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The marriage was unconventional to say the least, and others have put forth, as Freeman does, that Chandler never knew that Cissy was fully 18 years his senior.As Cissy aged and battled respiratory disease, Chandler dutifully took care of her, as he did his mother in her last years. Contemplative, he enjoys chess (usually playing against himself) and poetry. He smokes cigarettes but lights up an occasional pipe. Chandler was 35 when he married Cissy Pascal, who was 53, despite listing her age as 43 on their marriage certificate. I may read supermarket tabloid headlines while standing in line, but I never give credence to their authenticity.Still, it's intriguing to consider that Marlowe may have been Chandler's alter ego--his personal letters to publishers, agents and friends alike might well have been written by Marlowe, the man Chandler wished he could be himself: honorable, wise, faithful. I'd feel equally awed standing in the house in which Joseph Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness, but does it belong in a biography. Marlowe rarely seduces the women with whom he crosses paths, and he is immune to the predatory advances of women such as Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep.When I came across The Long Embrace, Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved, a biography written by novelist Judith Freeman, I was intrigued. Whether that shame was the result of his infidelity or over a wife old enough to be his mother (and the anger he might've felt over Cissy's deliberate deception) is never fully explored.
Did he marry Cissy as a sort of surrogate mother (she took care of him as a mother would a son) and compartmentalize younger women for their body parts. When you constantly change a landscape, you erase the collective memory of a city. Sometimes we want the facts, ma'am, just the facts. He's not the womanizer Mickey Spillane later portrayed in Mike Hammer.
And the Woman He Loved would seem the subtitle of a storybook romance. In fact, he's never taken in by the femmes fatale Chandler created. Chandler's Philip Marlowe is a complex character--wisecracking and hard drinking; he's also a loner. Or as Freeman, in her best imitation of Chandler, writes of L.A.: "If there was such a thing as Chandlerland this was it, and each day I felt surrounded by a kind of shabbier version of that era, a strangely eviscerated ghost of the world I was trying to imagine. Good as the movie is, it was more a vehicle for Bogart and Bacall than for William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman's screenplay, and so the novel is recommended over the film.Chandler, along with Dashiell Hammett, creator of Sam Spade, is responsible for creating the genre of the hardboiled detective. A question, even if it were put forth, we can never answer.Freeman endeavors to visit each of the more than 30 homes in which the Chandler's lived in and around Los Angeles; sadly, many no longer exist. Chandler passed away when I was but two years old, and I knew little of him other than he created Philip Marlowe and was himself a hard drinker.Painstakingly researched, Freeman pulls few punches as she reveals many of Chandler's weaknesses--notably the bottle, as well as women.Don't be taken in by the subtitle of the book.
A telling point in the biography is that Chandler would not wed Cissy until after his mother had passed away.That Chandler loved Cissy is never in question, as evidenced by the poems he wrote to her throughout their marriage. It does if the biographer wishes to lend to the text the feel of a journal, which is what Freeman endeavors in The Long Embrace. For those of you who don't know who Raymond Chandler is, he wrote The Big Sleep, the novel on which the movie of the same name, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, is based. How can you live without memory."Letters, poems, and excerpts of Chandler's novels lend Freeman's text credibility. Included is a letter he wrote to a publisher that revealed his frustrations as a writer: "The thing that rather gets me down is that when I write something that is tough and fast and full of mayhem and murder, I get panned for being tough and fast and full of mayhem and murder, and then when I try to tone down a bit and develop the mental and emotional side of a situation, I get panned for leaving out what I was panned for putting in the first time."At times, however, Freeman veers dangerously close to hero worship, once describing her feelings while standing in a room in which he'd written one of his novels. At times it works; while other times it detracts.For example, why should Chandler's decision to destroy the letters he exchanged with Cissy while she was married to another man (to whom she also lied about her age) and he was in the Canadian armed forces be questioned.
When he worked from home, he was the doting husband; yet there were times when he was flagrantly unfaithful to her. Does the reader really care which woman in a photograph is Freeman's best guess as the one with whom Chandler had an office affair. A tough guy, Marlowe refrains from fisticuffs, besting his rivals through his sharp repartee. Despite our curiosity, it was Chandler's choice, and his right, to destroy the letters.An interesting read, if slightly subjective, about a fascinating writer considered by some as one the greatest stylists of the 20th century, although some may be put off by Freeman's conjectures interspersed throughout. His father abandoned Chandler and his mother when Chandler was a boy. Like Pon Farr, the Vulcan blood fever, Chandler often binged on women while he was drinking, usually when working in Hollywood on a screenplay, when he was surrounded by young assistants.The more he binged on women the more he drank, as if to hide his shame.
With no family to whom to leave them, one need not possess Marlowe's sagacity to deduce that Chandler would wish to keep their private exchanges from the prying eyes of a biographer and readers alike. The knight in tarnished armor.The Long Embrace was better than I'd hoped, even if I found it lacking in some places; but I suspect the subject was what made it better.
As a long-time fan of Raymond Chandler's, I looked forward to reading this book. Part of this is Chandler's fault; by burning all the letters his wife had written he blocked attempts by later writers to learn more about her. However, the author meandered rather than analyzed, substituting visits to empty train stations or the outside of houses that the Chandlers lived in for any close-up analysis of her subjects. [I happen to be more interested in people than architecture; perhaps others with more passion for architecture or addresses will find this of interest]. However, part of the book's dullness must be laid at the author's door since I never felt that she brought her main characters to life - whether by using letters of others or her own insights. Overall, the book is a failure of intent, writing and character.
