Customer Reviews

Playback

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Yes, Playback is the last of Chandler's novels.

No, it is not the best of his novels-- not by a long shot.

Yes, it is still worth the time that it takes to read.

Playback is an afterword to a great series. As a book, it is a little bit sadder, a little bit more cynical. Marlowe (like Chandler himself?) is going through the motions and none of what used to interest him is quite as compelling. The character and writer both have seen a vision of how it all ends and fail to stay quite as focused on the plot.

In the book, Marlowe agrees to enjoy the charms of the lovely Miss Vermilyea, but not unless she agrees to go somewhere besides his apartment. He had fallen in love with someone else in that room, and is not sure that her charms will live up to the comparison.

He says: "I had a dream here once, a year and a half ago. There is still a shred of it left."

As a reader, you may have the same feeling about this book. It is a lovely moment, but not to be compared to the real thing.

But still, a lovely moment.

From Hammett to Chandler we see the beginning of the modern day tough guy detective. In this novel, Chandler's raging cynic, Phillip Marlowe, completes the cycle which began in early short stories and in "The Big Sleep." Chandler takes Marlowe through his normal routines, but also allows his detective to show more fallibility than normal. Marlowe finally stops shunning the seductresses he normally encounters and actually makes love in this novel. Chandler's decision to let Marlowe fornicate freely paved the way for future authors who followed the Hammett, Chandler rule book. This novel is both a perfect ending to the Marlowe series, and a marvelous requiem to an author so disillusioned by the post-war 40's and 50's. Chandler never shied away from showing his disdain for the spoiled and wealthy members of Southern California during his time, but in no other novel or story does he so boldy bare his cynicism. A true masterpiece from a brilliant writer. It is a shame his works are viewed only as Crime Fiction and not as literary treasures.

I have read all of Raymond Chandler's novels, and I believe Playback was his last. This story was first intended, I believe as a screenplay, and reading the story, you definitely sense a filmic quality. The novel and tone is quiet, almost as if Philip Marlowe is sleepwalking throughout the mystery. This is not neccessarily a bad thing. The plot has Marlowe shadowing a a wealthy young woman hiding out in a small Southern California beach town who is trying to escape her past. There are the usual sordid characters and sprinkling of murders, but Chandler also introduces a love affair or two.

A lot of the reviews I've read here so far seem unimpressed with this story -- ignore them. PLAYBACK is classic Chandler, and one of his very best.

Playback is the last Chandler's novel featuring the PI Philip Marlowe. The plot is far more simple than in previous Marlowe's cases and more emphasis is put in the atmosphere of the settings (a small and quited coastal village full of rich people).
The book explores some of the social class-conflicts present in other Marlowe's novels although with less bitterness: the policemen are not so brutal, the richmen are not so mean. The girl, though, is as cruel as usual.
The Black Lizard edition is quite good: confortable to read, aesthetically atractive. Just one mistake: the text in the back cover (yes, the one that you read before buying the book) tells you a little bit too much. Marlowe is told to follow a girl and you only know why on chapter 24 (of the 28 of the book). Well, if you read the 12 lines of the back cover you already discovered that before you even bought the book and that spoils half of the mystery (the other half is quite predictable anyway). So the advise is: buy the book, begin reading in the first page and never look at the backcover.
The book is good both for Chandler's fans and just crime novel lovers, but if you hadn't read the previous Marlowe's adventures you wont enjoy it that much. Read the other Marlowe cases first, beginning with The Big Sleep.

Why do I love Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels so much? I love them for Marlowe's edgy, wisecracking comments that drive its recipients mad. I love the gorgeous, incendiary women who linger just a bit on this side of evil. I love the twisty and turny plots and Marlowe's dogged search for the truth. In a world full of liars and crooks one can always depend upon Philip Marlowe's steely honesty and integrity. He is never in it for the money.

"Playback" has all of these elements but, unfortunately, in far lesser quantities than in Chandler's other Philip Marlowe books. In "Playback" Marlowe is assigned to follow this woman without knowing why and to report back on what he finds out about her. All the typical plot devices are there, but the results are far less than scintillating and are sometimes rather dull. If I were to pick out, however, my favorite part of the book it would be Marlowe's conversation with an elderly and infirm man who is staying at a hotel where Marlowe is holed up. Their discussion about the belief in God is incredibly sharp and extremely relevant to a man of Marlowe's profession.

