Mon 17 Nov 2008
TMF Review by Stephen Mertz: RAYMOND CHANDLER – The Lady in the Lake.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Reviews[4] Comments
RAYMOND CHANDLER – The Lady in the Lake. Alfred A. Knopf, 1943. Armed Services Edition #838, paperback, 1945. Pocket 389, ppbk, 1946. Many other reprint editions, both hardcover and soft.
I was really disappointed upon rereading this one for the first time in fifteen years and found it far from the “masterpiece” which Barzun and Taylor dubbed in it their Catalogue of Crime. According to Frank MacShane’s Life of Raymond Chandler, Chandler was in the dumps when he wrote this, his fourth novel, plagued by personal hassles as well as anxiety over the war in Europe.
It shows. The first half of the book is paced quite nicely and in the first two chapters in particular hero Philip Marlowe is in top wisecracking form. But for the most part the verve and spark of Chandler’s best work are sadly lacking.
By any standards other than Chandler’s own this could pass as a minor but competent private eye novel. But it is Chandler, and here he’s just going through the paces. All of his stock characters and situations are on hand: the brutal cop, the honest but tired cop, the good girl, the mystery girl (two, in fact), Marlowe at constant odds with the law and his own client, being lied to in his search for a missing wife by everyone, every step of the way.
But the writing is peculiarly flat. The plotting, never Chandler’s strong point, is slipshod. The murderer’s identity is glaringly obvious. Marlowe’s solution of the case is unsubstantiated guesswork. The solution itself makes not an iota of sense, raising far more questions than it answers.
But, most irritating of all, a number of very skillfully drawn characters — some quite integral to the story — appear briefly, speak their lines, are talked about for the rest of the book, but never appear on stage again, giving the whole project an uncomfortable, vaguely lopsided effect.
Chandler is my favorite Eye writer, the yardstick by which I measure all others who work the genre, and it hurts like hell to say these things. But it’s hard to believe that The Lady in the Lake is by the same man who gave us such milestone works, such true masterpieces, as Farewell, My Lovely and The Long Goodbye.
November 17th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
I have to definitely disagree with this review. I’ve read all of Chandler’s novels several times since discovering them in the 1960’s. I think the first six are all excellent and enjoyable and I look forward to rereading them again. The only one that I have a problem with is the seventh and last one, Playback. It’s not on the same level as Chandler’s other work.
November 18th, 2008 at 5:37 am
Playback is indeed horrendous – it’s Chandler’s Hungry Goblin. (Carrians will know what I mean.)
January 24th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
I think you will find you are in the minority about Lady in the Lake, which many critics hold to be one of the best of the Chandler novels (The High Window also gets high marks). I won’t argue the depression or the other problems, and I have to wonder when this was written in relation to the problems he had under the pressure of writing The Blue Dalhia as the studio was rushing him so they could complete the film before Alan Ladd was drafted.
Like many of his early novels this one was cannibalised from earlier Black Mask shorts, notably “No Crime in the Mountains” and “Lady in the Lake”, both John Dalmas tales I think. I actually like that the book gets Marlowe out of his usual Bay City and LA environs and think the relationship with the canny older policeman is well handled. Whatever else you might say about the book the ending and that great last line, “something that had been a man.” is pure Chandler.
Still everyone is different, and while I disagree with your assessment of the book I can understand your view of the book. It is a break from The Big Sleep and Farewell My Lovely, and features Marlowe in a milieu that might better fit Lew Archer.
January 31st, 2019 at 4:46 pm
[…] this brief review several years ago.) So I was intrigued to note that one Chandler enthusiast—Stephen Mertz, writing in The Mystery Fancier back in 1979—panned the novel in fairly blunt terms. “[F]or the most part the verve and […]