Farewell, My Lovely, by Raymond Chandler
Farewell My Lovely, by Raymond Chandler
They had Rembrandt on the calendar that year, a rather smeary self-portrait due to imperfectly registered color plates. 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 they 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?"
"Check."
"Oh--you mean, yes. You have been recommended to me as a man who can be trusted to keep his mouth shut. I should like you to come to my house at seven o'clock this evening. we can discuss a matter. My name is Lindsay Mariott and i live at 4212 Cabrillo Street, Montemar Vista. Do you know where that is?"
"I know where Montemar vista is, Mr. Mariott."
"Yes. Well. Cabrillo Street is rather hard to find. The streets down here are all laid out in a pattern of interesting but intricate curves. I should suggest that you walk up the steps from the sidewalk cafe. If you do that, Cabrillo is the third street you come to and my house is the only one on the block. At seven then?"
"What is the purpose of the employment, Mr. Mariott?"
"I should prefer not to discuss that over the phone."
"Can't you give me some idea? Montemar Vista is quite a distance."
"I shall be glad to pay your expenses, if we don't agree. Are you particular in the nature of the employment?"
"Not as long as it's legitimate."
The voice grew icicles. "I should not have called you if it were not."
A Harvard boy. Nice use of the subjunctive mood. The end of my foot itched, but my bank account was still trying to crawl under a duck. I put honey into my voice and said, "Many thanks for calling me, Mr. Mariott. I'll be there."
He hung up and that was that. I thought Mr. Rembrandt had a faint sneer on his face.
Who says the list is all work and no play? Earlier in the year, I was given Hammett's detective masterpiece Red Harvest, and now I have one by maybe the only author to surpass Hammett in the hard boiled noir detective genre.
Yes, there's a puzzle in the story, but it doesn't even scratch the surface of what Chandler has to offer. By the time we go from a murder at a club in a formerly white section of Lost Angeles to a slummy neighborhood, an upscale neighborhood, a top of the heap mansion, a quack psychic's office, a disreputable sanitarium, the gambling boats of Catalina Island, and several police stations and empty roads, we've developed an all-over feel for the city Chandler describes as one big, suntanned hangover with all the warmth and personality of a disposable paper cup. Class warfare waged by the rich against the poor. Democratic organizations and the rule of law itself bought out by people with enough money unencumbered by scruples to do whatever they want and get away with it. A sad sack who needs a shave. He would always need a shave. A woman whose voice drops into a sad whisper, like a mortician asking for a down payment. It's little turns of phrase like that, that have more layers of meaning the more you contemplate them, that make Chandler a master.
Like Shakespeare, he's full of great language that became cliched after he wrote it. Without me even having to mention them, you can think of the genre and immediately imagine the tough guy in the trenchcoat, the double-crossing dame, the ironic politeness of the well-dressed gangster, the smell of vomit in the cheap bar, the wisecracking cops, the rain-slick streets at night, and the hero PI, whose heart of gold is buried within the grime of years and whose thoughts turn from cynical humor to a short gut-wrenching burst of tragic truth in the same sentence.
I thrive on these stories. If you do too, Farewell, My Lovely, and Chandler's other six novels, are a literary feast for you. If you don't like the genre, then maybe you should read only the Chandler books and leave it at that. But don't cheat yourself of them. They're part of the world literary canon and popular with highbrow and lowbrow readers alike. This was my second or third time with Farewell, My Lovely, and I still got something new out of it. Like I said, the puzzle part doesn't even scratch the surface. Very highest recommendations.
They had Rembrandt on the calendar that year, a rather smeary self-portrait due to imperfectly registered color plates. 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 they 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?"
"Check."
"Oh--you mean, yes. You have been recommended to me as a man who can be trusted to keep his mouth shut. I should like you to come to my house at seven o'clock this evening. we can discuss a matter. My name is Lindsay Mariott and i live at 4212 Cabrillo Street, Montemar Vista. Do you know where that is?"
"I know where Montemar vista is, Mr. Mariott."
"Yes. Well. Cabrillo Street is rather hard to find. The streets down here are all laid out in a pattern of interesting but intricate curves. I should suggest that you walk up the steps from the sidewalk cafe. If you do that, Cabrillo is the third street you come to and my house is the only one on the block. At seven then?"
"What is the purpose of the employment, Mr. Mariott?"
"I should prefer not to discuss that over the phone."
"Can't you give me some idea? Montemar Vista is quite a distance."
"I shall be glad to pay your expenses, if we don't agree. Are you particular in the nature of the employment?"
"Not as long as it's legitimate."
The voice grew icicles. "I should not have called you if it were not."
A Harvard boy. Nice use of the subjunctive mood. The end of my foot itched, but my bank account was still trying to crawl under a duck. I put honey into my voice and said, "Many thanks for calling me, Mr. Mariott. I'll be there."
He hung up and that was that. I thought Mr. Rembrandt had a faint sneer on his face.
Who says the list is all work and no play? Earlier in the year, I was given Hammett's detective masterpiece Red Harvest, and now I have one by maybe the only author to surpass Hammett in the hard boiled noir detective genre.
Yes, there's a puzzle in the story, but it doesn't even scratch the surface of what Chandler has to offer. By the time we go from a murder at a club in a formerly white section of Lost Angeles to a slummy neighborhood, an upscale neighborhood, a top of the heap mansion, a quack psychic's office, a disreputable sanitarium, the gambling boats of Catalina Island, and several police stations and empty roads, we've developed an all-over feel for the city Chandler describes as one big, suntanned hangover with all the warmth and personality of a disposable paper cup. Class warfare waged by the rich against the poor. Democratic organizations and the rule of law itself bought out by people with enough money unencumbered by scruples to do whatever they want and get away with it. A sad sack who needs a shave. He would always need a shave. A woman whose voice drops into a sad whisper, like a mortician asking for a down payment. It's little turns of phrase like that, that have more layers of meaning the more you contemplate them, that make Chandler a master.
Like Shakespeare, he's full of great language that became cliched after he wrote it. Without me even having to mention them, you can think of the genre and immediately imagine the tough guy in the trenchcoat, the double-crossing dame, the ironic politeness of the well-dressed gangster, the smell of vomit in the cheap bar, the wisecracking cops, the rain-slick streets at night, and the hero PI, whose heart of gold is buried within the grime of years and whose thoughts turn from cynical humor to a short gut-wrenching burst of tragic truth in the same sentence.
I thrive on these stories. If you do too, Farewell, My Lovely, and Chandler's other six novels, are a literary feast for you. If you don't like the genre, then maybe you should read only the Chandler books and leave it at that. But don't cheat yourself of them. They're part of the world literary canon and popular with highbrow and lowbrow readers alike. This was my second or third time with Farewell, My Lovely, and I still got something new out of it. Like I said, the puzzle part doesn't even scratch the surface. Very highest recommendations.