This must the fourth or fifth time I have read Farewell, My Lovely and it's still brilliant. It’s the second Marlowe book and opens with an unforgettable scene in which the huge Moose Malloy literally hauls the unwitting Marlowe into an old nightclub to look for Velma, the singer whom he loved there before doing eight years for an armed robbery. The plot becomes convoluted but is always comprehensible, and involves jewel thieves, blackmail and murder – and poor old Marlowe being knocked out and ill-treated more than once.

I have to say that right at the start, the racist attitudes and language of the USA in 1940 are obvious and very ugly. It can be hard to take (it was for me) but that is how it was then and it has to be faced.

Everything else about the book is brilliant. The prose, the characters and the plot are just as great as ever; Moose Malloy, Lieutenant Nulty, Anne Riordan, Mr Lindsey Marriott and others – even the man on the desk of a hotel, who makes a brief appearance – are are all unforgettable. And no one does similes better than Chandler, I think (with the possible exception of Wodehouse, of course). "I felt like an amputated leg", "a blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window", “Mr Lindsey Marriott’s face looked as if he had swallowed a bee”, and so on. Genius. Added to this are occasional contemplative paragraphs, some humorous, some quite profound – like this, after Marlowe has been knocked unconscious:
“I had been out for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes sleep. Just a nice doze. In that time I had muffed a job and lost eight thousand dollars. Well, why not? In twenty minutes you can sink a battleship, down three or four planes, hold a double execution. You can die, get married, get fired and find a new job, have a tooth pulled, have your tonsils out. In twenty minutes you can even get up in the morning. You can get a glass of water at a night club—maybe.”

Chandler was in a class of his own in this genre. After eighty years it remains quite outstanding, I think – and I’m sure I’ll be reading it again at some point, just for the pleasure of it.

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".

Reading Raymond Chandler is a bit like wandering through a haunted house. You know that around every corner will be something new, some person popping out with a chainsaw to make you scream. In Chandler's case, it is an incredible description or metaphor or stylized piece of dialogue that will make you scream, and they'll be screams of delight.

Consider this description:

A large, thick-necked Negro was leaning against the end of the bar with pink garters on his shirt sleeves and pink and white suspenders crossing his broad back. He had bouncer written all over him. He put his lifted foot down slowly and turned slowly and stared at us, spreading his feet gently and moving a broad tongue along his lips. He had a battered face that looked as if it had been hit by everything but the back of a dragline. It was scarred, flattened, thickened, checkered, and welted. It was a face that had nothing to fear. Everything had been done to it that anybody could think of.

In one paragraph, Raymond Chandler's genre-defining noir detective Philip Marlowe perfectly describes this bouncer and what he looks like. And when the huge convict, one Moose Malloy picks him and tosses him aside, easy as a lion swats aside a ball of yarn, well... you know you've got a man who's not to be trifled with. And you know you've got a story with more twists n turns than that same ball of yarn. But somehow, someway, Marlowe will manage to unravel it.

I could, perhaps, talk more about how Philip Marlowe has spawned the long-lasting archetype for the gruff, wise-cracking broody and flawed detective with a heart of gold. But I find myself unable to give it justice. Instead let me just quote Raymond Chandler himself:

In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero; he is everything. He 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. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things.

He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of characters, or he would not know his job. He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks—that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.

The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.

Farewell, My Lovely is my favorite Chandler novel. It's got just the right mix of sadness and mania, truth and deception, all wrapped up in Chandler's scintillating prose. So if you're the type of person who loves fine writing, you'll be hard-pressed to find finer than in these pages and a thrilling crime story to boot. That's like having your cake AND eating it too, and that's a rare thing.

Дадох тази книга на един приятел да я прочете. "Толкова ми харесва - каза ми той след време, - че няма да ти я върна. Сърди се,ако искаш..."

Probably one of Chandler's best novels, as it was adapted for screen three times.
We have the same tough but sensible detective, a good plot, some interesting sayings, a sort of rather black humor and a somehow unexpected final. But, as usual for Chandler's stories, the journey is far more important than the destination: it matters less WHAT he's writing than HOW he does...

I will reread this book at some point, because I feel like due to life circumstances I had a harder time focusing, but I couldn’t make sense of the plot. Of course the language was crisp and on point. Chandler’s a real master of the turn of phrase.

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.

Chandler is simply a joy to read. He’s the standard to which all other crime fiction writers are held. He’s a good model for all writers, if you ask me. If you don’t like it, you don’t like the genre. Every page is brimming with mood, setting and great dialogue. I like how he carefully describes each character as they are introduced, and he paints each scene remarkably well. I once told my kids that a great book can conjure up such vivid images in your head that it’s as if you’re watching a movie, and that’s the miracle of reading. Chandler is one of the best in that regard.

