A rich, twice widowed lush who likes to bully people, especially her mousey secretary and wimpy son, hires Marlowe to find a valuable coin, a Brasher Doubloon, and the ex-nightclub entertainer daughter-in-law who the old bat suspects of having absconded with the rare gold piece. In the course of his investigation, Marlowe encounters the usual cast of noir characters: losers, drunks, low-life criminals, corrupt rich people, blackmailers, brassy broads, tough cops, a frozen-eyed henchman, and dead bodies. So why is The High Window a great novel? I'll point to some characteristics that apply to all Chandler's writing.
1. Word Painting: Read one of Chandler's poetic passages describing the Los Angeles street scene ca. 1940. Loneliness, alienation, and despair with an underlying tension, an excitement that draws Marlowe, and the reader, onto the mean streets, from the wealthiest mansions down into the dumps and dives. A glossy surface covering the rot. No one before or since has done it better than Chandler.
2. Characterization: Many of the characters could be stereotypes but Chandler focuses on details, especially psychological tics and physical quirks, habits, dress, mannerisms, which make the characters memorable. And that begins with Marlowe, who, to paraphrase Chandler, is a tough guy who walks the mean streets but is not himself mean. Marlowe operates according to a code of honor, the ethics of his often-despised profession and something approaching gallantry. He's a knight-errant in a modern world. And he's smarter, indeed much smarter, than the average snoop.
3. First person narrative and dialogue: Chandler created a unique voice and made it believable, and he raised the wise crack to a high art. And the erudite Marlowe can crack wise about Hemingway—in "Farewell My Lovely"—and Samuel Pepys diary in "The High Window". He can smoke a pipe and work chess problems like Sherlock Holmes while guzzling cheap booze like a typical pulp fiction shamus.
The only downsides to reading Chandler are the occasional racial and ethnic slurs, the sexism and homophobia that are typical of the period. But those things we despise are part of Marlowe's world, and any attempt to portray that world without all its "warts" would be unauthentic. In sum, the greatest compliment I can pay to Chandler is that, as a writer, I learn something about my craft each time I read him.

Had to laugh when I found reviews saying nobody ever reads Chandler for his plot. It's probably true, at least once you know what you're getting into. There are parts of the books where I have no idea what's going on but I'm still hanging on because the way he writes is so amazing. I think I say this in every review of his books, though. This one had some awesome phrases in it -- the description of Marlowe as a "shop-soiled Galahad" particularly struck me, and "women who should be young but have faces like stale beer".

I actually found the character of Merle one of the most interesting things about this novel, though -- the attention paid to carefully building up her backstory and character. Structurally, I think this book is better than The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely -- although in all of them I've been able to keep a better grip on the plot than I'd expected of myself.

I don't read Chandler to find out whodunnit, though. That's almost immaterial.

Хареса ми! Реймънд Чандлър е страхотен разказвач, а Филип Марлоу е някак си истински. Историята е някак простичка, ясна, но в следващия момент всичко се обръща

First:
What really sets Raymond Chandler apart from his precursors and endless successors is the microscopically-trained eye for detail (obviously an asset in detection) and ability to convey it in concise, exacting terms. I could draw his sets and characters from memory. And, of course, his narratives are gripping, but then it takes an awfully sorry noir to be actually boring.

...

Then, finished:
This was my second foray into Chandler, and maintains my earlier impression that he's at the very top of classic noir. His strengths remain soundly his strengths (crisp, refined prose and sharply-drawn cast), and while this isn't quite so elegantly plotted as the Big Sleep, he's actually reigned in a few less admirable tendencies: Marlowe shows flickers of greater depth and compassion behind his deadpanning, and the female cast here seems more sympathetically and fully developed. Plenty of mercenary motives and ethical failings, of course, but that's just Chandler's L.A.; the females here are often a sorry lot, but I'd hazard to say no more so than the men. I also quite enjoyed the more ambiguous moral compass, though I'm not sure that's a change so much as an element brought more into focus here.

My first foray into hard-boiled fiction was through Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and despite the flaws (mainly sexism) I though the book was great. I know Chandler is the master of the genre and one day I would have to read him. As always, thanks to the Backlisted challenge, I was able to read him.

