I love Raymond Chandler. It’s not just the humour or the seedy atmosphere of 1940s Los Angeles, it’s the quality of the writing. I would put him against any other author of the twentieth century and expect him to stand up well.
Unfortunately I’ve read all of his novels so I can’t have the pleasure of a new Chandler book. I’ve been dithering about Poodle Springs for years now, not wanting to spoil my impression of him in case it’s bad.
Wikipedia says, so it must be absolutely true, that he finished four chapters of Poodle Springs in 1958, then died in 1959. His estate, smelling money, asked Robert B Parker to finish it in 1988 to celebrate his centenary. Parker is a detective writer already, although I’ve never read any of his books.
The story, involving blackmail, murder, gambling, pornography, bigamy, double identity and wealth, is secondary to the setting, which sees Marlowe shucked from his customary solitary existence in LA and deposited in a luxurious house in the wealthy desert town of Poodle Springs, courtesy of his new wife’s father’s money.
He squirms and resists everything this new life offers, refusing to give up his old job, his poverty-stricken independence and his self-respect. The case comes into tangential contact with his wife’s family and the setting and story interweave for a few moments.
Sounds fine, but it’s not. Far from it. It’s awful.
Four chapters doesn’t sound like much, but I doubt that even they were completed properly. I don’t know whether Chandler became too ill to continue or just put them away as a bad job, but there is no part of this book that has even a fiftieth of the wit and flair of any of his other work.
It’s easy to come to Chandler thinking only of the spoofs. He’s been parodied a thousand times, but every single one of them is a poor reflection of the real thing, and usually far less funny. He’s a great writer who’s been reflected in the shoddy work of hacks far more than he’s been read for himself. Parker is one such hack.
I wish I’d held out for longer and not read this book at all. About two thirds of the way through I started to question whether I liked reading at all, and whether perhaps books are weak things that don’t really hold your attention very well and aren’t worth bothering with. The whole of literature had been overshadowed by the crappy work of one writer cashing in on a defenceless dead guy whose typewriter he wasn’t fit to polish.
At least a bad book (‘48 By James Herbert, for example) can just be dismissed as the work of someone who would be better of driving a taxi or mining coal than writing, but this is supposed to be Raymond Chandler.
I started to get angry. On I read, leaden dreary page after page, each new faceless character and predictable turn of the plot making me sorrier and sorrier I’d ever picked the bloody thing up, and finally I finished it. I’ve never felt worse about reading any other book.
Avoid this awful thing at all costs. Read a cereal packet, watch the television or go for a walk. Just don’t read this.
Possibly related posts:
Trackbacks
One Trackback