What Are You Reading 4
- Thread starter Tonyblack
- Start date
So, right now I'm reading "The Black-eyed Blonde" by John Banville, which is a fairly good Philip Marlowe mystery. 
No one can do Philip Marlowe like Raymond Chandler but Banville does a credible job. His Marlowe is older, slower, more flawed and more tolerant than Chandler's. He's also more vulnerable to being seduced, but still a knight in sour armor.
I dislike the call-backs to Chandler books, especially The Long Good-bye. It shows that Banville is a little bit afraid of writing Marlowe without telling us about Terry Lennox and his gimlets, a cocktail he invented in the book: half gin and half lime juice over crushed ice, and nothing else. For anyone who hasn't read The Long Good-bye, this might be necessary. But for anyone who has read it (and let's face it, what kind of Raymond Chandler fan are you if you haven't?), it's irritating.
Haven't finished yet (just about), but I'll give it three-and-a-half stars. It'd be higher if it wasn't for all those call-backs to The Long Good-bye.
No one can do Philip Marlowe like Raymond Chandler but Banville does a credible job. His Marlowe is older, slower, more flawed and more tolerant than Chandler's. He's also more vulnerable to being seduced, but still a knight in sour armor.
I dislike the call-backs to Chandler books, especially The Long Good-bye. It shows that Banville is a little bit afraid of writing Marlowe without telling us about Terry Lennox and his gimlets, a cocktail he invented in the book: half gin and half lime juice over crushed ice, and nothing else. For anyone who hasn't read The Long Good-bye, this might be necessary. But for anyone who has read it (and let's face it, what kind of Raymond Chandler fan are you if you haven't?), it's irritating.
Haven't finished yet (just about), but I'll give it three-and-a-half stars. It'd be higher if it wasn't for all those call-backs to The Long Good-bye.