Chandler’s creation, Philip Marlowe is called to investigate a missing coin. The problem is that each person connected with the coin is murdered. As Marlowe digs deeper into the lives of the coin’s owners he discovers some family secrets which will place a lot of people in trouble.

I thought Hammett was good but Chandler just takes the genre to new levels: the dialogue is top notch – witty, snappy, snarky and quick and the thing is, it never dips in quality. The mystery has a ton of twists and turns and unfolds cleverly and Marlowe is a great character. I was hooked from page one till the end. Things go deeper. It is clear that Chandler wanted to break away from the genre he started so at times I was reminded of a Shakespearean tragedy at times, more in the writing than the plot.

As for criticisms, it is sexist in places: women are either money grabbing demons or airheads who need rescuing, although not inexcusable, I will admit I was caught up in the whole thing as I loved the writing and the red herrings. Whatever people say, this is indeed a classic.

The High Window was the 3rd of Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels (numbering 8 if you include the partly written Poodle Springs that Robert B. Parker completed), and was written in 1942. Neither of the film adaptations, both done in the 1940's, used that title. Marlowe narrates. Being inside Marlowe's head is exactly what makes reading Chandler so damn fun. When I read Chandler's books I don't make a huge effort to "solve the crime" or remember every detail that might be a clue. For me, that would turn a tremendous pleasure into a grind. I just let Marlowe do the work while I get off on his jaded outlook and delicious sarcasm. While he's a pretty fair-minded person, I'm sure you've noticed how much he hates rich people. He almost makes a game amusing himself with his internal dialogue when he's around them. He loathes their clothing, their possessions, their homes, their attitudes.

In The High Window, Marlowe is hired by a wealthy Pasadena widow to DISCREETLY get to the bottom of the theft of a rare coin from her late husband's collection. Mrs. Murdock, a mean old bitty, tells him she's sure it was taken by her trashy daughter-in-law, who has now disappeared, and that the police are not to be involved. The major players also include Mrs. Murdock's son, her icy young woman assistant, an L.A. coin collector, an extortionist and his trophy wife who is seeing someone else, a strange man who is tailing Marlowe around town, and quite a few others - the plot in this one is pretty convoluted. But as I said, just let it flow and enjoy looking at everyone and everything, including the Los Angeles of the 1940's, through Marlowe's green-tinted glasses.

After you've moved around in Marlowe's skin for a while (this is my 7th Chandler novel) part of the fun is that you know him so well that sometimes you know what he's about to say or do. When Mrs. Murdock's assistant came back to her desk in the opening scene to close a drawer she had left open, I said to myself, "When she goes out, he's going to get up and open that drawer". He did.

I've watched a few of the film adaptations of Chandler's novels, but I just decided that I want to collect all of them. There have been 11 done - 6 in the 40's, 4 more between '69 and '78, and one in 1998. As I was reviewing the list of Chandler's novels in chronologic order, I was amazed to notice that as he wrote them he put the titles in alphabetical order as well.

من قبلتر از چندلر فقط بانوی دریاچه رو خونده بودم که کلا جالب بود اما این کتاب راضیم نکرد به چ��د دلیل: 1) توصیفات کشدار چندلر از مکان ها اذیتم می کرد چون نمی تونستم تصورش کنم - اینکه یه سری اشیاء و حالات و تزئینات رو درکی از شکل و قیافه اش نداشتم مزید بر علت بود؛ 2) دیالوگ هایی که مارلو موقع کل کل کردن ادا می کرد جاهایی عملا شده بود خوشمزگی نویسنده که "ببینید من چه جوری این شخصیتا رو انداختم به جون هم"؛ 3) اشارات فرهنگی و زبانی و تشبیهی ای داشت که من نمی فهمیدمشون؛ ترجمه هم کمکی نمی کرد - گاه گاهی به اصلش هم مراجعه می کردم اما دردی از نفهمیدنم دوا نمی کرد

خلاصه اینکه تشبیهات و تصویرهای غیرقابل تصور یا غیر قابل فهم از یک سو و نفهمیدن ها از سوی دیگه باعث شد لذت کافی رو نبرم از داستان. البته کاملا قبول دارم این ها شخصیه - من حافظه ام ضعیفه و تخیل تصویریم هم همینطور. در بانوی دریاچه هم نکته ای بود که باز اینجا می دیدمش: کثرت جنایت. ظاهرا چندلر تا چند نفرو به کشتن نده راضی نمی شه. حس می کردم تو این داستان جنبه ی انسانی و روانی به شدت در سایه ی جنبه ی زرنگ بازی و معماگونگی و پیچیدگی و ... قرار گرفته بود. در بانوی دریاچه یه تعادلی بود بین این دو جنبه اما اینجا بیشتر منو گیج می کرد

