Mystery and Crime Chandler, Raymond: Farewell, My Lovely. V1. 3 Jan 2010

[SensualPoet]

Chicago born novelist / screenwriter Raymond Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) wrote only seven novels, all of them concerning private detective Philip Marlowe. Farewell, My Lovely, published in 1940, was his second, following on the strong success The Big Sleep. But initial sales were disappointing at 2,900 copies; his publisher, Knopf, cancelled plans for a second printing. (By 1945 his fortunes had shifted and his first two titles had sold already 750,000 in paperback.)

In a number of ways Farewell, My Lovely is a stronger story, and offers a number of deeply etched and highly entertaining characters. It doesn't have as much snappy dialogue -- but that's only measured by Chandler standards. There's an extended sequence where Marlowe is on a bender -- which was nicely captured in a film version -- and in print is something of a tour de force. Many pages after the effects have ostensibly worn off, Marlowe lapses into the fog leaving the reader slightly off-balance. Most extraordinary is the matter-of-fact way in which gay characters crop up and play critical roles -- something entirely lost in the film versions. The tenderness Chandler lavishes on these portrayals and interactions with Marlowe is a surprise including his observation: "[Red] smiled a slow tired smile. His voice was soft, dreamy, so delicate for a big man that it was startling. It made me think of another soft-voiced big man I had strangely liked."

And in one brief aside, Chandler takes a direct swipe by name at movie censor moralist Will Hays whom Chandler (and much of Hollywood) despised.

In 1944, Farewell, My Lovely -- in a much bastardized form -- was turned into an RKO picture starring Dick Powell and Claire Trevor, directed by the later celebrated noir emigré Edward Dmytryk.

[zelda_pinwheel]

raymond chandler ebooks ?? brilliant ! thanks so much !

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

Chicago born novelist / screenwriter Raymond Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) wrote only seven novels, all of them concerning private detective Philip Marlowe. Farewell, My Lovely, published in 1940, was his second, following on the strong success The Big Sleep. But initial sales were disappointing at 2,900 copies; his publisher, Knopf, cancelled plans for a second printing. (By 1945 his fortunes had shifted and his first two titles had sold already 750,000 in paperback.)

In a number of ways Farewell, My Lovely is a stronger story, and offers a number of deeply etched and highly entertaining characters. It doesn't have as much snappy dialogue -- but that's only measured by Chandler standards. There's an extended sequence where Marlowe is on a bender -- which was nicely captured in a film version -- and in print is something of a tour de force. Many pages after the effects have ostensibly worn off, Marlowe lapses into the fog leaving the reader slightly off-balance. Most extraordinary is the matter-of-fact way in which gay characters crop up and play critical roles -- something entirely lost in the film versions. The tenderness Chandler lavishes on these portrayals and interactions with Marlowe is a surprise including his observation: "[Red] smiled a slow tired smile. His voice was soft, dreamy, so delicate for a big man that it was startling. It made me think of another soft-voiced big man I had strangely liked."

And in one brief aside, Chandler takes a direct swipe by name at movie censor moralist Will Hays whom Chandler (and much of Hollywood) despised.

In 1944, Farewell, My Lovely -- in a much bastardized form -- was turned into an RKO picture starring Dick Powell and Claire Trevor, directed by the later celebrated noir emigré Edward Dmytryk.

The post Hays movie version, 1977 with Robert Mitchum deviates somewhat from the book, but is still a very fine movie interpretation (despite being in color). Better than the 1944 version (labeled Murder, My Sweet)? You be the judge.....

[zelda_pinwheel]

hm, i hate to be a pest but there might be a problem with this file... i imported it to calibre but it won't convert, i get the following error message :

ERROR: Erreur lors de la conversion: <b>Échoué</b>: Convertir le livre 1 / 1 (Farewell, My Lovely)

Convertir le livre 1 / 1 (Farewell, My Lovely)
InputFormatPlugin: MOBI Input running on G:\texts\calibre\Chandler_ Raymond\Farewell, My Lovely (1486)\Farewell, My Lovely - Chandler_ Raymond.mobi
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "worker.py", line 103, in <module>
File "worker.py", line 90, in main
File "calibre\gui2\convert\gui_conversion.pyo", line 19, in gui_convert
File "calibre\ebooks\conversion\plumber.pyo", line 717, in run
File "calibre\customize\conversion.pyo", line 208, in __call__
File "calibre\ebooks\mobi\input.pyo", line 20, in convert
File "calibre\ebooks\mobi\reader.pyo", line 258, in __init__
struct.error: unpack requires a string argument of length 2

and when i try to view the mobi version it says :

ERROR: Impossible d'ouvrir l'ebook: unpack requires a string argument of length 2

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Program Files\calibre\library.zip\calibre\gui2\viewer\main .py", line 59, in run
File "threading.pyo", line 477, in run
File "calibre\ebooks\oeb\iterator.pyo", line 140, in __enter__
File "calibre\customize\conversion.pyo", line 208, in __call__
File "calibre\ebooks\mobi\input.pyo", line 20, in convert
File "calibre\ebooks\mobi\reader.pyo", line 258, in __init__
error: unpack requires a string argument of length 2

unfortunately i have no idea what this means.

[desertgrandma]

It threw an "error" message at me also in the "edit metadata" box, after I had fixed the author sort and hit
"Okay"

However, when I went to the main page, and hit " convert" it did so and I can view with no problems.....

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

It threw an "error" message at me also in the "edit metadata" box, after I had fixed the author sort and hit
"Okay"

However, when I went to the main page, and hit " convert" it did so and I can view with no problems.....

hm, odd. it opens fine in mobipocket viewer. i'll try again in calibre.

SensualPoet, are you planning to make any other formats of this book ?

[zelda_pinwheel]

oddly enough, it works if i manually change the file extension to .mobi before importing to calibre.

thanks again, SP ! i can't wait to re-read chandler.

[SensualPoet]

I only have a Kindle 2 so that's the format I am creating these in (and the only ones I can test with). My edited orig is a word doc if that helps someone more knowledgeable than I. The .prc files appear to work for me as is.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

I only have a Kindle 2 so that's the format I am creating these in. My edited orig is a word doc if that helps someone more knowledgeable than I.

thank you. i managed to get it sorted out, so i'm fine for the moment. i may endeavour to make and upload an epub version myself, if you're not planning to. in any case, thanks so much for making this available ! chandler is one of my favourite authors.

[jgaiser]

Just imported it into Calibre (0.6.28) without errors and converted it to epub successfully.

Just another data point...