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The High Window

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The High Window
by Raymond Chandler

The "High
Window" begins one hot day in Pasadena, when "everything
that grew was perfectly still in the breathless air they get over
there on what they call a nice cool day." If we don't know we are
in a Philip Marlowe novel yet, we do as soon as we meet his new
client--a wealthy, obese widow named Mrs. Murdock. From the
overgrown, dimly-lit sun room where she holds court, she gives Marlowe
his latest p.i. assignment. He's to find a rare coin, the Brasher
Doubloon, that was stolen from her possession. He's also to find her
daughter-in-law, a former nightclub singer named Linda Conquest, who
disappeared at the same time as the coin. "A charming girl--and
tough as an oak board," Mrs. Murdock tells him, through sips of
her port.

Marlowe's search for the pair leads to a tale more dense
and tangled than the thick foliage of his client's sun porch. He
quickly finds himself enmeshed with a rich gambler and his
philandering, showgirl wife; a thug with a frozen eye; and a mortician
who delves into politics. Marlowe also has to contend with the police
and a man in a sand-colored coupé who keeps tailing him. Then there
are the corpses that keep piling up in his path. There's also his
client, who has her own share of tightly-bound secrets. A
near-invalid who spends her days lying on a reed chaise lounge,
Mrs. Murdock still holds an iron grip on her effeminate son and the
fragile woman who works as her secretary.

The plot is fast-paced
and engrossing, but the real power of the novel lies in the snappy
dialogue and beautifully conveyed atmosphere. Chandler's style has
been copied endlessly by other writers over the past fifty years, but
no one can touch him. Marlowe's is a world filled with hard-eyed
Filipinos answering doors, nightclubs named the Tigertail Bar, and
women who are "all cigarettes and arched eyebrows and go-to-hell
expressions." Even his butterflies take off heavily and stagger
away "through the motionless hot scented air."

As with
the other Marlowe novels, there's the usual gratuitous wisecracks
exchanged with minor characters--the sourpuss maid; the streetwise
chauffeur; the old, watery-eyed elevator operator who breathed hard,
"as if he was carrying the elevator on his back." Despite his
cynical words, Marlowe holds a special place in his heart for the
losers in the world. He sends cash to a pitiful handwriting expert
and takes an inept detective under his wing. "The shop-soiled
Galahad," an associate calls him.

For the rest of the
characters, however, he has nothing but contempt. A tough man in a
tough world, Marlowe doesn't hide his true feelings under a bushel.
He describes the gambler's wife: "From thirty feet away she
looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like
something made up to be seen from thirty feet away." His
instructions to the portly Mrs. Murdock: "Tell her to jump in the
lake...Tell her to jump in two lakes, if one won't hold her."

Chandler's master stroke as a writer is hyperbole. Even his silences
are "as loud as a ton of coal going down a chute." He may
write with a sledgehammer, but it's the best sledgehammer around.

Raymond Chandler wrote 4 noir novels in the late 30s and early 40s that defined the Southern California hardboiled thriller forever after. I first discovered them 41 years ago and instantly fell in love with them. The High Window, though, I thought at the time, and through several subsequent rereadings, was by far the least of the four. I hadn't reread it in at least 20 years now, but, based on some of the favorable Amazon comments, I read it again yesterday. My opinion of it, I'm sorry to say, hasn't changed in 41 years....

Why do I think it's only a mediocre book? Forty-one years ago I couldn't have articulated it. Now, however, it's obvious:

Because, basically, it's a boring story.

As an earlier reviewer in these columns told us, The High Window was the only one of the first 4 Chandler books that was plotted as an entirety and not cobbled together from earlier short stories that Chandler had written for the pulp magazines. This, however, instead of being a virtue, actually turns out to be the major fault in the book.

Philip Marlowe, the first-person narrator and hero, is as beguiling as ever but the story he tells -- basically the search for a missing coin of great value -- is dull and listless. Each individual character is nicely sketched, as only Chandler could do at the height of his powers, and the writing sparkles and pops. But -- and this sounds strange but is absolutely true -- the story itself could equally well have been written by Agatha Christie with Hercule Poirot as the main character. An investigation is mounted; the detective moves from one character to the next; a couple of bodies are discovered; the detective exchanges banter with the police; he talks with a few more characters; he wraps up the case and tells us who murdered whom -- probably.

