of award and spouting complete nonsense, like in one of my Goodreads reviews where I have nothing to say but say it anyway. The only thing I remember from it is groping for a certain word.
Susan: Do you remember what it is?
Steve: Yeah. Ballsy.
Steve: [continuing, somewhat incredulous] I know, it doesn’t make any sense to me either.
Susan: Hmm. Definitely a pizza dream.
Audience Question: You’re known for your essay on the Kantian aesthetic of disinterested judgment as seen in the works of James Joyce, William Gaddis, and Dan Brown. Are there other authors or titles that come to mind, perhaps even more focused on the primacy of style?
Steve: Well, let’s see… Maybe the first book I read where a certain shadowy deportment really popped as a pure statement of style was Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely. The book itself was a cannibalization of three earlier short stories of his. Whereas the stories were neatly contained as standalones, the edits in piecing them together were more slapdash, sacrificing both congruency and clarity in the process. Chandler responded saying, "My whole career is based on the idea that the formula doesn't matter, the thing that counts is what you do with the formula; that is to say, it is a matter of style.” And of course that hard-boiled, noir feel of his is prevalent to this day.
Audience Question: I may be taking you further afield, but is this visual, visceral style brought on by Chandler one that necessarily de-emphasizes plot?
Steve: I don’t think so. Style is not everything. (Nor is image, much as Andre Agassi would have us believe on Canon's behalf.) Furthermore, …
Audience Question: [interrupting what would surely have been an insightful elaboration on the topic of substance v. style] But think back to the movies. When you picture Bogie and Bacall in The Big Sleep, do you remember the on-screen chemistry and the wise guy patter, or is it a plot detail, something like the perp who stole the falcon, that stuck with you?
Steve: Actually, wasn’t that Dashiell…
Audience member: [blurting out] For me, it’s Bogie and Bacall. Even in black and white they sizzle.
Steve: Admittedly, HumpBac, as I like to call them (retrofitting a nickname) were iconic, but…
Another audience member: Those couple combo names have kind of run their course, don’t you think? Who’s even together at this point? Certainly not Brangelina. TomKat? – no. Zanessa? – no.
Yet another voice from the audience: What about Bennifer? Are they? It’s hard to keep track.
And another: I don’t think so. I suppose Lizard (that is, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton) were the first of the on-again, off-again power couples.
Host: I’m afraid we may be veering off course as litterateurs, my friends. This isn’t an episode of I Love Lucy, after all. Should we redirect ourselves? Steve?
Steve: Actually, that’s often how it works with me – seemingly on point for brief spurts before devolving into flapdoodle. Besides, I just thought of another one: Lucille Ball + Desi Arnaz. They’d be Ba, Bu, bu, b…
Susan (Steve's lovely): You’re mumbling in your sleep again.
Steve: Huh?
Susan: Must be another pizza dream.
Steve: Yeah, [shaking cobwebs from his head] that and the bibimbap I had for lunch. With extra hot sauce.
Susan: So what were you dreaming?
Steve: Ha, I think I was getting some kind of award and spouting complete nonsense, like in one of my Goodreads reviews where I have nothing to say but say it anyway. The only thing I remember from it is groping for a certain word.
Susan: Do you remember what it is?
Steve: Yeah. Ballsy.
Steve: [continuing, somewhat incredulous] I know, it doesn’t make any sense to me either.
Susan: Hmm. Definitely a pizza dream.
April 28, 2010
Phillip Marlowe is one of the most famous and influential characters in detective fiction. He’s also a racist alcoholic, and after all the blows to the head he routinely takes, he’s almost certainly suffering from post-concussion syndrome so you gotta question his judgment.
But he’s also the guy that says things like this:
"It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window."
And this:
"He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake."
And this:
”" 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.”
So I always find myself making allowances for Marlowe’s bad habits and personal failings.
Marlowe is working a boring job trying to find a missing husband when he has the bad luck to come across Moose Malloy. Malloy is a giant hulk of a man who just got out of prison and is looking for his lost love, Velma. Unfortunately, Moose is kind of simple and doesn’t know his own strength so he ends up killing somebody when asking questions. As a witness, Marlowe tells the cops what he saw and is coerced into trying to find Velma by a lazy detective. However, a real paying job as a bodyguard for a guy delivering a ransom for the return of stolen jewelry comes up so Marlowe ditches the Malloy mess. But things don’t go quite as expected.
One of the better Chandler novels, this is pretty typical Marlowe. The plot doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that’s not really important. It’s all about atmosphere and attitude. If you can get past the casual racism that litters the early chapters, you’ll find one of the classics of noir fiction.
But he’s also the guy that says things like this:
"It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window."
And this:
"He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake."
And this:
”" 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.”
So I always find myself making allowances for Marlowe’s bad habits and personal failings.
Marlowe is working a boring job trying to find a missing husband when he has the bad luck to come across Moose Malloy. Malloy is a giant hulk of a man who just got out of prison and is looking for his lost love, Velma. Unfortunately, Moose is kind of simple and doesn’t know his own strength so he ends up killing somebody when asking questions. As a witness, Marlowe tells the cops what he saw and is coerced into trying to find Velma by a lazy detective. However, a real paying job as a bodyguard for a guy delivering a ransom for the return of stolen jewelry comes up so Marlowe ditches the Malloy mess. But things don’t go quite as expected.
One of the better Chandler novels, this is pretty typical Marlowe. The plot doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that’s not really important. It’s all about atmosphere and attitude. If you can get past the casual racism that litters the early chapters, you’ll find one of the classics of noir fiction.
October 6, 2022
Down These Mean Streets
When you open up any dictionary and you look up the phrase Hardboiled private eye, you'll find it defined right there in black and white as Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. If much of the book seems familiar, it may be that you read it many years ago or that so many of the motifs were borrowed and used by so many other private eye writers over the years. But if you want to know how it's really done, you return to the master Hardboiled craftsman himself.
I always picture Philip Marlowe as Humphrey Bogart and no one can ever shake that image from me. However, Bogart only played Marlowe in the film adaptation of the first book in the series, The Big Sleep. For Farewell, My Lovely, you get the film images of Dick Powell and Robert Mitchum many decades later.
But, you always get the mean streets of Los Angeles no matter how you picture Marlowe. These streets range from the seedy joints lining Central Avenue to the estates in Beverly Hills and Brentwood Heights. The streets lead of course to Chandler's fictional Bay City, loosely based on what was a crooked Santa Monica right down to the gambling boats three legal miles offshore.
Marlowe here is always quick with a quip but world-weary. He's seen it all a time or two and nothing necessarily surprises him except maybe getting knocked out when he's playing bodyguard or locked up and drug-addled in a sanitarium.
The very beginning of the novel sets the whole attitude as Marlowe nonchalantly accepts a great big ape of a guy, Moose Malloy, no less, throwing a guy bodily out if his way. Moose is a great character, a singleminded maniac returned to the street after eight years in the pen and determined to find his gal, Vera. Gil Brewer later created a whole novel about such a guy in A Killer Is Loose.
All the usual Hardboiled rackets are well-represented here from blackmail to fortune telling to crooked cops to payoffs to rich folks living in a different world. Through it all, Marlowe resolutely starts adding up all these things that just don't add up and couldn't possibly be related. But what makes it such a joy to read is the fantastic prose, the descriptions of people and places that just bring them to life, often with a sardonic humor.
When you open up any dictionary and you look up the phrase Hardboiled private eye, you'll find it defined right there in black and white as Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. If much of the book seems familiar, it may be that you read it many years ago or that so many of the motifs were borrowed and used by so many other private eye writers over the years. But if you want to know how it's really done, you return to the master Hardboiled craftsman himself.