ترجمه هم ترجمه ی خوبی نبود. متوسط بود. من فقط معدود جاهایی رو تطبیق دادم کلماتی افتادگی داشت و جاهایی هم منظور جمله رو عوض کرده بود اما تا اونجایی که من دیدم کم بود این موارد

At book three in this series it's getting harder to come up with new things to say about Chandler's Marlowe novels. Yes, I could offer up some of Chandler's clever similes or metaphors which change with each book, but I'm not going to do that. These novels are, in a word, excellent. Whether you read them for the writing, the often-cumbersome plots or the unforgettable characters, especially that of Philip Marlowe, considering that they were written around 70 years ago, the high quality of these books has remained steady so far. If you want to know about plot,I'm not bringing it out here; you can see what the book's about elsewhere.

Aside from Chandler's witty metaphors, very cool prose and his take on the sprawl that is Los Angeles (which I am absolutely fascinated by, probably more than anything else in these books) what I am beginning to appreciate more about these novels is in the way Chandler explores people. Getting to the whodunit and most especially the why is really a vehicle for exploring individual psyches, especially Marlowe's. He becomes much more of a damsel-in-distress rescuer in this book, and continues his moral duty of keeping his client shielded from any possible fallout, even though it might mean that he soils his integrity in the bargain. He continues to hold onto his principled self -- his twenty-five dollars a day plus expenses is all he wants -- he can't be bought off, despite the expectations of clients and crooks alike. He works hard to get not only to the truth, but also to the heart of just what it is about people that makes them tick. But it's not just Marlowe -- pretty much anyone who takes any role in Marlowe's investigations gets even the tiniest bit of psychological air time from his or her creator. It's these individual stories when combined that showcase the people who exist in Marlowe's city; his interactions with these people who help to define who Marlowe is. And isn't.

The High Window didn't feel as clunky or convoluted plotwise as its predecessors -- I am having so much fun with these novels and this one did not disappoint.

n  n   

'Sit down and rest your sex appeal.'

n  n
That one line alone from Lois Magic would be enough to get four stars from me, even though this isn't one of the best Marlowe plots. It feels a bit like Chandler is writing on the hoof and has no idea where he's going so it starts with a theft, then a murder is thrown in, then another, and yes, another, while the plot goes haywire with another murder in the past and madness and blackmail and lots of violence against women and a seedy nightclub and gambling debts and young women on the make (Linda Conquest, who used to room with Lois Magic - natch!)...

But despite the mayhem, Marlowe stays cool and laconic, plays a chess problem, drinks and smokes a lot, and rescues another young woman in distress ('Phil Marlowe', he said. 'The shop-soiled Galahad') while duelling with the monstrous Mrs Elizabeth Bright Murdock. (Am I the only one to find these books misogynistic?)

In the third outing for the iconic Marlowe, the plot can drag a bit but the writing seems sharper than ever.

Marlowe as a Romantic hero

This Phillip Marlowe novel is different from the rest. In spite of his cynicism, Marlowe exhibits the idealism of a Romantic hero. For example, Marlowe rescues a damsel in distress in the form of Merle. Chandler hints at the theme of Marlowe as a romantic knight in the language he uses in the novel to describe Marlowe, such as "shop-soiled Sir Galahad".

The story sees Private investigator Philip Marlowe is called to the house of wealthy widow Elizabeth Bright Murdock to recover a missing Brasher Doubloon, a rare and valuable coin. Mrs. Murdock suspects that it was stolen by her son’s estranged wife, Linda Conquest, a former singer. On his way back to his office, Marlowe is followed by a blond man in a coupe. Mrs. Murdock’s son Leslie Murdock visits Marlowe and tries to learn why his mother hired him. Murdock lets slip that he owes nightclub owner Alex Morny a sum of money. Marlowe learns that Linda Conquest had two friends: Lois Magic and a Mr. Vannier; Magic is now Mrs. Alex Morny. Marlowe visits Mrs. Morny at home and finds her with Vannier, who acts suspiciously. Marlowe is still tailed by the blond in the coupe and confronts him. He is George Anson Phillips, an amateurish private detective, who is thinking of enlisting Marlowe’s help on a case that is out of his league. Marlowe agrees to meet him at his apartment later.

