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Title:Playback
Author: Raymond Chandler
Genre: Noir
Thingummies: 2
Synopsis: Marlowe takes an assignment tailing a young woman. Things get...not as complicated as they should have.
Thoughts: Chandler books seem to be either very good or a little bit dreadful. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground. I think some of it is that he writes with such a hyperbolic style that there isn't much room for error. When everything clicks, the story hums along, the understated action ratchets up the tension, and the extended metaphors lend a stylish air. When it doesn't, the story stops making sense, the understatement makes everything baffling, and the metaphors become parodies of themselves.
This book feels like an afterthought--his editor called him up, he had some bills to pay, so he threw something together in an afternoon. There's basically no plot. He takes the job in the first place for no real reason, decides to drop the job for no real reason, and sleeps with two different women again for no real reason. The mystery of who the girl is gets solved via infodump when someone comes in and complains to the police in Marlowe's presence about what she did. The secondary mystery of what happened to the guy blackmailing her gets solved almost as easily and again not really by Marlowe. Actually, come to think of it, I'm not sure that events would have played out all that differently if Marlowe hadn't even been there.
The denouement makes no sense to anyone who didn't read the previous book, The Long Goodbye. But by suddenly dropping in a character from that book (which has nothing to do with the current book), Chandler completely undercuts the emotional heart of the previous book.
For, really, no good reason.
Author: Raymond Chandler
Genre: Noir
Thingummies: 2
Synopsis: Marlowe takes an assignment tailing a young woman. Things get...not as complicated as they should have.
Thoughts: Chandler books seem to be either very good or a little bit dreadful. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground. I think some of it is that he writes with such a hyperbolic style that there isn't much room for error. When everything clicks, the story hums along, the understated action ratchets up the tension, and the extended metaphors lend a stylish air. When it doesn't, the story stops making sense, the understatement makes everything baffling, and the metaphors become parodies of themselves.
This book feels like an afterthought--his editor called him up, he had some bills to pay, so he threw something together in an afternoon. There's basically no plot. He takes the job in the first place for no real reason, decides to drop the job for no real reason, and sleeps with two different women again for no real reason. The mystery of who the girl is gets solved via infodump when someone comes in and complains to the police in Marlowe's presence about what she did. The secondary mystery of what happened to the guy blackmailing her gets solved almost as easily and again not really by Marlowe. Actually, come to think of it, I'm not sure that events would have played out all that differently if Marlowe hadn't even been there.
The denouement makes no sense to anyone who didn't read the previous book, The Long Goodbye. But by suddenly dropping in a character from that book (which has nothing to do with the current book), Chandler completely undercuts the emotional heart of the previous book.
For, really, no good reason.