I always picture Philip Marlowe as Humphrey Bogart and no one can ever shake that image from me. However, Bogart only played Marlowe in the film adaptation of the first book in the series, The Big Sleep. For Farewell, My Lovely, you get the film images of Dick Powell and Robert Mitchum many decades later.
But, you always get the mean streets of Los Angeles no matter how you picture Marlowe. These streets range from the seedy joints lining Central Avenue to the estates in Beverly Hills and Brentwood Heights. The streets lead of course to Chandler's fictional Bay City, loosely based on what was a crooked Santa Monica right down to the gambling boats three legal miles offshore.
Marlowe here is always quick with a quip but world-weary. He's seen it all a time or two and nothing necessarily surprises him except maybe getting knocked out when he's playing bodyguard or locked up and drug-addled in a sanitarium.
The very beginning of the novel sets the whole attitude as Marlowe nonchalantly accepts a great big ape of a guy, Moose Malloy, no less, throwing a guy bodily out if his way. Moose is a great character, a singleminded maniac returned to the street after eight years in the pen and determined to find his gal, Vera. Gil Brewer later created a whole novel about such a guy in A Killer Is Loose.
All the usual Hardboiled rackets are well-represented here from blackmail to fortune telling to crooked cops to payoffs to rich folks living in a different world. Through it all, Marlowe resolutely starts adding up all these things that just don't add up and couldn't possibly be related. But what makes it such a joy to read is the fantastic prose, the descriptions of people and places that just bring them to life, often with a sardonic humor.
January 17, 2021
«Πιστεύω πως η κλασική εκπαίδευση σε προστατεύει από την επιτήδευση που έχει κατακλύσει τα σύγχρονα μυθιστορήματα»
Raymond Chandler
Αψεγάδιαστος!
Raymond Chandler
Αψεγάδιαστος!
January 8, 2022
What can I say? I absolutely loved the style and imagery. I mean, SERIOUSLY loved it. Marlowe is the quintessential hard-boiled detective who is suspicious of everyone, especially the dames, clients, cops, and thugs... but he has a pretty good understanding with the thugs.
The tale is fun and familiar, partly because Chandler paved the road for the best of what we know of Noir, but moreover, it's just GOOD. Snappy. Sarcastic. So VERY colorful.
And because -- let's be fair -- this came out in 1940, we need to adjust our sensibilities. Just a little. As a character, Marlowe is an alcoholic racist who lets his boredom rule his feet and his mouth.
I don't have to like his racism to think of him as the anti-hero that he is. He's an asshole in more ways than one. But he happens to hurt assholes, so that's viscerally okay. By today's standards, it's problematic, as are so many things that came out back then are, today, but the core and the style in this is totally brilliant. I'm often astounded by the turns of phrase. And so, for that, alone, I would totally recommend this.
The tale is fun and familiar, partly because Chandler paved the road for the best of what we know of Noir, but moreover, it's just GOOD. Snappy. Sarcastic. So VERY colorful.
And because -- let's be fair -- this came out in 1940, we need to adjust our sensibilities. Just a little. As a character, Marlowe is an alcoholic racist who lets his boredom rule his feet and his mouth.
I don't have to like his racism to think of him as the anti-hero that he is. He's an asshole in more ways than one. But he happens to hurt assholes, so that's viscerally okay. By today's standards, it's problematic, as are so many things that came out back then are, today, but the core and the style in this is totally brilliant. I'm often astounded by the turns of phrase. And so, for that, alone, I would totally recommend this.
October 19, 2017
Como ya dije antes, no me ha gustado nada de nada! Es más, me ha encantado! Desde luego Raymond Chandler supo crear un personaje único, irónico y humano que a día de hoy sigue enamorando al lector.
September 9, 2016
Not as complicated as it seems or as Chandler would like you to believe. And that's a-okay! I love a little private dick action and this is perfectly satisfying!
This story of a thug getting out of prison and trying to find his girl is fairly straightforward, but Raymond Chandler throws a bucketload of red herrings into Farewell, My Lovely in an attempt to throw you, dear reader, off the trail. Stick to the yellow brick road, Dorothy, and you'll figure it all out in short order.
Fresh off The Big Sleep detective Philip Marlowe is at it again in this sequel to that highly popular and well-written mystery. Farewell, My Lovely is an admirable followup, but it would be tough to meet or top one of the best detective novels of all time.
Book two in the Marlowe series marches forward, doing its best to recreate the original with a bevy of interesting characters that are relatively well-drawn for the crime noir genre. All that good, whip-smart, wise-crackin' dialogue you know and love is in place. It's just the plot that's a little out of whack. Chandler attempts to confuse the situation, and generally succeeds, but not in a particularly clever way. It's like a muddied up pond, but a pond nonetheless, so you can swim fairly easily through the murky waters to the other side.
Don't get me wrong, Farewell, My Lovely is still really good reading and any fan of the genre will enjoy it. Just don't expect a masterpiece.
This story of a thug getting out of prison and trying to find his girl is fairly straightforward, but Raymond Chandler throws a bucketload of red herrings into Farewell, My Lovely in an attempt to throw you, dear reader, off the trail. Stick to the yellow brick road, Dorothy, and you'll figure it all out in short order.
Fresh off The Big Sleep detective Philip Marlowe is at it again in this sequel to that highly popular and well-written mystery. Farewell, My Lovely is an admirable followup, but it would be tough to meet or top one of the best detective novels of all time.
Book two in the Marlowe series marches forward, doing its best to recreate the original with a bevy of interesting characters that are relatively well-drawn for the crime noir genre. All that good, whip-smart, wise-crackin' dialogue you know and love is in place. It's just the plot that's a little out of whack. Chandler attempts to confuse the situation, and generally succeeds, but not in a particularly clever way. It's like a muddied up pond, but a pond nonetheless, so you can swim fairly easily through the murky waters to the other side.
Don't get me wrong, Farewell, My Lovely is still really good reading and any fan of the genre will enjoy it. Just don't expect a masterpiece.
April 9, 2017
Fabulous! Philip Marlowe is the man! He gets quite knocked about in this story, which was good enough for me not to guess what was going on until I was told. And that is good enough for me!
Anne, a side kick character in this story sums up the story and Marlowe like this:
You’re so marvellous,’ she said. ‘So brave, so determined, and you work for so little money. Everybody bats you over the head and chokes you and smacks your jaw and fills you with morphine, but you just keep right on hitting between tackle and end until they’re all worn out. What makes you so wonderful?’
Unfortunately for her, she isn't his type:
‘I like smooth shiny girls, hard-boiled and loaded with sin.’
I love Marlowes ability to bounce back. He is totally the dude!
'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.'
Chandler has such a way with words!
'She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.'
There's also a lot of beautiful landscape prose which can get missed and his attention to detail (or maybe Marlowe's) is impressive. There is a scene where he watches a little bug moving round the office and it's really quite funny and observant.
It's dated -largely in a cool way. Nowadays attitudes are different but there is racism, referring to overly groomed men as pansies, the way women are thought of and described- these are historically accurate now and were contemporary at the time of writing. Everyone chain smokes and is practically alcoholic too.
I love Chandler's writing and I have a black and white movie visual going on the whole way through. I see Humphrey Bogart slugging whisky in his office, then delivering his wise-cracking one liners.
Superbly escapist and wonderful way to spend a few hours of my weekend!
