"Playback" by Raymond Chandler

Man, this book has given me such a bad book hangover.  I don't even remember the last time I had such a severe one.  Usually, I am reading at least two books at once, and so I just naturally keep on reading my other book whenever I finish one.  And then I transition into another pretty smoothly.  But this book... I just can't leave it behind yet.  I finished it two days ago and, up until the last chapter, I was just kind of okay with it, but not loving it as much as Chandler's other novels... and then I got to that last chapter and it knocked me down.  I can't even remember the last time I read this book, and I had forgotten pretty much everything about it, which is how I like it -- that's why I cycle through Chandler's books by reading one a year.  And boy, was that effective this time around.

So yeah... I haven't managed to read anything in either of the other two books I have going right now, since I finished this.  I tried starting a different book because it felt more similar to this, but that isn't working either.  I guess I'll just have to let the hangover wear off on its own, or something.

Playback is the last full book Raymond Chandler wrote and published.  It is a bit unusual in that Philip Marlowe alludes to characters from a previous book in it, and talks about things that had happened in it, namely The Long Goodbye, which I don't recall him doing at all in the other books.  And it's some of those tie-in things that really come together in the final chapter of Playback and just... were so completely awesome and made me so happy that I can't get over them.

And, it seems I can't really review this book coherently, thanks to that.

Let me try to at least describe the plot a little bit.  Philip Marlowe gets hired by a lawyer to follow a woman.  He does, and discovers that she is in some pretty serious trouble, so he decides to try to help her instead of just tailing her and reporting on her activities.  There's not an actual mystery here in the traditional sense -- the focus of the book is not on figuring out whodunnit and bringing in a criminal.  Instead, it's about figuring out what someone is hiding, and why, and kind of... studying human nature a lot in the process.  

It's a pensive and contemplative book, really, and Marlowe sometimes seems to drift through it.  But I think that's the point -- Marlowe is adrift, and so is the woman he was tailing, and the idea of "what do you do if you can't anchor yourself to someone else or someplace else" is the story's actual focus.  And Marlowe gets a chance at an anchor, which could change his whole life forever.

Still not super coherent, I guess, but that's what I've got.  Like I said, this book knocked me for a loop.  But in a very enjoyable way.

Particularly Good Bits:

You can't run away from yourself (p. 24).

On the dance floor half a dozen couples were throwing themselves around with the reckless abandon of a night watchman with arthritis (p. 44).

"Excuse me," I said.  "I'm a little tired.  Once in every two or three days I have to sit down.  It's a weakness I've tried to get over, but I'm not so young as I was" (p. 142).

"If I wasn't hard, I wouldn't be alive.  If I couldn't ever be gentle, I wouldn't deserve to be alive" (p. 153).

I sat down on the couch and stared at the wall.  Wherever I went, whatever I did, this was what I would come back to.  A blank wall in a meaningless room in a meaningless house.  I put the drink down on a side table without touching it.  Alcohol was no cure for this.  Nothing was any cure but the hard inner heart that asked for nothing from anyone (p. 164).

If This was a Move, I Would Rate It: R for Marlowe spending the night with two different women, one instance of which does not fade to black until after one person is already naked.  There's also a lot of violence, including torture and a suicide, and some bad language and drug use.  And a lot of drinking, as usual.