Poodle Springs (1989)My apologies in advance, but this is an "on the one hand/on the other hand" review. On the one hand, for anyone who loves Raymond Chandler and Philip Marlowe, as I do, it is great to have a new story featuring the "Galahad of the Gutter", even if Chandler only wrote the first three chapters. And Robert B. Parker ( of Spenser fame) does a competent job of completing the story. On the other hand, despite the exception of Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man, I think that the modern trend of giving private eyes buddies and girlfriends has been a catastrophic development for the hard boiled novel. The very essence of these novels, epitomized in The Maltese Falcon, Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer series and the other Philip Marlowe stories, is the independence and accompanying vulnerability of the detectives. So this Marlowe story, which finds him married to a wealthy heiress and comfortably ensconced in Poodle Springs (a thinly veiled Pal Springs), is disappointing evidence that even a master of the genre was drifting in this direction when he died. The mystery here is vintage Chandler, with blackmail, pornography, polygamy and the like and when the focus turns to Marlowe working on the case it is quite good. But the scenes between him and his wife, particularly the tensions between them as a result of his insistence on a return to detecting, bring the story to a screeching halt every time it builds up a head of steam. The result is a very mixed bag and an extremely tentative recommendation--an airplane book. (Reviewed:) Grade: (C) Tweet Websites:-WIKIPEDIA: Raymond Chandler -ESSAY: An Old-Fashioned Future: On the enduring fascination of Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles. (Peter Hitchens, 12/20/23, American Conservative) -ESSAY: THE LITERARY BLOOD FEUD BETWEEN RAYMOND CHANDLER AND ROSS MACDONALD: Or, The Way Some Crime Writers Decry... (CURTIS EVANS, 10/07/22, CrimeReads) -ESSAY: No Big Sleep for Raymond Chandler (Dick Lochte, April 19, 2014, LA Review of Books) -ESSAY: Raymond Chandler’s Cinematic Legacy (Koraljka Suton, 9/02/24, Cinephilia & Beyond) -ESSAY: WHY DID RAYMOND CHANDLER HATE STRANGERS ON A TRAIN SO INTENSELY?: Chandler's feud with Alfred Hitchcock had a special venom, but why? (DWYER MURPHY, 2/18/21, Crime Reads) -ESSAY: Revisiting Raymond Chandler’s most iconic lines (Dan Sheehan, July 23, 2021, LitHub) -ESSAY: ‘Dead men are heavier than broken hearts’: Author Raymond Chandler and the Great War (Tom Hawthorn, Winter 2020, HistoryNet) -ESSAY: Why Marlowe is still the chief of detectives: Fifty years after Raymond Chandler died, we need his ‘shop-soiled’ Galahad Philip Marlowe as much as ever to put our mixed-up world to rights. (Mick Hume, 12/30/09, Spiked Review of Books) -ESSAY: WHY DID RAYMOND CHANDLER HATE STRANGERS ON A TRAIN SO INTENSELY?: Chandler's feud with Alfred Hitchcock had a special venom, but why? (DWYER MURPHY, 2/18/21, Crime Reads) -REVIEW ESSAY: CHANDLER AND THE FOX: THE MID-CENTURY CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN RAYMOND CHANDLER AND JAMES M. FOX: Chandler's letters to a younger crime writer offer a revealing—and often ugly—glimpse into his later years. (CURTIS EVANS, 10/08/20, Crime Reads) - FILM: - -REVIEW ESSAY: IS ALTMAN’S 'THE LONG GOODBYE' THE MOST OVERRATED CRIME FILM OF 1973?: The answer may depend on whether it's actually a crime film. (ANDREW NETTE, 3/23/23, CrimeReads) -REVIEW ESSAY: Revisit: The Long Goodbye (A.C. Koch, 1/17/23, Spectrum Culture) - Robert Parker Links: -WIKIPEDIA: Robert B. Parker -ESSAY: Old Loves That Keep Us Up: Revisiting Robert B. Parker (Tom Andes, August 15, 2024, Something's Going to Happen) -ESSAY: THE WORLD OF ROBERT B. PARKER'S SPENSER AND THE BIRTH OF THE 1970'S PRIVATE DETECTIVE (SUSANNA LEE, 8/11/20, Crime Reads) Book-related and General Links: -DISCUSSION GROUP: Re: RARA-AVIS: Hard-Boiled vs Noir & Poodle Springs -ESSAY: Stalking Raymond Chandler's Spirit By TOM STOPPARD -Crime Writers (David King) -Philip Marlowe Created by Raymond Chandler (Thrilling Detective) -Shamus: A Tribute to Philip Marlowe -Robert B. Parker and Raymond Chandler (from Shamus) -BIBLIO: Robert B. Parker -Robert B. Parker (Mostly Fiction) -ROBERT B. PARKER (Stop, You're Killing Me!) -Robert B. Parker's Complete Bookshelf With Reviews and Reader Comments (Oxford Books) CHANDLER:
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Copyright 1998-2015 Orrin Judd