Anne, a side kick character in this story sums up the story and Marlowe like this:
You’re so marvellous,’ she said. ‘So brave, so determined, and you work for so little money. Everybody bats you over the head and chokes you and smacks your jaw and fills you with morphine, but you just keep right on hitting between tackle and end until they’re all worn out. What makes you so wonderful?’
Unfortunately for her, she isn't his type:
‘I like smooth shiny girls, hard-boiled and loaded with sin.’
I love Marlowes ability to bounce back. He is totally the dude!
'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.'
Chandler has such a way with words!
'She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.'
There's also a lot of beautiful landscape prose which can get missed and his attention to detail (or maybe Marlowe's) is impressive. There is a scene where he watches a little bug moving round the office and it's really quite funny and observant.
It's dated -largely in a cool way. Nowadays attitudes are different but there is racism, referring to overly groomed men as pansies, the way women are thought of and described- these are historically accurate now and were contemporary at the time of writing. Everyone chain smokes and is practically alcoholic too.
I love Chandler's writing and I have a black and white movie visual going on the whole way through. I see Humphrey Bogart slugging whisky in his office, then delivering his wise-cracking one liners.
Superbly escapist and wonderful way to spend a few hours of my weekend!
August 13, 2021
In this his second adventure, private detective Philip Marlowe – more or less in between cases – pokes his inquisitive nose where it doesn’t belong. Encountering a behemoth of an ex-con, Moose Malloy, on the street, Marlowe follows the big man into a bar and witnesses a murder. And before the reader can ask, “Where’s my Velma?” – the question makes sense when you read the novel – Marlowe finds himself embroiled in police corruption, a blackmail scam, chasing a gang of jewelry thieves, another murder encounters a young female who becomes his pseudo-partner, meets up with a psychic con-man and a crooked doctor and is propositioned by a beautiful young woman who is married to a much older and very wealthy man. All the while Marlowe attempts to keep tabs on Moose.
If possible the plot/story-line of Farewell, My Lovely is even more convoluted than its predecessor, The Big Sleep. Marlowe meeting new players with each twist and turn of the investigation and getting physically bounced around on a regular basis. (For the politically correct there are a handful of racial slurs here which may make the reader cringe.) But somehow the author ties it all together in the end with maybe a not so neat bow.
This being a Chandler novel there are plenty of classic “Marlowe-isms”. After being called to a rich client’s home, where “the carpeting almost tickled his ankles”, he describes the den he is escorted into as “a room where anything could happen, except work.”
When embarking on a night’s work he makes the observation, “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.”
Ahhhh – to be Philip Marlowe.
If possible the plot/story-line of Farewell, My Lovely is even more convoluted than its predecessor, The Big Sleep. Marlowe meeting new players with each twist and turn of the investigation and getting physically bounced around on a regular basis. (For the politically correct there are a handful of racial slurs here which may make the reader cringe.) But somehow the author ties it all together in the end with maybe a not so neat bow.
This being a Chandler novel there are plenty of classic “Marlowe-isms”. After being called to a rich client’s home, where “the carpeting almost tickled his ankles”, he describes the den he is escorted into as “a room where anything could happen, except work.”
When embarking on a night’s work he makes the observation, “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.”
Ahhhh – to be Philip Marlowe.
April 26, 2026
„Сбогом, моя красавице“ е прекрасно криминале! Това е най-любимата ми книга от поредицата за забележителния частен детектив Филип Марлоу, а всички части от нея страшно много ми допадат... Превъзходното чувство за хумор на Реймънд Чандлър, както и мрачната, но и изключително привлекателна атмосфера в творбите му, превръщат обикновени престъпни истории в незабравими литературни преживявания.
„Мирисът на кафе бе достатъчно гъст, за да построиш гараж върху него. Върнах се при бюрото си, пуснах бутилката уиски обратно в чекмеджето, затворих го и седнах отново. Запалих лулата си за осми или девети път и внимателно се вгледах над прашното стъкло в сериозното и честно личице на госпожица Райърдън.
С течение на времето можеш да си паднеш по такова лице. Очарователните блондинки вървяха по десет цента дузината, но това бе лице, което не губеше свежестта си.“
„— Сега, като сме сред приятели и не присъстват дами, защо си отишъл там, не ни интересува кой знае колко, но тази работа с Хемингуей наистина ме впрегна.
— Залъгалка. Една стара, стара залъгалка.
— Кой изобщо е този господин Хемингуей?
— Един юнак, който повтаря едно и също нещо безкрай, докато не започнеш да му вярваш, че е така.
— Това сигурно не е толкова лесно — каза едрият. — Ти наистина си доста отракан за частен копой. Още ли не са ти избили зъбите?“
„— И какво стана после? — запита той вежливо като бияч в луксозен клуб.
— Претърсиха ме, взеха ме в тяхната кола, изхвърлиха ме насред планината и ме халосаха с палка, докато слизах.
Кимна, сякаш това, което бях казал, бе най-естественото нещо на света.
— И това се случи в Стилууд Хайтз — каза той меко.
— Аха.
— Знаете ли за какъв ви мисля? — облегна се той леко на бюрото, но не много, защото шкембето му пречеше.
— За лъжец — рекох аз.
— Вратата е там — рече той, сочейки към нея с малкия пръст на лявата си ръка.
Не се и помръднах. Продължих да го гледам. Когато се вбеси достатъчно, за да натисне звънеца, рекох:
— И двамата правим една и съща грешка...“
„Таксито се плъзгаше нагоре-надолу по вълните със зловещата грациозност на танцуваща кобра. Въздухът бе хладен и мокър с онази влага, от която ставите на моряците не могат да се избавят цял живот. Червените неонови контури на „Кралска корона“ поизбеляха, забулени от плъзгащите се сиви морски призраци, после проблеснаха отново, ослепителни като току-що купени топчета.
Заобиколихме го с широк плавен завой. Отдалеч изглеждаше чудесен. Едва доловима музика се разнесе над водата, а музиката над водата е винаги нещо прекрасно.“
„Мирисът на кафе бе достатъчно гъст, за да построиш гараж върху него. Върнах се при бюрото си, пуснах бутилката уиски обратно в чекмеджето, затворих го и седнах отново. Запалих лулата си за осми или девети път и внимателно се вгледах над прашното стъкло в сериозното и честно личице на госпожица Райърдън.
С течение на времето можеш да си паднеш по такова лице. Очарователните блондинки вървяха по десет цента дузината, но това бе лице, което не губеше свежестта си.“
„— Сега, като сме сред приятели и не присъстват дами, защо си отишъл там, не ни интересува кой знае колко, но тази работа с Хемингуей наистина ме впрегна.
— Залъгалка. Една стара, стара залъгалка.
— Кой изобщо е този господин Хемингуей?
— Един юнак, който повтаря едно и също нещо безкрай, докато не започнеш да му вярваш, че е така.
— Това сигурно не е толкова лесно — каза едрият. — Ти наистина си доста отракан за частен копой. Още ли не са ти избили зъбите?“
„— И какво стана после? — запита той вежливо като бияч в луксозен клуб.
— Претърсиха ме, взеха ме в тяхната кола, изхвърлиха ме насред планината и ме халосаха с палка, докато слизах.
Кимна, сякаш това, което бях казал, бе най-естественото нещо на света.
— И това се случи в Стилууд Хайтз — каза той меко.
— Аха.
— Знаете ли за какъв ви мисля? — облегна се той леко на бюрото, но не много, защото шкембето му пречеше.
— За лъжец — рекох аз.
— Вратата е там — рече той, сочейки към нея с малкия пръст на лявата си ръка.
