These novels were my first encounter with Raymond Chandler, and I found them smart and astonishingly good. I really enjoyed the character and voice of detective Phillip Marlowe. My only quibble is the naked use of offensive slurs towards every group of peoples imaginable. I'm not sure the slurs aren't necessary to depict the world through which Marlowe moved, but they are nonetheless shocking and their use pulls the modern (reactionary) reader away from the story.

Not really my thing at all.

The original Guy Noir. There isn't much to say about Raymond Chandler's most famous hero that hasn't already been said more than once. I was interested to learn that, though born in Chicago, Chandler was raised in England and went to a British public school where the word "dame" has a different meaning than it does on the streets of Bay City (poor old Santa Monica which doesn't come off very well in Marlow's telling). Made me imagine a Pythonesque ending to the scene in which the thug surprises Marlow by sneaking into his apt while he's asleep, asks him why he left the door off the latch, and Marlow says, "Waiting for a dame." "What dame?" "Just a dame." Finally comes the knock on the door, and in walks Maggie Smith dressed for Downton Abbey.

The author of the intro suggests that "Farewell, My Lovely" beats even "The Big Sleep," and I agree. As the intro notes, Marlow's descriptions of California's sights, sounds, and smells, now getting on for a century ago, are vivid, exact, and beautiful, what you'd expect from a private seamus who knows his Shakespeare. His eye for the telling details of every character, no matter how minor, is striking. But it's his similes that make you remember the books--when I got to "A case of false teeth hung on the mustard-colored wall like a fuse-box in a screen porch," I started writing them down. And top this for a worth-a-thousand-words way to put you inside the underfunded, run-down, neglected Santa Monica City Hall: "Inside was a long, dark hallway that had been mopped the day McKinley was inaugurated." That was a long time ago even then.

And one of the best things is that way back in the early 40's the hero introduced himself at least once as "Marlow. Philip Marlow." So Ian Fleming must have liked him too.

Chandler's descriptions are so compelling that you not only see the characters clearly but also have a fairly complete feel for their personalities (who they are). I felt like I was experiencing everything: walking across the stones in the grass, sizing up the cool brick house etc.

And some of the desriptives are hilarious:

"she had a lot of face and chin. she had pewter colored hair set in a ruthless permanent, a hard beak, and large moist eyes with the sympathetic expression of wet stones"

Wet stones! Ruthless permanent! Who thinks like that. It was refreshing and wonderful.

The quality of the prose is consistent. I was completely engaged. His writing is brilliant. He is funny. The books evoke the era of film noir and hard boiled Hollywood detectives.

Where Dashiel Hammet was telegraphic, Raymond Chandler dwells more, using words to their best advantage. He uses words more freely but not wastefully.

Top notch content and very nice book to have in your collection.
I plan to purchase a lot more Everyman...

Any and all of these Chandler short novels are a delight, with world weary detective Marlow and LA of the 1940s. The wounded romantic as cynical helper to those in need.

Farewell, My Lovely

DNF. I finished "The Big Sleep", which I liked, but I wasn't really into the second so I didn't read the rest.

Raymond Chandler's first three Marlowe novels are classic private detective novels set in L.A., setting the scene for decades of sardonic women-hating drunk loners. Nothing scratches quite the private dick itch like Marlowe, and seeing as these were written during the time, there is a certain honest grit to these time capsules. Fair warning, however - these ARE time capsules replete with the misogyny, racism and homophobia that the late 30s and early 40s would never have acknowledged, but 21st century minds can't help but focus on. Farewell, My Lovely might be the richest of the three in language ("I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin."), but it is also the most heart-wrenchingly dehumanizing ("Another shine killing... No pix, no space, not even four lines in the want-ad section").

Whether read for pleasure or as a window into the dark recesses of the American caste system, I suggest accompanying these novels with a carafe full of whisky.

All three were good. It took me many years to warm up to R. Chandler. Glad I did.

The Big Sleep; Farewell My Lovely; The High Window

I've completed only the first of this collection of three novels, and probably won't worry about reading the others before it's due at the library. Curiosity about the well-known Philip Marlowe mysteries motivated me to pick it off the shelf. (I also thought my husband might be interested in it, but he hasn't touched it.) My preconceived notions about Chandler's work were borne out. You can almost hear Humphrey Bogart's voice in the narration.