Well, this was fantastic. I've never read a fully annotated novel before, just annotated versions of Hamlet, but I am now a firm fan. It's like a movie with a commentary track, but as a book. It was absolutely fascinating. I learned SO many cool things from these notes! From explaining slang to discussing the LA setting to exploring the major themes, this book's notes had everything. And I do mean everything, so if you don't want the more seedy subtext of the the book brought forward, don't read this. It will delve into the depravities that Chandler only hints at, and that's definitely not something everyone would want to read. So do be aware of that, okay? It took me like two weeks to read this, but that's only because I was enjoying it so much that I read it in little bites and nibbles so as to make it last as long as possible. If you want to know what The Big Sleep is about, I reviewed it pretty fully here in 2017. If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for the book's text, R for the annotations. No sexual explicitness, exactly, but definitely discussions of sexual topics, drugs, violence, etc.
Does it ever happen to you where someone mentions a book, and you're like, "Whoa, that could be cool!" and then you get it... and it is way cooler than you could possibly have imagined? And then you love it so much, you re-read it immediately. And then you re-read it again quick before you have to take it back to the library. Yeah, that's totally what happened with this book, for me. Someone in the Rooglewood Fairy Tale Contest Facebook Group mentioned this graphic novel that turned the Snow White story into a noir story set in the 1930s, and I was like, "I MUST READ THIS." And the library had it! So I got it. And I read it. And now I've read it three times, and I want my own copy. Because wow, it is just brilliant. I was going to scan in some of my favorite panels, but then I found the official book trailer on YouTube, and it has so many of the good ones that I'm just sharing that here instead.
See? It's no wonder I fell in love with this book. If This was Actually a Movie Instead of Me Just Wishing It was, I Would Rate It: PG for some images that would probably scare young children, like the stepmother as an old hag and the guy chasing Snow with a knife.
I always have a terrible problem when reading Raymond Chandler. I want to zip through to the end because his mysteries are so gripping, but at the same time, I want to read them slowly so I can savor his writing. I want to pause and relish the flavor of his words, roll them around in my head, revel in their distinctive wonder. But I also want desperately to know what happens next. Even though I've read all his novels and short stories before and vaguely remember how they go, I still get sucked straight into them. The Big Sleep is the first thing by Raymond Chandler I ever read. I read it in high school, in a collection of "great mysteries" that my parents had on a high shelf in our basement. That collection was also my first introduction to Leslie Chartris' Simon Templar and Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, and I devoured the collection secretly, stealing time to read between school assignments. (I probably could have finished high school in two years if I hadn't done this sort of thing all the time.) I have to admit, the first time I read this, around the age of 17, I just zipped through it and on to the next book in the collection. I liked the noir feel of it, I knew Philip Marlowe was a famous detective, and I knew there was a movie version of this starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall that I'd been wanting to see for a while. But I didn't exactly savor and relish and revel in the words. Not yet. But eventually, I wised up. What draws me to Chandler's novels, besides the perfect, unexpected, gleaming writing? It's not the plots -- this one is twisted, yet thin, and Chandler himself admitted he had no idea who killed that poor chauffeur. Nope, it's Philip Marlowe himself. You know I have to want to be friends with the characters in a book if I'm going to love the book, and that is 100% the case here. I would love to befriend Philip Marlowe. He could use a good friend. He's such a complex guy -- such a brilliant mix of cynicism and hope. He has no faith in people, but he wishes that he did. He's in a dirty business, but he's not a dirty guy. As Chandler said in an essay about hardboiled mysteries, "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid." That's Marlowe all over -- not mean, not afraid, and not tarnished by all the foul things he has to investigate, encounter, and do. Man alive, I love that guy. I once named a camera after him, actually. And that's what separates Chandler from my other two favorite writers, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. I admire all three of them for the way they write, but I also love what Chandler writes, whereas Fitzgerald and Hemingway's stories are generally not things I love. (Yes, I'm the same person who just led a read-along of The Great Gatsby. I don't love Gatsby, but I do enjoy that one, at least. I enjoy a couple of Hemingway's too.) Interesting that they were all writing in the early part of the 20th century. I suppose I should mention what the plot of The Big Sleep is. Well, there's this old millionaire with two badly behaved daughters. He hires Marlowe to figure out who's blackmailing him about some gambling debts one of the daughters incurred. But really he wants to know if his ex-son-in-law is behind it. By the time Marlowe solves things, he'll have to deal with pornographers, murderers, extortionists, gamblers, and those wayward daughters. All handled in a remarkably tasteful way, really. Except for his homophobia -- that's not tasteful, but it's also not surprising given this was written in the 1930s. Many modern readers would find it shocking, I'm sure. Much as I love Marlowe, I admit he's not perfect. He wouldn't be realistic if he was. Particularly Good Bits: Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form itself on the edge of consciousness (p. 150). I was as empty of life as a scarecrow's pockets (p. 159). If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: A hard PG-13 for sexual matter handled in a non-explicit way, bad language, and violence.