All in all, despite its shortcomings, "Playback," while not top Chandler, is still Philip Marlowe and that can never be bad.

Playback doesn't have the intricate plot of the Big Sleep or the Long Goodbye, but it still has wise cracking Philip Marlowe and that's the main reason I read Chandler's work anyway.

I've always liked how Marlowe gets hungry and other simple things that are left out of many detective novels. He's tough but human as he describes to his female client. "If I wasn't hard, I wouldn't be alive. If I couldn't ever be gentle, I wouldn't deserve to be alive."

I have no idea whether Marlowe's life is an accurate portrayal of a Los Angeles Private Eye during the 1930-1950s. You have to figure that their lives were a lot less exciting than Philip Marlowe's. And maybe that alone makes this novel a little underrated. Its scant plot is probably more in order with what would really happen to a PI. We're pre-conditioned to every detective case being about a series of murders.

I do know that Marlowe's experiences, tactics and observations make these books a fun journey. He wrote so very few during his years that even the calmer ones like Playback are worth the time spent.

Playback is the last of Chandler's seven Marlowe novels and it is with sadness that I complete the series. Having read the books in chronological order, it is easy to see where Chandler peaked and where he ebbed. Still, most writers should aspire to an ebbing Chandler as even his most desultory efforts are well worth the reader's time.

Marlowe is employed to tail a young woman of wealth and privilege arriving from the east coast. Her checkered past has prompted her to seek the anonymity that distance can provide. There's no such luck for the young lady, though, as blackmailers, gumshoes, and gangland goons descend on a coastal community (La Jolla, CA) to extract whatever bounty they can find.

Playback isn't the big, booming finale one might expect. One assumes Chandler meant to keep at it. Because of this, Philip Marlowe, private eye extraordinaire, noir's nemesis to LA-area crime, just sort of fades away. It's a good enough story. It's just not enough of a story to end Philip Marlowe's career. Nevertheless, I recommend that all lovers of mystery, LA history, and exceptional writing read Chandler. Playback = 4 stars, but Raymond Chandler = 5.

Raymond Chandler didn't complete many novels, and even on a bad day he could write circles around most authors in the "noir" or detective genre. I love his crisp style, his sharp dialogue, and his vivid picture of Los Angeles in the 1940's and 50's. In fact, The Long Goodbye may be one of the best novels I have read in the past few years, and my favorite Chandler book.

With that said, Playback, Chandler's final completed novel from 1958, falls quite a bit short by comparison. As in all Chandler novels, the protagonist is Philip Marlowe, a tough-talking but overall decent guy trying to make a living as a private eye in Los Angeles. In Playback, you sense Marlowe is a little more tired, and maybe off his game a little, like the author who died the year after it was written. Marlowe is awoken with a phone call from the sharp-tongued assistant to a local lawyer, and retained to tail a redhead arriving on a train.

Marlowe spots her easily enough, and when she continues on her voyage to San Diego (after a lengthy stop at the train station), Marlowe follows her, without really knowing why or who he is working for. He ultimately disdains working any further for his lawyer client, and decides to try and help the lady, who goes by the name Betty Mayfield. However in keeping with most Chandler novels, the characters don't reveal much of the truth to poor Marlowe, and so he is faced with mysterious murders, disappearing bodies, and a sinister fellow private dick who is also tailing the same woman.

The setting is not what we have come to expect, since most of the action takes place in a small coastal town near San Diego, and the plot moves slower than other Chandler novels. I still liked it and looked forward to coming home to it at night, but after The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye, The Lady in the Lake and Farewell, My Lovely, we know Chandler could do so much better. I wish he had started writing earlier in life, or that he had lived longer, since Chandler (like his contemporary Dashiell Hammett) left us too few books. I give Playback a luke-warm recommendation, but if you haven't read his other books start with them, and read this one to finish out the collection.

Playback was the final novel penned by Raymond Chandler (188-1959) Chicago born, English raised and Hollywood resident. Chandler had a way with the bottle and the pen. The book was published in 1958. It is short and not up to the genius of such major works of fiction by Chandler such as "The Big Sleep"; "Farwell My Lovely" and "The Lady in the Lake."

