Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

 "You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell."

Probably some of the most philosophical ontological words ever written in Pulp literature.  That's what I like about Raymond Chandler, as opposed to Dashiell Hammett.  Chandler is a philosopher, connoisseur, while Hammett is just a bare craftsman.   Marlowe is refined in his own way, thinks about life, the meaning of it all, his place in the universe.  Spade is a lowlife brute, who couldn't tell Plato from a platoon. 

This time around I read the written book, as opposed to the last review when I read the audiobook while commuting to work and much of the finesse was lost in the jungle and jumble and rumble of public transportation. Luckily, since the Pandemic, I am 100% remote and no more commuting for me. I think I'd like to keep it that way permanently.  It is just too much of a wasted time, even though it gets me out of the house.  As a Project/Engagement Manager I found out I can be just as successful without ever meeting the clients in person, and sometimes not even seeing them on video.  Voice is enough. Fuck the extroverts. Let them crawl up their extroverted rectums.

Anyway, this is still one of my favorite books. Not just detective, pulp or noir books, but books in general, in any category.  One day I'd like to make my own version in film.  I love Bogart, but his version has plot that leaves a lot of out, especially towards the ending.  I'd be the script writer, director, producer, editor and casting.  I know exactly how I want it.  It will be rated M for mature.  No family movie, this one. 

Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

 A quick and flowing read compared to Carrion Comfort by Simmons! Not everybody's cup of tea. Sam Spade's attitude towards women (even those he claims he loves) is decidedly mysoginistic by today's standards, and by a long shot.  There are three developed female characters (plus G's daughter, who only appears on a couple of pages), but they seem to be very stereotyped, and not much real humans.  Miss Wonderly (to use her first alias) is the caricature of a femme fatalle, who uses her physical beauty and sexual favors to manipulate and conquer men to use for her own purposes, while not shying from putting a bullet in their brains when they are of no more use to her.  Iva Archer is the stereotypical suburban housewives whose feelings for her husband died off long time ago (if they even existed beyond her imagination and wishful thinking) and now wants to reinvent herself and get a chance for a fresh start with an affair with her husband's business partner.  Effie is the gregarious secretary stereotype, who is street smart but still has deep feelings, especially for men in positions of authority, like her boss. 

Hammett has a quick and flowing style, especially well crafted dialogues, quick proceeding plot and interesting twists, however his descriptions of every detail of people's clothes and the expressions in their eyes or the twisting of their lips - becomes way too much already after the first 1/4 of the book.  There is an interesting twist in the end when Spade tells out who killed his partner Archer, but the preceding part of the book reads more like an adventure novel (plus hard-boiled) than a detective one. The way the Falcon just "walks" into Spade's office is a real letdown, and doesn't give the anti-hero any chance to prove his professed detective qualities.

If people are looking for a likeable character with whom to identify or "feel for" in books - then this one is definitely not one of them. There are no likeable characters. All of them are flawed, nasty, mean and sleazy in completely unlikeable ways.  Spade, even for an anti-hero, is completely unlikeable. He is a brute, bully, misogynist, homophobe, racist, liar, swindler and many more choice epithets.  However, he is a successful detective and a good reader of people's personalities (summary: they are all rotten).

Although, I appreciate the effort Hammett put into creating Spade, and since Hammett was a private dick himself for a number of years and this would be how an ideal "real-life" gumshoe looks like, I still prefer Philip Marlowe, who is more thoughtful, more introvert, more philosophical, a bit better with women (not bedding the, but treating them) and definitely more fully developed.

The movie is also good, but the Spade there is different from what Hammett wrote in the book (John Huston rewrote many parts for his script for the movie).  From the physical side Spade is supposed to be over 6 feet, blonde, scheming, with a sly smile on his face at all times.  Bogart is 5'6'' (with shoes) , dark, direct, and with a poker face most of the time. Spade in the book calls all his women "angel", but Bogart in the movie calls all of the "sweetheart". 

Anyways, a good book, and a perennial classic, but I am going to re-read "The Big Sleep" again.  By the way, Bogart plays exactly the same character in "Maltese Falcon" and "The Big Sleep" although they are two different detectives.  Well, to come to think about it, Bogart plays exactly the same character in every movie he's been - himself.  

Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons

Yes, it took 2.5 months to read this book. It is very long.  Also it is not overly interesting or readable.  I had such quite expectations from the Hyperion Cantos, which are one of my favorite Sci Fi books, plus I enjoyed the Olympus/Ilium duology, however this book falls below both of those.  I have no idea how this book could win an award when it is so average, artificially prolonged and just plain pretentious. 

First of all, I was expecting a horror book.  This is not a horror book, unless you count the descriptions of the different character's face distortions and lots of blood and murder.  Blood and murder does not make a horror.  It could be called a thriller, but definitely not horror.  The book is also not a Sci Fi book either, since nothing scientific is really described.  Probably we can call it Speculative Fiction, at best, but still mostly a very prolonged, very slow-burn thriller. 

The BS with the FBI agents being 'conditioned' to work for Brother Christian and all past American presidents being in cahoots, event landing US Navy destroyers to guard Brother C.'s personal island, is just too far fetched.  Such thing has never happened in the history of the US, and, in all probability - never will. 

One note - this book was written in the late '80s, so some things that were acceptable then, are not really acceptable today in 2022.  First is racial slurs.  The N-word is peppered all over, and although I get it that the bad guys are using it - it still feels like too much.  Also, the description of rape (by Tony), and I mean physical rape, not just the mental one, and the description of the fear and humiliation the women experience during, was also a bit too much.  I get it, again, it is the bad guy doing it and he is a piece of shit, but less graphic and disturbing descriptions would benefit the plot just as much if not more. 

The best part of the book is Saul Laski and the Holocaust descriptions, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the murder of millions of innocent Jews by the Nazi monsters (Willi being an exaggerated example).  Saul is the only character I found interesting and could feel for.  The other characters were paper-thin marionettes, with no real existence.  Especially ridiculous is the Southern Sherriff who dies half-way through, without having any impact, neither on the first nor the second half of the narrative, but being a kind of caricature which has no meaning attached to its existence. 

The "mind vampire" concept is novel, to be sure, but I fail to see how "Using" is the same as "Feeding" and to what extent? It seems that the "Ability" is independent of any "Feeding" as it stays at the same level/strength and although there is some rejuvenation and life extension for the mind-vampires - that seems to be marginal, and far from the "immortality" of the actual vampires in literature. 

The action/fight/battle scenes are just way too long.  It seems like an inexperienced writer tried his best to write the most epic battles/fights and it ended up being forced, verbose and boring.  Although Simmons has a lot of disdain in the foreword for the Goth Girl Editor who told him to cut the book in half - that advice is definitely valid for the fight scenes, as they are the most boring part of the book, and include descriptions of materials, expressions, sounds and thoughts that are completely superfluous and boring.  Sure, make it "sensory", but within limit; use some common sense. 

So, after 800+ pages and 2.5 months of daily (nightly) reading, I don't feel much richer, neither intellectually, nor life-experience-wise.  I think I am going to give reading the rest of Simmons' books a pause.  A long pause.  A very long pause.