Не се и помръднах. Продължих да го гледам. Когато се вбеси достатъчно, за да натисне звънеца, рекох:
— И двамата правим една и съща грешка...“
„Таксито се плъзгаше нагоре-надолу по вълните със зловещата грациозност на танцуваща кобра. Въздухът бе хладен и мокър с онази влага, от която ставите на моряците не могат да се избавят цял живот. Червените неонови контури на „Кралска корона“ поизбеляха, забулени от плъзгащите се сиви морски призраци, после проблеснаха отново, ослепителни като току-що купени топчета.
Заобиколихме го с широк плавен завой. Отдалеч изглеждаше чудесен. Едва доловима музика се разнесе над водата, а музиката над водата е винаги нещо прекрасно.“
June 20, 2022
The plot isn't quite as gripping as that of The Big Sleep but this is another stylish piece from Chandler as he erases the boundary between narrative voice and character - Marlowe is how he speaks: laconic, mordant, acidic, yet with a softer, vulnerable side as he is bludgeoned, shot at, captured and doped. And that scene where he picks up a stray pink bug in a police office, wraps it in his handkerchief and releases it outside speaks volumes. As does his sympathy for huge Moose Malloy on the search for his pre-prison sweetheart, Velma.
The writing is sharp and extravagant, utterly distinctive, and the observations on LA create an atmosphere that permeates the text. Anne Riordan, a 'nice' girl-next-door, gets to do some flirty bickering with Marlowe but does he think he's too much in the gutter for her fragrant self?
Looking forward to Marlowe #3.
(Original review below)
-------------------------------------------
More tough-talking noir from the world-weary Marlowe as he untangles another convoluted case involving jewel heists, blackmail, corruption, a beautiful woman on the make and a feisty girl-next-door. The casual racism is jarring to modern ears with use of the N word alongside descriptions of an 'Indian' (Native American) who is 'greasy' and 'smelly' and racially-inflected slang for passing Japanese and Italian characters... But the prose is characterful and the plot flows easily - and me, I love Moose Malloy!
The writing is sharp and extravagant, utterly distinctive, and the observations on LA create an atmosphere that permeates the text. Anne Riordan, a 'nice' girl-next-door, gets to do some flirty bickering with Marlowe but does he think he's too much in the gutter for her fragrant self?
Looking forward to Marlowe #3.
(Original review below)
-------------------------------------------
More tough-talking noir from the world-weary Marlowe as he untangles another convoluted case involving jewel heists, blackmail, corruption, a beautiful woman on the make and a feisty girl-next-door. The casual racism is jarring to modern ears with use of the N word alongside descriptions of an 'Indian' (Native American) who is 'greasy' and 'smelly' and racially-inflected slang for passing Japanese and Italian characters... But the prose is characterful and the plot flows easily - and me, I love Moose Malloy!
March 4, 2022
Philip Marlowe is a combination many of my favorite crime busters. John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee, Lee Child's Jack Reacher, and Jo Nesbø's, Harry Hole (to name a few).
Like Reacher, Harry, and Travis, Marlowe is also incredibly funny, smart and can take care of business with confidence when the situation warrants. Always get a huge kick out of how he handles his lady suitors, calling a spade a spade like nobody's business. He is never lured in with mindless flirtation, and listening to him use his witty dry humor to put people in their place is priceless.
Raymond Chandler a genius at his craft, and nothing I can say can describe how good his books are other than (if you have not already) read them, and enjoy.
Like Reacher, Harry, and Travis, Marlowe is also incredibly funny, smart and can take care of business with confidence when the situation warrants. Always get a huge kick out of how he handles his lady suitors, calling a spade a spade like nobody's business. He is never lured in with mindless flirtation, and listening to him use his witty dry humor to put people in their place is priceless.
Raymond Chandler a genius at his craft, and nothing I can say can describe how good his books are other than (if you have not already) read them, and enjoy.
June 3, 2021
Φαίνεται ίσως αστείο ή ευτελές αλλά το πρώτο πράγμα που με τραβάει εδώ είναι το όνομα του συγγραφέα που βρίσκω αρκετά σέξυ. Συγκεκριμένα ο συνειρμός είναι ο εξής: Chandler > chandelier > πολυέλαιος > κρεμάστηκα απ’ τον πολυέλαιο (έκφραση που λέμε στην παρέα και σημαίνει συγκεκριμένα πράγματα, όποιος κατάλαβε κατάλαβε). Το αυτό ισχύει και για τον τίτλο. Σε ένα noir μυθιστόρημα, ακόμη και αυτές οι λεπτομέρειες είναι κομμάτια που συνθέτουν ένα άλφα κλίμα. Αυτό το περιρρέον κλίμα είναι ένας ολόκληρος κόσμος, ένα χαλί πάνω στο οποίο ο αναγνώστης θα κυλιστεί, θα τυλιχτεί, θα μυρίσει και θα νιώσει. Ναι, το noir είναι κατά βάση μια αισθαντική εμπειρία. Είναι σαν ένας ιστός αράχνης με πολύπλοκη δομή που θα τον τσακώσει και θα τον κρατήσει εκεί όμηρο – εφόσον τα καταφέρει, να παρακολουθήσει σφιχτά την υπόθεση με όλα της τα παρελκόμενα.
Νοερά με τοποθέτησα στο φόντο του βιβλίου. Βυθίστηκα σε μια δερμάτινη πολυθρόνα. Άνοιξα μια χρυσή κασετίνα βάζοντας ένα τσιγάρο στην άκρη των χειλιών. Στο μεταξύ, οι ήχοι της jazz έφταναν στα αυτιά μου και τα μάτια μου μισόκλειναν από τη μέθη της ατμόσφαιρας. Ο Φίλιπ Μάρλοου το πήγαινε καλά. Τον εμπιστευόμουν, πάντα οριακά, κι αυτός ήταν ο λόγος που μπορούσα να αντλήσω ευχαρίστηση και να απολαμβάνω ηδονικά τα περίεργα σκηνικά που μου ξεφούρνιζε, γεμάτα ευαισθησία, αισθησιασμό, περηφάνια και τόλμη. Η προσωπικότητα του ντετέκτιβ ανέδιδε τη μελαγχολία αυτή που χαίρεται κανείς να προσλαμβάνει εκ του ασφαλούς, εξ αποστάσεως. It was a hard day’s night, αλλά το ουίσκυ θα είναι πάντα μια καλή λύση σε όλα τα προβλήματα.
Ο ιδιωτικός ντετέκτιβ σέρνει τα βήματά του νωθρά ενώ το μυαλό του παίρνει χίλιες στροφές. Πίνει ουίσκυ ως το μόνο πόσιμο υγρό που θα του προσφέρει διαύγεια και λειτουργικότητα στο έργο του. Μιλάει με γρίφους που μόνο ορισμένοι του κόσμου αυτού μπορούν να αποκωδικοποιήσουν. Μπαίνει σε μια βίλα, σε ένα ψυχιατρείο, μια φυλακή, ένα σιχαμερό αστυνομικό τμήμα με την ίδια άνεση. Είναι βιοπαλαιστής, κερδίζει λίγα –δυσανάλογα με το ρίσκο–, αλλά αυτό το επάγγελμα είναι ευθυγραμμισμένο με τη φτιαξιά του. Είναι φτιαγμένος μεν να λύσει μυστήρια –σε πρώτη ανάγνωση– αλλά κυρίως να ανιχνεύσει αυτό το κάτι των κουλών αυτού του κόσμου. Αυτών που ξεστράτισαν από τον "σωστό" δρόμο από πάθος, έρωτα, δίψα για χρήμα, υπερβολική ευαισθησία ίσως. Και παραμένει πάντα δεύτερος, ποτέ ο καραμπινάτος πρωταγωνιστής που είναι σε πρώτο πλάνο και θα κερδίσει τη δόξα και την τιμή, το μεγάλο χειροκρότημα στο τέλος της παράστασης. Το σημαντικότερο όμως είναι ότι παραμένει ένας βαθιά ρομαντικός τύπος, ένας τύπος που ασκεί μια διάχυτη γοητεία και καταχωρείται τελικά ως λογοτεχνικός ήρωας με ταυτότητα.