Marlowe visits a rare coin dealer, Mr. Morningstar, who confirms that someone tried to sell a Brasher Doubloon; Marlowe plans to buy it back the next day, and after leaving overhears the dealer trying to call Phillips. Marlowe keeps his appointment with Phillips but finds him dead; the police arrest the drunk next door for the murder, although he insists he is innocent. The police give Marlowe an ultimatum to reveal all he knows. At his office, Marlowe receives a package with no address that contains the coin. He calls Mrs. Murdock and is floored when she says the coin has already been returned. Marlowe returns to the coin dealer and finds him dead also. Then Alex Morny’s henchman calls and invites Marlowe to visit Morny at his nightclub. It turns out that Linda Conquest is singing there. Morny demands to know why Marlowe visited his wife, but Marlowe is unfazed, and Morny realizes he is not Marlowe’s quarry. Morny offers to hire Marlowe to find dirt on Vannier, giving him a suspicious receipt for dentistry chemicals that Vannier lost. Marlowe also talks to Linda and decides she is not involved in the theft.

Returning to the Murdocks, Marlowe is told a story he doesn’t believe: Leslie Murdock hocked the coin to Morny for his debts, then changed his mind and got it back. Marlowe leaves in disgust, but he begins to suspect a dark secret involving Merle, the timid family secretary, and Mrs. Murdock’s first husband, Horace Bright, who was Leslie’s father and who died falling out of a window. The police say the drunk has confessed to the murder of Phillips, but Marlowe discovers he is covering for his landlord, a local leader who doesn’t want the police snooping around because his fugitive brother is nearby. The landlord is paying the drunk’s legal bills in exchange for his taking the rap. Marlowe gets a call that Merle is at his apartment having a nervous breakdown; he rushes home and she claims to have shot Vannier, although her story doesn’t hold water. Marlowe visits Vannier’s home, finds him dead, and discovers a photo of a man falling from a window. Morny and Magic arrive, and Marlowe hides while Morny tricks his wife into leaving her fingerprints on the gun near the body. He tells her he is sick of her and will force her to take the rap, but after they leave Marlowe puts the dead man’s prints on the gun instead.

Marlowe visits Mrs. Murdock again and reveals what he has figured out: Horace Bright once tried to force himself on Merle, and she either pushed him or allowed him to fall out of a window to his death. The stress of it made her become detached from reality. Vannier knew and was blackmailing the family. Mrs. Murdock admits it is true and says she regrets ever having hired Marlowe to get the coin back. Marlowe makes it plain that the feeling is mutual. He then speaks to Leslie Murdock and reveals what he knows about him: he and Vannier had a plot to duplicate the coin using dental technology. They had Lois Magic hire a dimwitted private detective to sell the fakes. The detective got scared of the assignment and mailed the coin to Marlowe. When Vannier learned Marlowe was on the case, he killed the detective and the dealer to cover his tracks. He threatened to ruin Leslie if their scheme ever got out, so Leslie killed him. Leslie confirms it, but Marlowe says it is not his business to turn him in and leaves. Marlowe tells Merle he knows it was Mrs. Murdock who pushed her husband out of the window and then blamed Merle for it. He drives her back to her parents’ home in Wichita, Kansas. The police discover Vannier’s role in the counterfeiting plot and his murders of Phillips and the coin dealer, but they rule Vannier’s death a suicide.

Marlowe's last act in the novel is to remove Merle from the toxic environment of Mrs. Murdock's employment. He drives her cross country, away from Los Angeles, to the home of her parents. He watches her and her family on the porch as he drives away and says, "I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again".

So, all in all not a bad book. However, the plotting is difficult and cumbersome which detracts from the descriptive passages of Los Angeles and its unsavory characters . Also, Chandler explains all, too neatly, in the end. Marlowe explains who has committed the crimes and their motives. Perhaps, the strongest part of the book is the characterization of Marlowe himself which becomes deeper than in the previous novels.

