Playback

Rating:
Summary: A Terrible Chandler Book, Only Poodle Springs Is Worse
Review: Chandler wrote but 7 novels and most critics and readers divide them into two groups, the first four beginning with The Big Sleep and ending with The Lady in the Lake. These were the books that, if you hadn't already read Hammett, introduced the hardboiled thriller and the Southern California noir scene of the 30s and 40s to the general public. Most readers tend to feel that these were Chandler's best books.

He wrote three more, however, The Little Sister in the late 40s, The Long Goodbye in the early 50s, and Playback a few years later. The Little Sister is generally fairly favorably viewed, and there are many critics and readers who feel that The Long Goodbye is Chandler's masterpiece. It is his longest, most subtle, most introspective, and, to me, his most compelling. Many people consider it a major part of American literature and I think it might well be the best thriller ever written.

Playback, written after Chandler had moved to LaJolla, his beloved wife had died, and his alcoholism had become semi-acute, is a disaster. The writing is flat and uninspired, the metaphors and similes that once flowed so brilliantly are forced and trite ("he was an impervious as the square root of minus five"), and Marlowe is clearly just going through the motions.

If you've read all the others and loved them, I probably can't dissuade you from reading this one. If you liked the grotesquely bad Poodle Springs Murders started by Chandler and finished by Robert Parker, then you'll probably find this one acceptable also. If you barely made your way through Poodle Springs, you'll feel the same about Playback -- and wish that Chandler's last book had been the brilliant Long Goodbye.

Rating:
Summary: Playback is an engaging read.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: An Unfortunate Finish
Review: If not my very favorite author, Raymond Chandler is up in the top five. Which is why I loath to rate this book as I do.

The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye were masterworks in Noir literature. The imagery in The Lady in the Lake and Farwell, My Lovely drew you in.

Playback, sadly, is but a shadow of the greats it followed. Shallow images, a not quite transparent plot, and well established characters acting, well, out of character. Marlowe burns a few bridges in this final novel (I've read Poodle Springs, and that wasn't Marlowe), and I think Chandler knew the end was near.

Whenever I get the urge to slip back into Marlowe's trenchcoat (and those urges come often), I still read the series all the way through. But this book is like a ride home from Disneyland: It's a necessary part of the journey, but the one you look forward to the least.

Rating:
Summary: A plot as thin as gravy on the blue plate special.
Review: Originally published in 1958, just one year before his death, Playback is the last novel completed by Raymond Chandler. As always, Chandler's writing style is first rate. Highly descriptive prose, engaging dialogue, imaginative situations and anecdotes, as well as interesting social commentary are present in abundance. Unfortunately, the plot itself is so very thin and poorly conceived, little can be done to save it.
Most of the narrative takes place not in Los Angeles but in a small resort town near San Diego. Philip Marlowe has been paid to follow a beautiful redhead though he is not told why. Because he thinks she might be in danger, Marlowe identifies himself and offers to help the redhead who is traveling under the name of Betty Mayfield. Before long, an aquaintance of Miss Mayfield turns up dead. We subsequently learn that the body was caused to disappear in a very gimmicky manner. A manner one would be more likely to expect to find in a bad episode of Mannix than in a Raymond Chandler novel. Quite frankly, when I read this particular passage in all its cheesiness, I became embarrassed for the author and his countless fans everywhere.
Playback is worth reading if only to see how much Marlowe and American society had changed since the character's debut in the 1930's. Raymond Chandler is an American original, a legendary writer and pioneer of the hard-boiled detective genre. But Playback falls far short of the high standard he himself had set.

Rating:
Summary: A plot as thin as gravy on the blue plate special.
Review: Originally published in 1958, Playback is the last novel completed by Raymond Chandler. As always, Chandler's writing style is first rate. Highly descriptive prose, engaging dialogue, imaginative situations and anecdotes, as well as interesting social commentary are present in abundance. Unfortunately, the plot itself is so very thin and poorly conceived, little can be done to save it.
Most of the narrative takes place not in Los Angeles but in a small resort town near San Diego. Philip Marlowe has been paid to follow a beautiful redhead though he is not told why. Because he thinks she might be in danger, Marlowe identifies himself and offers to help the redhead who is traveling under the name of Betty Mayfield. Before long, an acquaintance of Miss Mayfield turns up dead. We subsequently learn that the body was caused to disappear in a very gimmicky manner. A manner one would be more likely to expect to find in a bad episode of Mannix than in a Raymond Chandler novel. Quite frankly, when I read this particular passage in all its cheesiness, I became embarrassed for the author and his countless fans everywhere.
Playback is worth reading if only to see how much Marlowe and American society had changed since the character's debut in the 1930's. Raymond Chandler is an American original, a legendary writer and pioneer of the hard-boiled detective genre. But Playback falls far short of the high standard he himself had set.

Rating:
Summary: More Marlowe driven than plot driven
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: More Marlowe driven than plot driven
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Playback but don't read the back cover.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Probably Chandler's Weakest Effort
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Run of the mill Chandler
Review: 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.