There is no menace directed at Marlowe, there is no suspense, there is no interest in finding out what is going to happen to any of the other characters, there is no action at all (unless you can call finding a couple of bodies action), and the plot itself is pretty dull if you stop and think about it for a few moments.

Why is this?

The short stories that Chandler wrote in the 30s for the pulp magazines (mostly Black Mask, I believe) were just that: pulp stories. They had action, violence, movement. Things happened to Marlowe (in his various incarnations) and Marlowe made things happen to other people. Guns went off, Marlowe got bopped on the head, he -- and other people -- were frequently in danger for their lives.

When Chandler cobbled these stories together into three of his first four novels, he brought all of these elements into the freshly created books. Guns fired, Marlowe was bashed on the head, locked up in padded cells, beaten up by crooked cops, menaced by *real* gangsters. There was danger and suspense -- even if you (and Chandler) didn't always know exactly what was happening or who was doing what to whom -- or why. Chandler's exquisite writing and marvelous evocation of Los Angeles of that time was laid over these pulpish elements and transformed these gothically plotted books into literature. But literature that was exciting and impossible to put down. What *is* going to happen next in The Lady in the Lake? And why? And how is Marlowe going to get out of *this* predicament? In these three books you really want to know.

In High Window there are none of these elements and the only reason you turn the pages is because of the wizardry of Chandler's writing and the picture he draws of 1941 Los Angeles and Pasadena during a few hot summer days. Here the cops are more friendly than threatening, all violence is off-page, the semi-gangster nightclub owner and his supposedly deadly bodyguard are minor characters who manifest nothing more than a few lines of tough-guy dialogue -- which then disappears when Marlowe is hired by them to do a job....

The transportation back to this vanished era of South California is well worth reading this book for (at least for me); but as a thriller up to the standards of the other early Chandlers it is simply a non-starter.

Beware....

In Chandler's third novel, Philip Marlowe is hitting his stride. He's getting his life under control, he's right on top of the bad guys, and his honorable intentions save the day.

In this outing, Chandler is hired by a rich woman to track down a missing coin. The woman assumes that a misbehaving family member has run off with it, but of course the story ends up far more complex than that and Marlowe wends his way through gritty LA streets in search of the truth.

Marlowe's penchant for doing the right thing is even more in evidence here, as he works to help out characters that many times don't realize they need help. He does it not for fame or fortune, but because it's the right thing to do.

Chandler's writing style shines with its usual brilliance, and he crafts his characters with an easy hand. He has brought Marlowe along from his initial hard-drinking despair into a detective who - buoyed with past successes - is now more comfortable with himself and taking better care of himself. The wit crackles, and the novel is as enjoyable and entertaining as anything Chandler has written.

Chandler wrote his first four novels in rapid succession, then went to Hollywood for four years before writing the fifth Philip Marlowe novel, "The Little Sister." These first four are "original recipe" Chandler -- the novels that defined high-brow hard-boiled.

"The High Window" (the third) is the anomaly of the first batch because it is the only novel prior to "The Little Sister" that was written as a novel; "The Big Sleep," "Farewell My Lovely," and "The Lady in the Lake" were all built using three to four of Chandler's earlier pulp short stories. Chandler called this practice "cannibalizing."

Chandler actually put aside the third cannibalized novel, "Lady in the Lake," to work on "The High Window." It's plot is only slightly less convoluted than the other three early novels, and it is slightly contrived, but what is interesting is the way in which it deliberately re-emphasizes concerns developed in its predecessor, "Farewell, My Lovely." Chandler was pressed to make sense of a detective with so much cultural capital and the ability to turn such a fantastic phrase, and in these two novels the emphasis is on developing Marlowe's class animosities and his determination to preserve the free-agency afforded him by his vocation. He comes across as a relative high-brow determined to take out his sense of failure on those who pretend to be his betters, and who employ him, but who are phonies. It is a novel about class and about Marlowe working to control the exploitation inherent in hiring himself out.

It may not be the best of the early four novels, but "The High Window" provides a clear and deliberate vision of Chandler's original conception of Marlowe. After the hiatus in Hollywood, he would begin to loosen the detective conventions and develop Marlowe as a man in existential crisis (in "The Little Sister" and "The Long Goodbye").

