Farewell, My Lovely isn’t quite as playful as The Big Sleep, despite the addition of a lounge singer. At times, Farewell feels much more like a James Bond movie—like when Marlowe’s sneaking around the docks and when he infiltrates the boat—if Bond were worn to a nub by the unstoppable, churning grind of the cosmos. Marlowe has more baggage than in the previous book; his witty remarks seem forced and sometimes he doesn’t have the energy to make them at all. He cries, or almost cries; he’s slower, less of a fix-all hero. He gets hurt.

Chandler uses colorful metaphors less in Farewell, My Lovely: he tells it straighter. It’s as if he’s lost some measure of levity, and now he’s telling it as it is, no frills or embellishments. The quote on the back of the book, from George V. Higgins (whom I do not know), reads,

Chandler did not write about crime, or detection—as he insisted he did not. He wrote about the corruption of the human spirit, using Philip Marlowe as his disapproving angel, and he knew about it, down to the marrow.

Higgins is right. Chandler saw to the heart of people; that was his true subject. The heart of people often produces crime, but that’s a side effect, not his central concern.

I’ve never read much crime fiction, so I can’t say whether this fits the mold of mystery or not. I foresaw certain plot twists, and took some pleasure from that, but the language was the real draw for me. Chandler’s economical use of words and his willingness to have a distinctive style make me think of how I can cultivate my own style without the style superseding content. Strunk & White is good, but not the end of the road.

Together with Dashiell Hammett, Chandler created a truly American style, if there is such a thing, which exemplifies our national tough-guy facade. World-weary, bitterly sarcastic, self-assured; a lover but never giving love too much ground—that’s Chandler’s California, and the kind of America I’d like to see more (sort of).

Whether you like him or not, Philip Marlowe is a great character. He doesn’t have to be liked. Despite his constant drinking and gruff manner, he’s an upstanding person of unflinching moral fortitude. His is a lonely, dark road—and we get the sense he prefers it that way.

He figures crimes out slowly, as we readers do, detail by detail, and gets through by a combination of luck and toughness. Everything that happens, regardless of how unexpected, he takes in stride. And he’s smart. Nobody says all of what they’re thinking—other than the soft-minded—but Marlowe sees beneath the surface, to people’s true motivations, and worms out the truth.

What Chandler is saying about human nature and our society hits pretty hard. It takes someone like Marlowe to absorb all that baseness and not break. Despite the dark tone, there’s something bitterstweet and hopeful at the bottom of The Big Sleep. Justice comes, but at a terrible price, and we don’t know how much longer Marlowe, who’s our last man standing, can fight on.