In this one, Marlowe is on the trail of a missing torch singer, and so is her ex, and enormous brute named Moose Malloy. The trail leads to jewel thieves, big time gamblers, a mysterious fortune teller, crooked cops, drug dealers, gorgeous dames, and the usual cast of colorful secondary characters. I have learned that many of Chandler’s novels were cobbled together from some of his short stories. After finishing this one, I felt like I read two stories. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but readers looking for every plot point to tie nicely together at the end may be a bit surprised.

There are plenty of great lines and passages in this one, of course. Many can be found in the sidebar on GoodReads. This one had me grinning from ear to ear:

“We went down three steps to the living room. The carpet almost tickled my ankles. There was a concert grand piano, closed down. On one corner of it stood a tall silver vase on a strip of peach colored velvet, and a single yellow rose in the vase. There was plenty of nice soft furniture, a great many floor cushions, some with gold tassels and some just naked. It was a nice room if you didn’t get rough. It was the kind of room where people sit with their feet in their laps and sip absinthe through lumps of sugar and talk with high affected voices and sometimes just squeak. It was a room where anything could happen except work.”

Ah, Marlowe!!!

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 εν�� 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.»

Farewell, My Lovely is my second Chandler. While I liked The Big Sleep I think the former is better. This novel's keyed me into how and where Chandler crosses that magic line between literature and the forgettable books lining the Mystery section shelves.

Farewell, My Lovely's storyline is solid but secondary to Chandler's whip-smart dialogue and top-notch inner monologues. Marlowe is less of a dick (I don't mean private detective) here, but he's not, well, hugging people or whatever. He goes deep and dark with the self-loathing, much of which is arguably deserved, but his hammer-headed approach provided the template for so many similar characters. While I'm not comfortable asserting that Chandler invented his own genre, from what I can tell he refined one to the point where his work is considered a gold standard. Farewell, My Lovely isn't perfect; the way Marlowe falls into the case made my eyes roll just a little bit. But put all that shit aside and enjoy yourself. A few passages (e.g. the one when Marlowe tries to sleep in a seedy waterfront hotel, the one when Marlowe hooks up with a slutty girl) rise to greatness. Books of depth aren't often this much fun. Chandler flexes his muscles and seems to gain confidence through Farewell, My Lovely. This book's the shit.

„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.“

I have read two books in the Marlowe series so far and I love them both. But this book had a personally touch to it. I felt intrigued, captivated and amused by this unconventional character that by the time I finished Farewell My Lovely, I could only see Marlowe as a real person come to life, rather than a fictional character.

This case was a serious and dangerous one for Marlowe, HE was the one being targeted. It started when an escaped convict, looking for his girlfriend dragged Marlowe into a coloured establishment. Who then shot two employees out of confusion, and fled the scene. Marlowe was reluctant to get involved in the search for the convict – he was broke and was in need of a paid job - but a lazy and incompetent Investigating Officer pressured Marlowe to do a little snooping. Which led Marlowe into a sequence of seemingly unconnected events involving corrupted police and politicians, a jewelry heist, crime bosses and drug lords. But Marlowe interference was upsetting an unknown person or a gang, and they wanted him out of the way. He was drugged, severely beaten and choked. The torture he endured here had a lasting effect Marlowe, ruined and disturbed him in a big way.

I tried to yell, for no reason at all. Breath panted in my throat and couldn’t get out. The Indian threw me sideways and got a body scissors on me as I fell. He had me in a barrel. His hands went to my neck. Sometimes I wake up in the night. I feel them there and I smell the smell of him. I feel the breath fighting and losing and the greasy fingers digging in. Then I get up and take a drink and turn the radio on.

Chandler seriously out done himself; the writing was phenomenal, and while I loved what I’ve read to date, I can finally say I have witness a true literary genius in the great man. Farewell My Lovely is overflowing with exquisite razor sharp dialogue and phrases - I wanted to frame them up on my wall. Yet there were moments in his dialogue where Marlowe revealed more of himself where he openly expresses out loud or through his train of thought, his vulnerability, his fears and distressed And it felt like the characteristics that we know so well in Marlowe - the sarcasm and hard edge attitude and the excessive drinking problem that was so prominent in this book - was just a way to cover up or to numb those feelings away.

Farewell My Lovely is clever plotted crime, not as complex as The Big Sleep, but equally as intriguing and tense, vivid imaginary of seedy LA in the 1940 and superb literature that is a class of its own.

Now I’ll leave you with one of my favourite quotes:

They had Rembrandt on the calendar that year, a rather smeary self-portrait due to imperfectly registered color plate. It showed him holding a smeared palette with a dirty thumb and wearing a tam-o’-shanter which wasn’t any too clean either. His other hand held a brush poised in the air, as if he might be going to do a little work after a while, if somebody made a down payment. His face was aging, saggy, full of the disgust of life and the thickening effects of liquor. But it had a hard cheerfulness that I liked, and the eyes were as bright as drops of dew.
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?”