Raymond Chandler

Elliott Gould

The High Window

The  high window

juno

a fun mystery that got a little too convoluted by the end for my low audiobook attention comprehension. marlow is mostly entertainingly annoying and regularly unentertainingly annoying about every character he meets who happens to be a woman.

Emmett

In enumerations of Raymond Chandler's masterpieces, The High Window is often not mentioned. Where it is, it lurks somewhere on the end of those lists, passed over in favour of his more famous titles such as The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye, or Farewell, My Lovely. On the tail end, more the product of casual recall than conscious actual esteem.

Which is a shame, because for all its understated, unremarked-about-ness, The High Window is as good, if not better, than any of the more well-known Chandler novels. The characteristic verbal wit and coyness is generously served in top quality. One can sample cute language pastries dusted with sugar but with a strongly alcoholic/smoky centre. Such as:

"It wasn't any of my business. I was just curious. It wasn't any of my business that she had a small Colt automatic in the drawer. I shut it and sat down again."

"From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away. Her mouth was too wide, her eyes were too blue, her makeup was too vivid, the thin arch of her eyebrows was almost too fantastic in its curve and spread, and the mascara was so thick on her eyelashes that they looked like miniature iron railings."

"Class is a thing that has a way of dissolving rapidly in alcohol."

Chandler's filmic imagination, one of my favourite things about him, is excellent as well. In his stories, his words leave off being merely descriptive and become part of the very wallpaper or light-and-shadow that make up the scene, a brilliant example of the transformative and atmospheric powers of language. There are a few scenes that are so remarkable, so suave and sleek that one could weep if one wasn't busy holding their breath in awe. The High Window's world is broader and yet more taut: Marlowe has more friendly aspects, the mystery proceeds in a winding but suspenseful manner that leaves this experienced mystery reader wondering what will happen next, but there is the sense that everything is proceeding according to the writer's plan, a confidence in planning that sees Chandler at the top of his game. One striking thing is that perhaps The High Window is most characteristic of 'the point' which Marlowe's world is trying to make, that every Marlowe novel comes down to This. I'm thinking of the scene where Marlowe makes a snappy but impressive speech to a group of policemen explaining his refusal to account for his actions and whereabouts in a blunt critique of their lack of respect for the truth. Nowhere else has this card been laid out so plainly on the table.

The High Window

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