«Ήθελα ένα ποτό, ήθελα μια ασφάλεια ζωής, ήθελα διακοπές, ήθελα ένα εξοχικό σπίτι. Και το είχα; Ένα παλτό, ένα καπέλο και ένα περίστροφο. Τα φόρεσα και βγήκα από το δωμάτιο.»
Τελικά το μυστικό κλειδί του noir είναι αυτό: ο νομιμόφρονας και αγαθός πολίτης μπαίνει σε δυσώδη μονοπάτια που δε θα περπατήσει ποτέ, δε θα αντιληφθεί ποτέ ότι συμβαίνουν ενώ αυτός κοιμάται μακάριος στο δεξί πλευρό, δε θα περάσει ούτε ξυστά από δίπλα γιατί πολύ απλά η απόσταση που τον χωρίζει από αυτά μετριέται σε πλανήτες. Ή και μπορεί να συμβαίνουν σε ένα παράλληλο σύμπαν, μόλις στη διπλανή πόρτα.
Ο Chandler παραμένει σέξυ και μελαγχολικός κλείνοντας το βιβλίο. Πέρασε από πάνω μου ένα βερνίκι με γεύση πικρή και γλυκερή σαν του πούρου, με υφή τραχιά αλλά και μαλακή, έτσι ώστε να μου αφήσει ένα γνήσιο σημάδι τού τι εστί noir και πόσο ελκυστικό μπορεί να είναι ακόμα και για κάποιον που διατείνεται ότι δεν είναι στα αγαπημένα του genre. Στιλάτη, περιθωριακή πλην με κότσια λογοτεχνία.
«-Φοβαμαι το θάνατο και την απόγνωση, είπα. Τα σκοτεινά νερά, τα πρόσωπα των πνιγμένων και τα κρανία δίχως μάτια. Φοβάμαι να πεθάνω, φοβάμαι την ανυπαρξία, φοβάμαι πως δε θα βρω κάποιον που ονομάζεται Μπρουνέτ.»
Νοερά με τοποθέτησα στο φόντο του βιβλίου. Βυθίστηκα σε μια δερμάτινη πολυθρόνα. Άνοιξα μια χρυσή κασετίνα βάζοντας ένα τσιγάρο στην άκρη των χειλιών. Στο μεταξύ, οι ήχοι της jazz έφταναν στα αυτιά μου και τα μάτια μου μισόκλειναν από τη μέθη της ατμόσφαιρας. Ο Φίλιπ Μάρλοου το πήγαινε καλά. Τον εμπιστευόμουν, πάντα οριακά, κι αυτός ήταν ο λόγος που μπορούσα να αντλήσω ευχαρίστηση και να απολαμβάνω ηδονικά τα περίεργα σκηνικά που μου ξεφούρνιζε, γεμάτα ευαισθησία, αισθησιασμό, περηφάνια και τόλμη. Η προσωπικότητα του ντετέκτιβ ανέδιδε τη μελαγχολία αυτή που χαίρεται κανείς να προσλαμβάνει εκ του ασφαλούς, εξ αποστάσεως. It was a hard day’s night, αλλά το ουίσκυ θα είναι πάντα μια καλή λύση σε όλα τα προβλήματα.
Ο ιδιωτικός ντετέκτιβ σέρνει τα βήματά του νωθρά ενώ το μυαλό του παίρνει χίλιες στροφές. Πίνει ουίσκυ ως το μόνο πόσιμο υγρό που θα του προσφέρει διαύγεια και λειτουργικότητα στο έργο του. Μιλάει με γρίφους που μόνο ορισμένοι του κόσμου αυτού μπορούν να αποκωδικοποιήσουν. Μπαίνει σε μια βίλα, σε ένα ψυχιατρείο, μια φυλακή, ένα σιχαμερό αστυνομικό τμήμα με την ίδια άνεση. Είναι βιοπαλαιστής, κερδίζει λίγα –δυσανάλογα με το ρίσκο–, αλλά αυτό το επάγγελμα είναι ευθυγραμμισμένο με τη φτιαξιά του. Είναι φτιαγμένος μεν να λύσει μυστήρια –σε πρώτη ανάγνωση– αλλά κυρίως να ανιχνεύσει αυτό το κάτι των κουλών αυτού του κόσμου. Αυτών που ξεστράτισαν από τον "σωστό" δρόμο από πάθος, έρωτα, δίψα για χρήμα, υπερβολική ευαισθησία ίσως. Και παραμένει πάντα δεύτερος, ποτέ ο καραμπινάτος πρωταγωνιστής που είναι σε πρώτο πλάνο και θα κερδίσει τη δόξα και την τιμή, το μεγάλο χειροκρότημα στο τέλος της παράστασης. Το σημαντικότερο όμως είναι ότι παραμένει ένας βαθιά ρομαντικός τύπος, ένας τύπος που ασκεί μια διάχυτη γοητεία και καταχωρείται τελικά ως λογοτεχνικός ήρωας με ταυτότητα.
«Ήθελα ένα ποτό, ήθελα μια ασφάλεια ζωής, ήθελα διακοπές, ήθελα ένα εξοχικό σπίτι. Και το είχα; Ένα παλτό, ένα καπέλο και ένα περίστροφο. Τα φόρεσα και βγήκα από το δωμάτιο.»
Τελικά το μυστικό κλειδί του noir είναι αυτό: ο νομιμόφρονας και αγαθός πολίτης μπαίνει σε δυσώδη μονοπάτια που δε θα περπατήσει ποτέ, δε θα αντιληφθεί ποτέ ότι συμβαίνουν ενώ αυτός κοιμάται μακάριος στο δεξί πλευρό, δε θα περάσει ούτε ξυστά από δίπλα γιατί πολύ απλά η απόσταση που τον χωρίζει από αυτά μετριέται σε πλανήτες. Ή και μπορεί να συμβαίνουν σε ένα παράλληλο σύμπαν, μόλις στη διπλανή πόρτα.
Ο Chandler παραμένει σέξυ και μελαγχολικός κλείνοντας το βιβλίο. Πέρασε από πάνω μου ένα βερνίκι με γεύση πικρή και γλυκερή σαν του πούρου, με υφή τραχιά αλλά και μαλακή, έτσι ώστε να μου αφήσει ένα γνήσιο σημάδι τού τι εστί noir και πόσο ελκυστικό μπορεί να είναι ακόμα και για κάποιον που διατείνεται ότι δεν είναι στα αγαπημένα του genre. Στιλάτη, περιθωριακή πλην με κότσια λογοτεχνία.
«-Φοβαμαι το θάνατο και την απόγνωση, είπα. Τα σκοτεινά νερά, τα πρόσωπα των πνιγμένων και τα κρανία δίχως μάτια. Φοβάμαι να πεθάνω, φοβάμαι την ανυπαρξία, φοβάμαι πως δε θα βρω κάποιον που ονομάζεται Μπρουνέτ.»
