The Big Sleep & Farewell, My Lovely

Having read these two novels years ago, I was very surprised at my reaction to them back to back this time. I felt like I had completely misapprehended Chandler as a 'hard-boiled' writer. This is, after all, a common misapprehension. And anyone who wants to make the case can go through THE BIG SLEEP and FAREWELL MY LOVELY and cite sentences like:The blonde spat at me and threw herself on my leg and tried to bite that. I cracked her on the head with the gun, not very hard, and tried to stand up. She rolled down my legs and wrapped her arms around them....I used my knee on his face. It hurt my knee. He didn’t tell me whether it hurt his face. While he was still groaning I knocked him cold with the sap.....So she pumped five bullets into him, by way of saying hello.... but my impression this time, with all the revival of Black Mask and Dime Detective writers, Chandler's milieu, is that Chandler knew as much about mean streets and tough guys as Virgil knew about long boats and hecatombs- namely, what he read in books. In Schiller's terminology, Hammett was naive, and Chandler was sentimental.Thirty years ago, I probably saw THE BIG SLEEP as a key to obscurities in the great Howard Hawks movie. Details that never made it past the Hays Code, like:I knew about what it would be, of course. A heavy book, well bound, handsomely printed in handset type on fine paper. Larded with full-page arty photographs. Photos and letterpress were alike of an indescribable filth. The book was not new. Dates were stamped on the front endpaper, in and out dates. A rent book. A lending library of elaborate smut.andShe was wearing a pair of long jade earrings. They were nice earrings and had probably cost a couple of hundred dollars. She wasn’t wearing anything else. She had a beautiful body, small, lithe, compact, firm, rounded. Her skin in the lamplight had the shimmering luster of a pearl. Her legs didn’t quite have the raffish grace of Mrs. Regan’s legs, but they were very nice.Re-reading it, however, I thought of Chandler's novel as a fine movie script with a few corny interpolations:“I knew damn well you were trouble,” she snapped at me. “I told Joe to watch his step.”“It’s not his step, it’s the back of his lap he ought to watch,” I said.“I suppose that’s funny,” the blonde squealed.“It has been,” I said. “But it probably isn’t any more.”“Save the gags,” Brody advised me. “Joe’s watchin’ his step plenty. Put some light on so I can see to pop this guy, if it works out that way."It is a testament to the fine team of William Faulkner and Leigh Brackett that they knew what to use and what to cut. Nonetheless, the movie of THE BIG SLEEP follows the book fairly closely, whereas MURDER MY SWEET revises the plot of FAREWELL MY LOVELY radically. I think thirty years ago, I probably held that against the movie. This time, I hold it against the book."There was just enough fog to make everything seems unreal..." That is an actual quote from a very long, and very pointless trip Marlowe takes out to a gambling boat. This can hardly be called a spoiler, because it doesn't advance the plot. It does establish mood, however, but what a mood:“Need a little help up there?”“All I need is a silver tongue and the one I have is like a lizard’s back.”“Put your dough away,” Red said. “You paid me for the trip back. I think you’re scared.”He took hold of my hand. His was strong, hard, warm and slightly sticky. “I know you’re scared,” he whispered.“I’ll get over it,” I said. “One way or another.”I think Chandler cannibalized the whole thing from "The Man Who Loved Dogs," one of his stories for Black Mask- but furthermore, he was borrowing that, originally, from  Fast One  by Paul Cain, which, to be fair, Chandler acknowledged somewhere as some kind of high point in the ultra hard-boiled manner, thus enabling its eventual re-discovery.My original enjoyment of these two undeniably classic books was naive, but is now sentimental.

I am generally not very interested in mystery/detective books and don't think that I've read any other than a few Sherlock Holmes books many years ago. That said, I picked this book up on a whim and really enjoyed it.The short novels included in this book all feature LA private eye Phillip Marlowe and are apparently set in the '30s and '40s. I really liked the following aspects of these novels:1) It is really fun to read Chandler's descriptions of the places, clothes, cars, slang, mannerisms, characters, etc. of the time. Marlowe's wise-crack observations, while cliched, often had me laughing out loud;2) While Chandler uses all of the stock characters (smooth but menacing nightclub owners, sultry crooners, wise-guy PIs, effete rich buffoons, etc.), he really makes most of them come alive with the dialogue and their interactions with each other. In other words, Chandler does a great job of taking what would seem to be card-board cut-out characters and breathing life into them;3) Marlowe is able to resolve most conflicts with a couple glasses of whiskey and some wise-cracks, especially if a "dame" is involved. Today, it seems like most such conflicts would be resolved with a burst of AK-47 fire or worse. While no doubt highly idealized, Chandler's more innocent world is appealing to read about.4) For what it is worth, I am a big fan of the Everyman's Library series (which this edition is part of)--they are attractive, have good heft, include a page-marker ribbon, etc.Probably my only criticism of these novels is that the plots are a bit contrived, but I guess that is part of the fun.TMR

I purchased this based upon the other reviews. I had wanted to read The Big Sleep. The Bogart/Bacall film (Director's cut) is a favorite and, in general, the book is always superior to the film. At least one of the reviews suggested these two stories were a good place to start for Chandler newbies, and so it is. The book is way better than the film, and much, much different. The film focused on romance; the book went broader and deeper into the story. (I was amazed at some of the subject matter for a book from the forties, but I've not read any others.) After The Big Sleep I was eager to go into Farewell My Lovely without any forknowledge of the plot or story. Great stuff! I lived in southern California for over 35 years. Chandler's writing was evocative for me, and really brought to mind vivid images of the events and their settings.These stories "read easy"; not perhaps as eloquent as some older or more modern literature I've read. Very "comfortable". Much like watching a familiar favorite movie. The language is real, if mild by modern standards. (I prefer not to read profanity if possible. This stuff would barely be PG.) And now I really understand the references to this type of material. While reading, the "Tracer Bullet" strips from Calvin and Hobbes always came to mind. I can't wait to try some more.

I read the copy from my local library, and wanted my own book. It will have a special place in my growing library.

This edition was created by some kind of automatic e-book publishing program. It is NOT the three titles advertised- only one: Farewell My Lovely.Chandler sure had a way with words though. Like a cheap Shakespeare who just crawled out of a gambling den.

Always been a big fan of Philip Marlowe and other gumshoes writers Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane, and writers Joseph Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie.

The Big Sleep is the reason I started reading "hardboiled" detective novels. The intrigue and suspense that Raymond Chandler weaves into his stories is a lost art. If you're a fan of detective novels or you want to set yourself into a world of treachery and treason where only super sleuth Philip Marlowe can get to the bottom of the mystery, then I highly recommend you give this a shot.

Even though its written ages ago...it never fails to impress!! The movie adaptation starring Bogart does justice to the original version in print...a rare feat indeed!Stylish, classy and UN-forgettable!!