Hold up a minute, when was I a prose reviewer? Who's taken over this blog? Wotta revolting development!
Anyways, last year (2023) I ran a book club and it was pretty fun. The goal was to, every month run a book discussion and we did pretty well thanks to online, remote tools that were honed during the dark times, the COVID times. My wife was a great backup as somebody that could attend a discussion, and she did a lot of heavy lifting as she had a couple of friends who were wonderfully consistent month-to-month. The hardest part was figuring out a meeting date that worked for everybody involved, and by the end of the year it was only a couple other readers left and me. December was a sheer loss due to all the family time involved, but we made out pretty well if you ask me.
I'm not running it again this year -- too much going on to be honest, but I still like reading, and darn it I still need someplace to shove my opinions. So, hi :)
by Raymond Chandler
I've had this hardboiled detective book sitting in my Kindle library for years now, and finally I can say that I've read it. I really enjoy the style of noir, and many sources point to Raymond Chandler as a major influence for the genre. They don't disappoint here. The prose is a joy to read and immerses you in the gritty world of Phillip Marlowe's 1930s Los Angeles. Marlowe stands alone not exactly as a hero, but a person who's just out to do a decent job for what decent people are left in the world. The story begins with him meeting an old, wealthy retired war general who's being blackmailed for nude photos of one of his two adult daughters. The story turns into a murder mystery that's solved within the first half, along with a subplot that resurfaces to conclude the final half of the book.
Suffice to say, the plot kind of goes everywhere. There's a gay lover subplot. An illegal porn pamphlet racket. A casino scene. Over the course of my two week reading of this, I lost track of a lot of the characters and had to re-read to catch myself up again on who some of the characters were. New characters show up even near the end of the novel, and it's my opinion that this book isn't really sold on its plot. Rather, it stands out for the style, that of a dry-witted, imperfect protagonist trying to survive in an imperfect world. It's refreshing to see the sardonic humor of a person that knows the world isn't a great place. Here's a dialogue between one of the daughters VIvian, after Marlowe saves her from a mugging after a whirlwind casino run for Vivian.
“Meet Mr. Larry Cobb,” Vivian said. “Mister Cobb—Mister Marlowe.”I grunted.“Mr. Cobb was my escort,” she said. “Such a nice escort, Mr. Cobb. So attentive. You should see him sober. I should see him sober. Somebody should see him sober. I mean, just for the record. So it could become a part of history, that brief flashing moment, soon buried in time, but never forgotten—when Larry Cobb was sober.”“Yeah,” I said.
Worth reading, but not more than that. Here's some more highlights from my Goodreads account: https://www.goodreads.com/notes/13160296-the-big-sleep-farewell-my-lovely/6308154-kevin?ref=h_cr
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