October 26, 2019
3.5 stars
A very uneven successor to The Big Sleep, but truly brilliant in part. If I were to make a movie from a book, this would be The One. 😃
The first 1/4 is quite slow, clumsy even (see below). But then it quite suddenly gets wonderful. I wish I could know what happened to Chandler to wake him up. The prose suddenly soars.
Update: It turns out this book is a (clumsy) conglomeration of three of Chandler’s previous short stories:
1. Moose looking for Velma (poor)
2. A stolen jade necklace (adequate)
3. An adventure on an off-shore gambling boat (fail)
The second is typical Chandler, complex, hard-boiled and difficult to know whom to trust. We have two candidates for the femme-fatale here, and you are kept wondering to the last page if there are one or two bad girls. I loved that.
It’s a year since The Big Sleep. I wonder if Marlowe still dreams of Silver-Wig?
There is a long sequence at the docks, on the water and in a ship offshore, that just plod along; no forward motion to the plot, no incentive to stay up late reading more. Chandler definitely was not "in the groove" for this section.
at Chapter 7... This sucks:
I was looking at him across my office desk at about four-thirty when the phone rang and I heard a cool, supercilious voice that sounded as if it thought it was pretty good. It said drawlingly, after I had answered: "You are Philip Marlowe, a private detective?"
More sucky prose in chapter 7...
A wedge of sunlight slipped over the edge of the desk and fell noiselessly to the carpet. Traffic lights bong-bonged outside on the boulevard, interurban cars pounded by, a typewriter clacked monotonously in the lawyer's office beyond the party wall. I had filled and lit a pipe when the telephone rang again.
Chapter 9... Very suddenly the prose is a lot better. Wonderful, in fact -
On the highway the lights of the streaming cars made an almost solid beam in both directions. The big cornpoppers were rolling north growling as they went and festooned all over with green and yellow overhang lights. Three minutes of that and we turned inland, by a big service station, and wound along the flank of the foothills. It got quiet.
There was loneliness and the smell of kelp and the smell of wild sage from the hills. A yellow window hung here and there, all by itself, like the last orange. Cars passed, spraying the pavement with cold white light, then growled off into the darkness again. Wisps of fog chased the stars down the sky.
And... delicious...
"You didn't have to be rough," she said, putting her hands down into the pockets of a long rough coat with flaring shoulders. "I didn't think you killed him." I liked the cool quiet of her voice. I liked her nerve. We stood in the darkness, face to face, not saying anything for a moment. I could see the brush and light in the sky.
And ...
It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.
Interesting collection of terms from 1940 for pot:
That a man occasionally smoked a stick of tea, a man who looked as if any touch of the exotic would appeal to him. On the other hand lots of tough guys smoked marihuana, also lots of band musicians and high school kids, and nice girls who had given up trying. American hasheesh. A weed that would grow anywhere. Unlawful to cultivate now.
41% ....
"Oh, I hope you can." She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.
54% ...
Chandler hard boils it, then breaks out the blow torch. Awesome!
56% ... Fabulous. The existential gumshoe...
Hemingway went around and pushed his hard stomach behind the wheel. He started the car. We turned and drifted off down the driveway lined with wild geraniums. A cold wind lifted off the sea. The stars were too far off. They said nothing.
.
85% ... lagging badly here. Way too much time messing about on the docks and the water. Dull dialogue.
And in the very end, the heart, the detective-philosopher, the human condition.... Wonderful...
Movie versions
There is a very early movie version which I have not seen, The Falcon Takes Over.
I also watched the 1945 Dick Powell movie version, Murder, My Sweet, which was quite a mess. Some good parts of the book were preserved, but mostly the book had it's arms and legs amputated, and it's heart and brain scrambled.
I'm watching the 1975 version with Robert Mitchum, Charlotte Rampling, Sylvia Miles, the late and wonderful Harry Dean Stanton and (surprise!) Sylvester Stallone! This started well, although Mitchum is much, much too old to play Marlowe.
The "romance scene" with Charlotte Rampling (29) and Robert Mitchum (a worn-out 57) was cringe-worthy. Then the movie goes farther and farther off track. I didn’t even finish watching it. What a waste of time.
A very uneven successor to The Big Sleep, but truly brilliant in part. If I were to make a movie from a book, this would be The One. 😃
The first 1/4 is quite slow, clumsy even (see below). But then it quite suddenly gets wonderful. I wish I could know what happened to Chandler to wake him up. The prose suddenly soars.
Update: It turns out this book is a (clumsy) conglomeration of three of Chandler’s previous short stories:
1. Moose looking for Velma (poor)
2. A stolen jade necklace (adequate)
3. An adventure on an off-shore gambling boat (fail)
The second is typical Chandler, complex, hard-boiled and difficult to know whom to trust. We have two candidates for the femme-fatale here, and you are kept wondering to the last page if there are one or two bad girls. I loved that.
It’s a year since The Big Sleep. I wonder if Marlowe still dreams of Silver-Wig?
There is a long sequence at the docks, on the water and in a ship offshore, that just plod along; no forward motion to the plot, no incentive to stay up late reading more. Chandler definitely was not "in the groove" for this section.
at Chapter 7... This sucks:
I was looking at him across my office desk at about four-thirty when the phone rang and I heard a cool, supercilious voice that sounded as if it thought it was pretty good. It said drawlingly, after I had answered: "You are Philip Marlowe, a private detective?"
More sucky prose in chapter 7...
A wedge of sunlight slipped over the edge of the desk and fell noiselessly to the carpet. Traffic lights bong-bonged outside on the boulevard, interurban cars pounded by, a typewriter clacked monotonously in the lawyer's office beyond the party wall. I had filled and lit a pipe when the telephone rang again.
Chapter 9... Very suddenly the prose is a lot better. Wonderful, in fact -
On the highway the lights of the streaming cars made an almost solid beam in both directions. The big cornpoppers were rolling north growling as they went and festooned all over with green and yellow overhang lights. Three minutes of that and we turned inland, by a big service station, and wound along the flank of the foothills. It got quiet.
There was loneliness and the smell of kelp and the smell of wild sage from the hills. A yellow window hung here and there, all by itself, like the last orange. Cars passed, spraying the pavement with cold white light, then growled off into the darkness again. Wisps of fog chased the stars down the sky.
And... delicious...
"You didn't have to be rough," she said, putting her hands down into the pockets of a long rough coat with flaring shoulders. "I didn't think you killed him." I liked the cool quiet of her voice. I liked her nerve. We stood in the darkness, face to face, not saying anything for a moment. I could see the brush and light in the sky.
And ...
It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.
Interesting collection of terms from 1940 for pot:
That a man occasionally smoked a stick of tea, a man who looked as if any touch of the exotic would appeal to him. On the other hand lots of tough guys smoked marihuana, also lots of band musicians and high school kids, and nice girls who had given up trying. American hasheesh. A weed that would grow anywhere. Unlawful to cultivate now.
41% ....
"Oh, I hope you can." She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.
54% ...
Chandler hard boils it, then breaks out the blow torch. Awesome!
56% ... Fabulous. The existential gumshoe...
Hemingway went around and pushed his hard stomach behind the wheel. He started the car. We turned and drifted off down the driveway lined with wild geraniums. A cold wind lifted off the sea. The stars were too far off. They said nothing.
.
85% ... lagging badly here. Way too much time messing about on the docks and the water. Dull dialogue.
And in the very end, the heart, the detective-philosopher, the human condition.... Wonderful...
Movie versions
There is a very early movie version which I have not seen, The Falcon Takes Over.