The lived the last 8 years of Cissy's life in a house in La Jolla, but before that they moved, constantly, sometimes twice a year. One of the difficulties of the book is that Chandler himself, after planning to release the letters between he and his wife, changed his mind and destroyed them before he passed away, leaving us with almost nothing of her, so that we're somewhat confused by the marriage and the relationship between the two people. I think this, rather than the individual houses, tells us the most about the Chandlers, and the author seems to agree, though she dutifully journeys to each and every house. He did take off a couple of times, chasing women or joining the Canadian army during World War I, but he always returned after a short hiatus. I know a few things about him (that he was really pretty much British, for instance, and that his wife was older than he) but I didn't know how much he and his wife moved around L.A.
He basically wooed her away from her current husband, apparently insisting afterwords that he'd rescued her from a loveless marriage, and they spent the rest of her life together, thirty-some years, mostly living in a series of rented apartments and homes in Southern California. What was her reaction, when he did. I've read most of Chandler's stuff (his Library of America volumes are on my shelf, read and reread) and I enjoy him endlessly. It's this fact, and the strangeness of Chandler being married to a woman 18 years older than he, who lied about it when they first met, that form the basis for this book.The author decided, for whatever reason, to travel around Southern California, and visit the houses that Chandler lived in while he was here in Southern California.
Interestingly, as an aside, the house in La Jolla (the only one they lived in for any length of time) was demolished just as the book was being finished. Did he confront her about it. The odd thing is how much they moved. Many are now gone, some have fallen on hard times, a few are still in good neighborhoods (one's in Brentwood). In part it's a portrait of a Los Angeles that's passed into history, one with mansions and servants and supper clubs on Hollywood Boulevard.
I'd never heard of Judith Freeman before. I'd say it was something of a travesty, given that it had been Chandler's residence, but he personally hated it, so I guess it's not much of a loss.The moves, and the nature of the marriage, take up the main part of the book. The author doesn't spend a lot of time on things that don't interest her, and she makes it clear in the opening that she's not writing a formal, complete biography, so don't expect one. Did he ever realize she'd lied about how old she was. I think in many ways the answer has to be no. The author spends a lot of time recreating this world, so that you can see what Raymond Chandler saw of Los Angeles and the world back then. This latter fact, and his marriage to Cissy Pascal, are the center of this book, an odd work that is strangely fascinating, even though it can't tell us everything we want to know.Chandler met Cissy just after he first came to Southern California, when she was still married to Pascal, her previous husband.
Frankly, in some ways this is the largest strength of the book. The odd thing to wonder is whether we can learn anything from any of the homes individually, given that Chandler only lived in each one for a short period of time. Apparently both Chandlers were famously picky about where they lived: neighbors were often judged to be too loud, a dog barked, the sun hit the windows too harshly, whatever, and so they felt they had to move again. We'll apparently never know.That aside, this is at times a fascinating book. I really enjoyed it, and would recommend it to anyone interested in Chandler or '40s LA.
This is a book especially for Raymond Chandler fans, who not only have read his books, but have read them a second time and enjoyed them even more.The writer is obviously in love with Chandler and lovinglydescribes his life in a fascinating travel of where helived, what he did while there, and the most important,his relationship with his wife and how the relationshipinfluenced his writings ( and perhaps veiwpoint).I also enjoyed the writer's similies and approach. Shewas almost an anthropologist in her study; perhaps shewas.I think it is a fascinating book for those who don'tknow Raymond Chandler, but most definitely an importantbook for those who are Raymond Chandler fans.I couldn't put it down, and re-read certain parts, too.Kit Menkin
(i.e. I think that the Long Embrace is really the embrace of Los Angeles. I found in this book, not only a love and reverence for Raymond Chandler, but also for Los Angeles. If you are a Los Angeles native (whether born here or relocated here) you will enjoy learning more about your city. Children and men were not supposed to ask. If you are familiar and enjoy her writing you will love this one.
I enjoyed her almost tangible manipulations of Los Angeles sights, sounds, textures and smells. I understand the journey and searching for a person's and a city's history. I recognize her experiences as my experiences lovingly put into words. I recognize many of the streets and areas. This book captured me on many levels. (as Chandler did) It is interesting to finally learn about Chandler's wife, Cissy.As to her giving the incorrect age- all the women friends of my mother and grandmother's did not give their true age. I remember them telling me " a woman never gives her true age".
I know of women who refused to use Medicare benefits because they did not want to reveal their true age. It was not unusual(among some circles) for creative women to have real loving relationships with younger men or gay men. Of a time when the building of the Music Center downtown showed that we were not a "hick town". An embrace that impacted Chandler and Freeman and readers.I am a native of Los Angeles and in the age bracket beyond midlife. Neysa Mcmein-artist).Judith Freeman has real skill at blending research, fiction and her own interpretations on her lovingly selected subjects.
Also, my own memories of a Los Angeles with oil wells pumping,where we did not have to lock our car or house doors at night. A city where some of the best places are hidden away from the traffic and the tourists still to this day.Freeman's research intertwines Chandler and Los Angeles.She brings up questions and presents answers about the impact on Los Angeles of the automobile, oil, films, police corruption and the unlikely heroes that reveal themselves in the midst of it all. She continues in the same vein in this book.
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