Having read a lot of Raymond Chandler through the years and now, finally going back and re-reading everything with a more widened perspective on the genre, The High Window easily stands out as his finest work.

The High Window, unlike a lot of genre Private Detective stories, which so many other authors have spent lifetimes struggling to copy and coming up short, keeps you guessing until the very end. Some authors give you a nibble about half way through a story and it falls apart in your lap and you figure it out. The High Window defies that solidly. You will be guessing about this one until the very end. Nothing is done ham-handedly or over-quick just to wrap it up either. This book could serve as a role model to other authors about how to write an ending, as I'm sure it has -- even if you don't write Detective Noir fiction.

If you're reading this review and a certain Humphrey Bogart film brought you here, and you don't know much about Raymond Chandler, just know that he was and is considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century. During his lifetime however he was dismissed as just a regular struggling hack novelist, because of the Genre, and not given a lot of attention. A lot of other authors, like Philip K. Dick for instance, another Angelino, suffered greatly under this prejudice during their lifetime because of supposed conventionalities. Sometimes, looking back you just have to wonder if it really was a West Coast prejudice, where anything outside of the New York circle of authors was thought worthless, or the critics just didn't have enough insight into life. Probably both.

The High Window moves very quickly, very smoothly, never misses a beat or falls flat for a single page. Chandler did drink a lot and it sometimes shows in his other novels, but with this effort you can see a lot of genius, planning and careful, methodic work ... just like the protagonist Philip Marlowe working a case.

The dialogue is as witty as Farewell, My Lovely and the wisecracks are even sharper than The Big Sleep. This book is also absent of the one problem that I have Chandler and that is his disconnection of information from novel to novel. Some of his stories never mention a single word about anyone or anything from his other books, however, in The High Window, I underlined five direct references to his other works. These are nice touches and just things I like, because it's like going to a friends house and being able to recognize the furniture. The Little Sister does a better job with bringing out a familiar cadre of Policemen, but this book is where it's out.

The main thought regarding the story though is all about protection of the client and their anonymity. Marlowe knows that if he has to turn over and talk, he's pretty much out of a job. This is a story about just that. While he takes on only one paid client, it feels as if he makes an exercise in proving that his word is his bond.

There's a few youtube links in the comments regarding some documentary footage concerning Chandler as well a Chandler interview with James Bond author Ian Fleming, where Chandler states that he believes himself to be one of the greatest living American writers -- and Fleming agrees. Fantastic stuff.

...

4 part Interview with Raymond Chandler and Ian Fleming:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj6cc0...

3 part Raymond Chandler Documentary on Crime, Los Angeles and his writing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIbFzc...

...

"The wind was quiet out here and the valley moonlight was so sharp that the black shadows looked as if they had been cut with an engraving tool."

Marlowe is tasked with tracking down and acquiring a stolen rare coin dubbed the Brasher Doubloon. Its owner, Mrs. Murdock, believes that her recently estranged daughter-in-law is the culprit. Unfortunately for Marlowe, there’s rarely ever an open and shut case and it isn’t long before he’s tied up in a web of deceit and murder.

I’m beginning to feel like there’s no such thing as a bad Marlowe story. While The High Window isn’t as quotable as The Big Sleep or Farewell, My Lovely, the case is just as interesting and the twists and turns in the story had me guessing right up to the end. It also doesn't hurt that the majority of the supporting cast are deplorable, shameless characters and while their actions affect others in ways they may not have intended, when they’re shown the error of their ways, they couldn't give a damn.

One of the things I really enjoyed was Marlowe’s insistence that several of the folks he comes across ooze noir stereotypes (the sexy femme fatale, the tough talking club owner complete with big bodyguard). It’s one thing to write these characters but it’s another thing to call attention to it; almost like breaking the fourth wall so to speak.

As many have pointed out, it’s not really because of the plot that you’re picking up a Chandler novel and I’m beginning to see why. Chandler writes Marlowe with such bravado, it’s like Marlowe thinks everyone is either constantly bluffing or just plain full of shit. He’s seemingly always a step ahead and he’s got more lines than a coke dealer.

The High Window has a satisfying conclusion and once again reinforces why Chandler is considered a master of the crime fiction genre. Onward to book four!

Also posted @ Every Read Thing