I also watched the 1945 Dick Powell movie version, Murder, My Sweet, which was quite a mess. Some good parts of the book were preserved, but mostly the book had it's arms and legs amputated, and it's heart and brain scrambled.
I'm watching the 1975 version with Robert Mitchum, Charlotte Rampling, Sylvia Miles, the late and wonderful Harry Dean Stanton and (surprise!) Sylvester Stallone! This started well, although Mitchum is much, much too old to play Marlowe.
The "romance scene" with Charlotte Rampling (29) and Robert Mitchum (a worn-out 57) was cringe-worthy. Then the movie goes farther and farther off track. I didn’t even finish watching it. What a waste of time.
October 16, 2022
The second in the Philip Marlowe series in which he gets caught up in a murder connected to a ring of jewel thieves. It is always good to follow these stories of the hard drinking detective and this is a fairly good story. Unfortunately, it drifts in the middle and comes to its completion much later than I would have liked. It almost seems as if the publishers ask the author if he could stretch the story by adding another hundred pages in the middle. Enough Chandler there to make it a worthwhile, but possibly not his best.
March 15, 2014
“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.”
While working a missing persons case, Detective Philip Marlowe finds himself drawn into a murder investigation. Jailbird Moose Malloy knocks off the proprietor of a local watering hole in his pursuit of a gal named Velma. While assisting the cops in hunting him down, Marlowe backs off the case when he realizes he won’t be paid for his efforts. However it’s not long before another job falls in his lap when Marlowe is hired to accompany a man in a money-for-jewelry trade off. When his employer is tucked in for the big sleep, Marlowe tries to piece the crime together, taking a few lumps in the process.
As abrasive as a sheet of sandpaper coated in shattered glass, Philip Marlowe isn’t one to check his attitude at the door. He’s also an alcoholic, a racist, and unapologetically hardheaded. With all these character flaws, why is Raymond Chandler’s signature series so damn enjoyable? It probably has something to do with Chandler’s endlessly quotable prose.
The backbone of any story worth reading is the way the author’s prose plays out on the page. You could have the most exciting plot imaginable but if the writing isn't up to snuff, it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on, but sometimes an author can be so good that the plot is almost secondary. The true joy can come from random musings about life, death and everything in between or even the exceptional way an author crafts a setting or describes a character. Raymond Chandler is one such author and while the case surrounding Farewell, My Lovely isn't particularly outstanding, he is certainly a masterful storyteller.
Throughout the story, Chandler takes the reader in a multitude of directions and when Marlowe makes any sort of headway, a new element is introduced thus changing the case. It’s often a wonder Marlowe gets anything done when half the time he’s soaking himself in bourbon while seemingly trying to burn bridges with his smarmy attitude and general distaste for anyone he meets.
Farewell, My Lovely is an excellent novel and a more than worthy follow up to The Big Sleep. Chandler’s Philip Marlowe is one hell of an interesting character leaving me sad to know there are only six books in the series.
Also posted @ Every Read Thing
While working a missing persons case, Detective Philip Marlowe finds himself drawn into a murder investigation. Jailbird Moose Malloy knocks off the proprietor of a local watering hole in his pursuit of a gal named Velma. While assisting the cops in hunting him down, Marlowe backs off the case when he realizes he won’t be paid for his efforts. However it’s not long before another job falls in his lap when Marlowe is hired to accompany a man in a money-for-jewelry trade off. When his employer is tucked in for the big sleep, Marlowe tries to piece the crime together, taking a few lumps in the process.
As abrasive as a sheet of sandpaper coated in shattered glass, Philip Marlowe isn’t one to check his attitude at the door. He’s also an alcoholic, a racist, and unapologetically hardheaded. With all these character flaws, why is Raymond Chandler’s signature series so damn enjoyable? It probably has something to do with Chandler’s endlessly quotable prose.
The backbone of any story worth reading is the way the author’s prose plays out on the page. You could have the most exciting plot imaginable but if the writing isn't up to snuff, it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on, but sometimes an author can be so good that the plot is almost secondary. The true joy can come from random musings about life, death and everything in between or even the exceptional way an author crafts a setting or describes a character. Raymond Chandler is one such author and while the case surrounding Farewell, My Lovely isn't particularly outstanding, he is certainly a masterful storyteller.
Throughout the story, Chandler takes the reader in a multitude of directions and when Marlowe makes any sort of headway, a new element is introduced thus changing the case. It’s often a wonder Marlowe gets anything done when half the time he’s soaking himself in bourbon while seemingly trying to burn bridges with his smarmy attitude and general distaste for anyone he meets.
Farewell, My Lovely is an excellent novel and a more than worthy follow up to The Big Sleep. Chandler’s Philip Marlowe is one hell of an interesting character leaving me sad to know there are only six books in the series.
Also posted @ Every Read Thing
April 24, 2018
«Non è una storia né brillante né spiritosa. È soltanto una storia fosca e piena di sangue».
In una Los Angeles anni ’40 l’investigatore privato Philip Marlowe si trova casualmente presente sulla scena del crimine. In realtà, non dovrebbe esserci nulla d’interessante dato che la vittima è solo uno “scarafaggio”.
” Accese mezzo sigaro e gettò il cerino sul pavimento, dove già molti altri lo attendevano. La sua voce disse amaramente:
«Scarafaggi. Un'altra uccisione di scarafaggi. Ecco che cosa mi capita dopo diciotto anni di servizio. Niente taglia e niente stampa. Nemmeno due righe di cronaca».”
Così si designano nell’ambiente poliziesco gli afroamericani poiché proprio come gli scarafaggi sono esseri infimi non degni di rientrare nella cerchia umana. Un caso, pertanto, che appare di quart’ordine tanto che neppure la stampa si scomoda a scriverne un trafiletto. Di mezzo, però, c’è la scomparsa dell’affascinante Vilma e lei è bianca e di questo sì che vale la pena occuparsi.
Così si srotola una storia in cui Chandler dimostra una grande capacità descrittiva.
Nulla sfugge. Non c’è personaggio o ambiente che non sia tratteggiato nei minimi dettagli.
Tra descrizioni accurate di polsini, bottoni, rughe, pavimenti e quant’altro, c’è Marlowe.
Un duro, uno che non molla e si districa tra bugie e manganellate citando Shakespeare, facendo riferimenti a Rembrandt tanto per farci capire che non è l’ultimo dei caproni. Quello che stupisce è piuttosto come riesca a ricordarsene data la quantità industriale di whisky che ingurgita.
Un romanzo che, a mio avviso, non supera la prova del tempo sia per lo stile di scrittura sia per l’esplicito razzismo (oltre agli scarafaggi appare anche un indiano e la sua caratteristica principale è quella di puzzare e parlare come un troglodita…) ed una vena misogina. Tracce concrete di ciò che oggi designeremmo come politically incorrect .
Tre stelle per aver dato i natali al genere hard boiled dimostrando coraggio nel descrivere la corruzione morale in un’epoca di censure. Un autore amato come dimostrano commenti e votazioni dei lettori ma probabilmente non è il genere di lettura che mi manda in estasi.
«Siete fantastico», disse. «Così coraggioso, così risoluto, così disposto a lavorare per pochi quattrini. Tutti vi prendono a manganellate in testa, vi strangolano, vi spaccano la mascella e vi riempiono di morfina, ma voi continuate a tirar dritto come se niente fosse finché li avete fatti fuori tutti. Ma com'è che siete così straordinario?».
In una Los Angeles anni ’40 l’investigatore privato Philip Marlowe si trova casualmente presente sulla scena del crimine. In realtà, non dovrebbe esserci nulla d’interessante dato che la vittima è solo uno “scarafaggio”.