Chandler is not the most adept author on plotting a story but he has earned literary immortality as a stylist whose crafty use of similie and metaphor have endeared him to generations of readers. Just consider these gems:

"I was empty enough to steal a dog's dinner."-p. 15

"...as thin as a hoofer's wallet."-p. 21

"Our eyes met across great gulfs of nothing."-p. 51

"I've got friends who would cut you down so far you'd need a stepladder to put your shoes on."-p. 68

"His voice rustled like...bamboo leaves."-p. 109

"He had a voice as sharp as his face."-p. 147

"As anonymous as a nickel in a parking meter."-p. 136

"It was so quiet you could of heard a mouse combing his whiskers."-p. 127

The thin plot concerns Betty Mayfield, a sexy redhead, who has been acquitted by a North Carolina journey of murdering her boozed up husband. Her ex-father-in law has a Washington DC lawyer have her tailed. Marlowe is hired to be the private eye who follows the enigmatic and elusive Betty. Phillip Marlowe sleeps with her and also with a luscious woman named Helen Vermilyea. Betty is being blackmailed by the detestable Larry Mitchell. Betty changes her names, stories and locales at the drop of a gumshoe's hat!

Much of the actiion occurs in the seedy California town of Esmerelda. Dialogue is crisp, witty and cynical. There is even a disussion concerning the existence of God and theodicy.

Raymond Chandler deserves kudos for his distinctive style and the ability to paint a vanished Los Angeles and its colorful environs. He is an American treasure!

Funnily enough this was the exact Raymond Chandler line I remember muttering out loud as I contemplated slogging on with a little book by this other twentieth-century nib nudger named Bohumil Hrabal--a book alas that seemed, halfway through, not only to be openly irking me but frankly throwing giant spanners into the usually dependable clockwork of my attention span. I couldn't quite put my finger on why this anarcho-comical celebration of the Bohemian barnyard was giving me such fidgets until one of the main characters shows up and starts blathering out of him like a belligerent Scotchman--"Bollocks!" Uncle Pepin even bellows on one too many occasions. Yeesh but that's a bit off, I sez, the bleddy translator has this supposedly provincial Moravian sounding like some deranged cartoon version of Groundskeeper Willie! I really hate to hit a wrong note of this magnitude in a Central European novella I am sincerely trying to dig so I did the only sane thing to occur to me: placing the blame squarely on an inept and cack-handed English translation, I cut the Czech book short and picked up Playback instead. Almost immediately I was right back in the groove, so to speak. Good writing is a kind of lovely lemon-scented soap that invariably washes away the grime of badly rendered prose fiction. And Playback, Chandler's final Philip Marlowe novel, is very good writing indeed. Stupendous even. Published in 1958 and featuring a priceless Marlowe at probably his world-weariest, Playback boasts as funny a set-up scene as Chandler ever concocted:

"The voice on the telephone seemed to be sharp and peremptory, but I didn't hear too well what it said--partly because I was only half awake and partly because I was holding the receiver upside down. I fumbled it around and grunted.

'Did you hear me? I said I was Clyde Umney, the lawyer.'

'Clyde Umney, the lawyer. I thought we had several of them.'

'You're Marlowe, aren't you?'

'Yeah. I guess so.' I looked at my wrist watch. It was 6:30 A.M., not my best hour.

'Don't get fresh with me, young man.'

'Sorry, Mr. Umney. But I'm not a young man. I'm old, tired and full of no coffee. What can I do for you, sir?'"

And so Clyde Umney grudgingly, maybe even peremptorily, lays out the case that becomes the yarn that in the end becomes Marlowe's--and Chandler's--pitch-perfect swan song. Malcontents of both sexes often accuse Raymond Chandler of all sorts of absurd failings and foibles, perhaps stemming from their foolish attempts to fix the fictional Marlowe and his hardboiled milieu within bogus contemporary conceptions of what they are pleased to call real life, the saps, but as far as I am concerned all this magnificent wordsmith ever did during his entire writing career was create some of the most indelible characters--and who is more indelible than Philip Marlowe?--and put them in some of the finest and funniest and saddest novels it has been my very real pleasure to read. And then read again and again. That's the other great thing about Chandler--you can read all seven of the Marlowe books umpteen bleeding times and they never ever lose their relish.