El lápiz y otros cuentos

by Raymond Chandler

Cuando la mafia tiene asuntos pendientes con alguien apunta su nombre en una lista negra y lo tacha con un lápiz; significa que pronto estará muerto. No se trata de una cruel y sangrienta venganza, sino de una forma como otra cualquiera de llevar su «contabilidad». A Ikky Rosenstein, un matón de Las Vegas hastiado de este estilo de vida, le han enviado lápiz. Sin saber a quién acudir, se presenta al despacho de Philip Marlowe implorándole que salve su vida. Con la ayuda de Anne Riordan, una mujer atormentada que no se cansa de esperar a que el detective se fije en ella, Marlowe localiza a los matones que persiguen a Rosenstein. Pero conseguir sacarlo de la ciudad será más difícil de lo que imaginaba. Marlowe no es consciente del peligro que corre hasta que él mismo recibe una caja con un lápiz afilado dentro...

«Hace cincuenta años que murió Raymond Chandler, pero nos queda Philip Marlowe, el héroe que más ha contribuido al éxito de la novela negra.»
Le Monde

Genres: Mystery, Crime

218 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in Black Mask, a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published seven novels during his lifetime (an eighth, in progress at the time of his death, was completed by Robert B. Parker). All but Playback have been made into motion pictures, some more than once. In the year before his death, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America.

Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is a founder of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers. The protagonist of his novels, Philip Marlowe, like Hammett's Sam Spade, is considered by some to be synonymous with "private detective". Both were played in films by Humphrey Bogart, whom many consider to be the quintessential Marlowe.

The Big Sleep placed second on the Crime Writers Association poll of the 100 best crime novels; Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Lady in the Lake (1943) and The Long Goodbye (1953) also made the list. The latter novel was praised in an anthology of American crime stories as "arguably the first book since Hammett's The Glass Key, published more than twenty years earlier, to qualify as a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happened to possess elements of mystery". Chandler was also a perceptive critic of detective fiction; his "The Simple Art of Murder" is the canonical essay in the field. In it he wrote: "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world."
Parker wrote that, with Marlowe, "Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious—an innocent who knows better, a Romantic who is tough enough to sustain Romanticism in a world that has seen the eternal footman hold its coat and snicker. Living at the end of the Far West, where the American dream ran out of room, no hero has ever been more congruent with his landscape. Chandler had the right hero in the right place, and engaged him in the consideration of good and evil at precisely the time when our central certainty of good no longer held."

Reviews

[Francesc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cuento corto hecho expresamente por Chandler para Inglaterra.
Goza de los mismos méritos de siempre, aunque, esta vez, nos encontramos con un Marlowe más práctico ya que la trama avanza con velocidad y no da tiempo a mucho sarcasmo.

Short story made expressly by Chandler for England.
It enjoys the same merits as always, although, this time, we find a more practical Marlowe since the plot advances with speed and does not give much sarcasm time.

[Razvan Banciu · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is a good one, although I find the title less inspired.
The style is somehow more frivolous, but this is not a surprise after twenty years. Smoking, drinking, shooting, kissing and being alive at the end, that's the gaining recipe for most of Chandler's books...

[Carolina Búho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es un cuento interesante y tiene todo el estilo de Chandler, sin embargo, al tener un formato corto, la genialidad del autor no se puede apreciar tanto como en sus novelas: los sucesos pasan demasiado rápido y los personajes salen tan poco que cuesta trabajo empatizar con ellos.
No sugeriría El lápiz para empezar con la obra de Chandler, sino para cuando ya has leído dos o tres libros de él y estás enamorado de Philip Marlowe.

[FABIOLA MONTAÑO · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me gustó

Me gustan los relatos policíacos así que obviamente me gustó nada del otro mundo pero es Raymond Chandler así que me doy por satisfecha

[Rick Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short story is about a man who hires Philip Marlowe to save him from a hit job by organized crime. The most interesting aspect is the description of how the organized crime ring has its rigid rituals and procedures, thus allowing Marlowe and his assistant to identify the killers when they come into town. It does have a surprising twist at the end which makes this a good short hard-boiled read.

[Piotr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesująca intryga. Lubię kryminały w których rzeczy okazują się czymś innym niż się wydają. Autor ułatwia ogranie czytelnika wprowadzając element o którym nie było wcześniejszy mowy, ale nie zepsuło mi to zabawy.
Marlowe moralizuje a w relacjach z kobietami zachowuje się jak nastolatek, który nie słyszał o płci przeciwnej.

[Adi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it. It felt a bit like the typical Marlowe adventures in the novels, only this time the crime investigation was short and straight to the point. The final twist was also nicely done.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Phillip Marlowe takes on a case to help make an ex mobster get scarce before his former pals can rub him out for running out on them. Things go pretty smooth for Marlow until the wrong guy is filled with hot lead. Hard Boiled action in the California desert.

[Atenea Cruz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Literatura negra de manual, por uno de los autores que escribió el manual.

[Pedro Carrillo · Rating 2 out of 5]

California está repleta de gente que va a algún sitio y se pone a toda velocidad para llegar. Si no conduces a ciento treinta por hora, todo el mundo te adelanta. Si vas a esa velocidad, tienes que vigilar por el retrovisor por si viene un coche patrulla. Es la carrera de ratas de las carreras de ratas.

[María Llorente · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐
No ha estado mal, pero no me ha dado tiempo a nada, a entender o empatizar con los personajes. Primera vez que leo a Chandler.
También un poco lioso porque había muchos lugares o cosas, que no sabía que eran, de Estados Unidos

[A. Felipe Martínez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chandler/Marlowe no decepciona.

[Sarà Grilli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carino, ma niente di che sinceramente

[Vicente Tomé · Rating 2 out of 5]

Relato muy corto y un poco enrevesado, no me ha gustado, quizás el que menos de la serie.

[José Porto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mi lectura obedece sólo a Él Lápiz y a ningún otro cuento.
Raymond Chandler es sin duda novelista y no cuentista. La secuencia de la trama en este cuento (El Lápiz), me deja ciertos interrogantes. Incluso he llegado a ver un tanto forzado el desarrollo y la evolución de la historia.

[Borislav Beldev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Не бях чел Чандлър от години, та реших да се завърна, и аз като Филип Марлоу, с тази новелка, "Моливът".
Отново - уникалният Чандлъров стил, остроумен, богат, духовит...
Сюжетът не е нещо особено, но... горното наваксва. И е напълно достатъчно.