The High Window is a fast paced, intricately plotted story inhabited by an abundance of interesting and colorful characters.
Once again, Raymond Chandler has succeeded in painting very vivid pictures of the various locales depicted with his unique brand of highly descriptive prose. A relatively short novel, The High Window is packed with page after page of interesting twists and turns, memorable characters and sharp dialogue.
Hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe is, as always, hard drinking, wise cracking and supremely self confident. A walking, breathing paradox, he adheres to a very high minded code of honor when it comes to protecting client confidentiality yet is not above tampering with evidence.
What starts off as a rather mundane search for a missing rare coin quickly becomes much more complex. Murder, blackmail and the psychological abuse of a vulnerable young woman all play a role in the compelling plot. This novel should appeal to all fans of detective fiction as well as to those who appreciate good writing regardless of subject matter.

After jumping into the mystery-genre spotlight at the age of 51 with his classic first novel THE BIG SLEEP, Raymond Chandler went on to write six other novels which received considerably less acclaim than they deserved. THE HIGH WINDOW, published in 1942, sees Philip Marlowe, perhaps the most hard-boiled of all classic hard-boiled detectives, searching for a stolen rare coin and once again involved in the sordid affairs of the Los Angeles underworld, dealing with wealthy widows, tall blondes, showgirls, cops, and hitmen, and handling each in turn with the panache that only Marlowe could. Exquisitely plotted and written, THE HIGH WINDOW, like the rest of the Chandler library, is noir and the hard-boiled detective novel at its finest.

Raymond Chandler's "The High Window" is catchy; far more so than any similar novel penned by Mickey Spillane or James M. Cain. It has all the noirish elements needed to be a great read: a rare coin is the perfect MacGuffin; a sultry, adulterous blonde provides the jaded sexual appeal; an emotionally-abused young lady is the damsel in distress; a psychotic villain is flawlessly despicable and the labyrinthine plot is well-nigh impossible to predict until the very last page.

The above having been said, this well-written novel is not without its faults. My three qualms lie with what essentially was the waste of a spectacular character (Eddie Prue), the retread of "The Big Sleep" formula and the lack of suspense.

Addressing the first qualm, a subtle tension builds between the one-eyed Eddie Prue -- an emotionless bagman -- and wise-cracking Marlowe for the latter half of the novel. This mounting tension is left entirely unresolved and, thus, is dissatisfying.

The second qualm is that the Mrs. Murdock character seems to be carbon copy of General Sternwood from "The Big Sleep." They share far too many characteristics: a very wealthy recluse, physically disabled, world-wearily disillusioned, hampered by ailments, grim outlook, wayward offspring, etc. It seems that Chandler could have fleshed her character's uniqueness out just a tad more.

Lastly, the lack of suspense throughout the novel may bore the casual reader. If it was not for Chandler's lively prose, I would have nodded off. The only time in which I was worried as to Marlowe's well-being was when he first hears Prue's voice in a very well-written piece.

Despite these trivial flaws, it is a first rate novel and well-worth picking up.

I decided to give this Raymond Chandler novel a shot after a vexing round of midterm examinations. If I didn't read something light and entertaining, my head would have exploded! I'd never read noir before, but I found this book to be pretty representative of what one pictures when one thinks of noir: seedy characters and snappy dialogue in a big, dark city teeming with danger. Chandler apparently gave new life to this genre when he wrote a few (an unfortunate few) crime novels starring Phillip Marlowe, a private detective who has since become immortalized in film and T.V. Chandler didn't even start writing these books until he was in his late 50's. Thank goodness he did write them, because this book is a real hoot!

The High Window finds Marlowe on the trail of a missing coin called the Brasher doubloon. Within a few pages we begin to see an endless parade of seedy and suspicious characters, such as Mrs. Murdock, a port-drinking hothead who hires Marlowe to find the coin. Other characters include a scummy nightclub owner, a couple of dirty dames, and a cast of supporting characters both wicked and wise. At the center of it all is Marlowe, doggedly pursuing the truth through all the deceits and danger. I really can't go into the story because doing so would probably ruin the suspense for anyone who hasn't read the book. Just be prepared to see some wacky characters and great scenes.