I know a lot of people don't consider Chandler's books to be classics. I do. I think we'll be reading and marveling over them for hundreds of years, long after we've forgotten who lesser crime fiction authors ever were. And I'm not just saying that out of loyalty to him because he's my favorite author -- I really think he's that good. So this is my 11th book read and reviewed for my second go-round with The Classics Club.
The first year after I had graduated college, I got a two-volume collection of Raymond Chandler's complete works out of the library and inhaled them. It was a wonderful couple of weeks. I'd read The Big Sleep back in high school, and The Lady in the Lake one summer between college years, so I knew I liked his writing style. But it wasn't until that post-college binge that I realized I'd found my favorite author. The only trouble was, I read all his novels and short stories in a row, and all the plots kind of smooshed together. The only one I can reliably tell you a decent amount about is still The Big Sleep, because I've read it probably 3 times, and watched the Bogart & Bacall movie a lot. So this re-read of The High Window was almost like reading a brand-new-to-me book. I really didn't remember anything about the plot, which made it extra enjoyable. Basically, Philip Marlowe gets hired to find a rich old woman's daughter-in-law, who has disappeared along with a valuable old coin. In the process, he runs into murder, blackmail, and emotional manipulation -- the case goes deep and dark before it's through. One thing that surprised me was how relatively clean this was. I always think of Chandler as dealing with dark, dirty crimes, but while a few sordid things were implied here and there, they were glossed over pretty gently. If you'd like to try out one of his novels to see what his writing style is like, but don't want to get sucked into society's underbelly, I recommend trying this one. I'm not listing any favorite lines because I had so many it would be like reprinting half the book. If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for violence, language, and innuendo. This is my 37th book read and reviewed for The Classics Club!
Raymond Chandler is my favorite author, and yet it's been ten years since I read any of his works. Silly me! I needed to take a book along on our vacation last month, but never got around to picking one until the morning we were going to leave. I was in the mood for something a bit spicier than Jane Austen, so grabbed the first Chandler book I couldn't remember the plot to. It was The Long Goodbye. I lost count of how many times while reading this I exclaimed, "I love Raymond Chandler!" Oh, how I love his writing. But why? Because it's so unexpected, so full of unusual-yet-perfect descriptions. I blogged about his writing here many years ago, so I won't go into all that again. In The Long Goodbye, gumshoe Phillip Marlowe befriends an alcoholic, down-and-out war hero named Terry Lennox. Terry winds up in big trouble -- his philandering wife is dead, and of course everyone would suspect him. Marlowe helps Terry across the border to Mexico. And then he spends the rest of the book trying to figure out who really did kill the wife, why the whole case has been hushed up, and just what being a true friend entails. Chandler's singing, swinging prose goes down easier than a gimlet with lime juice in a Hollywood bar. I often have to stop reading to savor a line or phrase, lest they slide past me in my eagerness to find out what happens next. If you want to add a mystery to your summer reading list, do yourself a favor and make it one of his. (Originally posted on Hamlette's Soliloquy on Jul. 13, 2012.)