” Accese mezzo sigaro e gettò il cerino sul pavimento, dove già molti altri lo attendevano. La sua voce disse amaramente:
«Scarafaggi. Un'altra uccisione di scarafaggi. Ecco che cosa mi capita dopo diciotto anni di servizio. Niente taglia e niente stampa. Nemmeno due righe di cronaca».”
Così si designano nell’ambiente poliziesco gli afroamericani poiché proprio come gli scarafaggi sono esseri infimi non degni di rientrare nella cerchia umana. Un caso, pertanto, che appare di quart’ordine tanto che neppure la stampa si scomoda a scriverne un trafiletto. Di mezzo, però, c’è la scomparsa dell’affascinante Vilma e lei è bianca e di questo sì che vale la pena occuparsi.
Così si srotola una storia in cui Chandler dimostra una grande capacità descrittiva.
Nulla sfugge. Non c’è personaggio o ambiente che non sia tratteggiato nei minimi dettagli.
Tra descrizioni accurate di polsini, bottoni, rughe, pavimenti e quant’altro, c’è Marlowe.
Un duro, uno che non molla e si districa tra bugie e manganellate citando Shakespeare, facendo riferimenti a Rembrandt tanto per farci capire che non è l’ultimo dei caproni. Quello che stupisce è piuttosto come riesca a ricordarsene data la quantità industriale di whisky che ingurgita.
Un romanzo che, a mio avviso, non supera la prova del tempo sia per lo stile di scrittura sia per l’esplicito razzismo (oltre agli scarafaggi appare anche un indiano e la sua caratteristica principale è quella di puzzare e parlare come un troglodita…) ed una vena misogina. Tracce concrete di ciò che oggi designeremmo come politically incorrect .
Tre stelle per aver dato i natali al genere hard boiled dimostrando coraggio nel descrivere la corruzione morale in un’epoca di censure. Un autore amato come dimostrano commenti e votazioni dei lettori ma probabilmente non è il genere di lettura che mi manda in estasi.
«Siete fantastico», disse. «Così coraggioso, così risoluto, così disposto a lavorare per pochi quattrini. Tutti vi prendono a manganellate in testa, vi strangolano, vi spaccano la mascella e vi riempiono di morfina, ma voi continuate a tirar dritto come se niente fosse finché li avete fatti fuori tutti. Ma com'è che siete così straordinario?».
June 6, 2007
I wish I had Lauren Bacall's looks and a mouth as salty as Phillip Marlowe's. The characters are such great throw backs to the days when men were Men and women were Dames. Chandler's writing is amazingly rich for this genre and the plot lines are just convoluted enough to keep you guessing. Phillip Marlowe is a great faceted character which contrasts nicely against the one-dimensional villains, cops and women who populate the stories. If authors like Sue Grafton are the gummi bears of the genre (low-cal, low fat, but tasty and fun), Raymond Chandler is the 70% dark chocolate.
December 22, 2025
Muy bueno el final. En este libro hubo partes muy emocionantes ya que Marlowe se arriesgó más de lo normal. Como siempre, hay una potente crítica hacia la corrupción de la sociedad y la imposibilidad de nadar en su contra. Dejo una cita:
"Que un tipo no pueda ser honesto aunque quiera. Ese es el problema de este país. Si lo hace, le arrancan los pantalones. Hay que jugar el juego sucio, o no comer".
"Que un tipo no pueda ser honesto aunque quiera. Ese es el problema de este país. Si lo hace, le arrancan los pantalones. Hay que jugar el juego sucio, o no comer".
July 12, 2021
Philip Marlowe is one of the most memorable detectives in literary history. He’s smart, strong, handsome, but most of all witty and clever. And tough when he has to be. He’s also, seen more clearly by today’s standards, not admirable; he’s homophobic, at times seemingly racist, certainly arrogant with some women if not misogynist, with addictions to booze and cigarettes. Which is also to say that for 1940 he is in step with the times in the old US of A. So why is he still seen as one of the Big Three of all time in this genre? It’s the writing, at turns lyrical and then witty. Here’s just some examples:
“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.”
“It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window. She was wearing street clothes that looked black and white, and a hat to match and she was a little haughty, but not too much. Whatever you needed, wherever you happened to be—she had it.”
“I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin.”
“The coffee shop smell was strong enough to build a garage on. I went back to my desk, dropped the bottle of whiskey back into the drawer, shut the drawer and sat down again.”
“It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way-but not as far as Velma had gone.”
“Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.”
“He had a heart as big as one of Mae West's hips.”
“Beyond the electroliers, beyond the beat and toot of the small sidewalk cars, beyond the smell of hot fat and popcorn and the shrill children and the barkers in the peep shows, beyond everything but the smell of the ocean and the suddenly clear line of the shore and the creaming fall of the waves into the pebbled spume. I walked almost alone now. The noises died behind me, the hot dishonest light became a fumbling glare. Then the lightless finger of a black pier jutted seaward into the dark. This would be the one. I turned to go out on it.”
See what I mean? This is what distinguishes him from other crime/noir writers. He’s entertaining and just plain good. But as with The Big Sleep, the plot is convoluted to the point where I won’t even recount it, except to say: a woman named Velma is never physically present in this book, but she is the figure that moves it forward, the thread in the fabric one has to pull to unravel the whole cloth of the plot. Such as it is.
What are key plot/character elements? A 7 foot tall guy named Moose Malloy. Corrupt Bay City cops (you expect an LA story to feature the corrupt LAPD, but here it spreads to a neighboring community, maybe a fictionally named Santa Monica?). Offshore gambling boats. At least three different villains, lots of hot dames, of course. But in the middle of it, you just have to (finally, I’ll say) fall in love with Marlowe, with his cynical patter. Not quite as great as The Big Sleep, but still a classic!
“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.”
“It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window. She was wearing street clothes that looked black and white, and a hat to match and she was a little haughty, but not too much. Whatever you needed, wherever you happened to be—she had it.”
“I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin.”
“The coffee shop smell was strong enough to build a garage on. I went back to my desk, dropped the bottle of whiskey back into the drawer, shut the drawer and sat down again.”
“It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way-but not as far as Velma had gone.”
“Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.”
“He had a heart as big as one of Mae West's hips.”
“Beyond the electroliers, beyond the beat and toot of the small sidewalk cars, beyond the smell of hot fat and popcorn and the shrill children and the barkers in the peep shows, beyond everything but the smell of the ocean and the suddenly clear line of the shore and the creaming fall of the waves into the pebbled spume. I walked almost alone now. The noises died behind me, the hot dishonest light became a fumbling glare. Then the lightless finger of a black pier jutted seaward into the dark. This would be the one. I turned to go out on it.”
See what I mean? This is what distinguishes him from other crime/noir writers. He’s entertaining and just plain good. But as with The Big Sleep, the plot is convoluted to the point where I won’t even recount it, except to say: a woman named Velma is never physically present in this book, but she is the figure that moves it forward, the thread in the fabric one has to pull to unravel the whole cloth of the plot. Such as it is.
What are key plot/character elements? A 7 foot tall guy named Moose Malloy. Corrupt Bay City cops (you expect an LA story to feature the corrupt LAPD, but here it spreads to a neighboring community, maybe a fictionally named Santa Monica?). Offshore gambling boats. At least three different villains, lots of hot dames, of course. But in the middle of it, you just have to (finally, I’ll say) fall in love with Marlowe, with his cynical patter. Not quite as great as The Big Sleep, but still a classic!
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