This book wouldn't be worth mentioning at all if it weren't for the dialogue. The language in this book is so clever and snappy that it literally makes the story. You'll howl out loud at some of the smart quips Marlowe tosses off as he tries to track down the doubloon. Another interesting aspect of the book is that everything occurs in the present tense. There is almost no history to know or anything in the future to worry about. This makes the story scream along at a fast pace; so fast that you won't want to put the book down. I never really thought I'd care for crime noir, but this book makes me want to read more! Recommended.

To be honest, it seems kind of silly giving this book only four stars. If you compare it to the vast majority of hardboiled or detective novels ever written, it would deserve five stars. It is only when it is compared to Chandler's other books that it falls short. This was his third novel, published after THE BIG SLEEP (which started the vogue for starting books and movies with the words "The Big") and FAREWELL, MY LOVELY. In none of those books is plot and story as important as Chandler's exquisite prose, his wonderfully detailed descriptions, or his magnificently decadent characters. But even so the plots of those two look brilliant compared to this one.

The number of problems with the plot of THE HIGH WINDOW is legion, but I'll highlight only two. Chandler wants Philip Marlowe to discover a body. There are a million ways to do this, but instead of something elegant and simple, Chandler creates incredibly unlikely scenarios whereby the future corpse gives Chandler a key to his apartment so that he won't be forced to wait around if he somehow doesn't happen to be there. This is such a cheap device that it is almost as if Chandler were trying to parody storytelling. Perhaps even sillier is a bizarre gun swap, in which the killer goes into a nearby apartment, finds a gun under the pillow of the tenant, and switches it with his own. Much of the subsequent story hinges on the strange gun swap.

So, as an example of plot, THE HIGH WINDOW is a failure. Nonetheless, there is still the prose. Although Chandler is unquestionably one of the most imitated writers in literary history, no one has quite been able to match his power with words. Marlow enters a club. "A check girl in peach-bloom Chinese pajamas came over to take my hat and disapprove of my clothes. She had eyes like strange sins." He prepares to question someone. "From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away." He describes the residents of Bunker Hill: "Out of the apartment houses come women who should be young but have faces like stale beer; men with pulled-down hats and quick eyes that look the street over behind the cupped hand that shields the match flame . . . people who look like nothing in particular and know it."

And there are the characters. Though the best characters in THE HIGH WINDOW are not as memorable as the many, many memorable characters in THE BIG SLEEP or FAREWELL, MY LOVELY, there are still several so striking as to not easily slip out of mind.

But substandard Chandler or not, he is one of those writers so brilliant and original that he deserves to be read in toto. One should read not this or that novel, but all of it, short stories included. He is one of the few writers to have played a major role in shaping our culture as a whole. But besides that, his books -- even the lesser ones -- are just a great, great read.

The High Window was published in 1942. It's author Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) is a poetic master of hardboiled noir crime fiction. His metaphoric and colorful language; fascinating characters and sparkling prose make Chandler an American original. His works leap the high wall between mystery fiction and true literary art.
The High Window opens at a house in the Oak Noll Section of Pasadena. An obese, obtuse and cruel double widow with the name of Elizabeth Bright Murdock has called Marlowe to her home. The grotesque woman wants Marlowe to locate a rare coin known as the "Brasher Doubloon" which belonged to her late husband. The doubloon has been stolen. Murdock wants Marlowe to locate her former showbiz girl daughter-in-law Linda Conquest whom she suspects is guilty of the heist. Linda has been recently divorced from Lester Murdock the weak little Uriah Heepish cipher who is Mrs. Murdock's son. Marlowe also meets the intriguing Miss Merle Davis who is the virginal secretary of Mrs. Murdock. What lurks beneath the surface? Who stole the coin? What dirty secrets are being hid from the eyes of the police? Answers await as we join Marlowe on a dive into the inferno of sin which lies at the belly of the beast of Los Angeles.
This is the opening scene in a novel filled with all the twists and turns we expect in a Chandler novel. Along the way there are three murders as wheel spins within wheel in the shady, cruel, cynical and convoluted morality of the characters inhabiting the Chandlerian universe.
We remember Chandler for his skill in realistic dialogue and word paintings of Los Angeles and its 1940s environs. The plots are hard to follow and forgettable. Pick up a Chandler novel for pure reading pleasure as your eyes scan the lines penned by a master of American fiction!