Customer Reviews

The Long Goodbye

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Every time I finish reading one of Chandler's Marlowe novels, I end up feeling depressed, because it's one less Chandler novel that I can read for the first time. In my mind, he's that good -- he is one of the only writers that I am consistenly incapable of setting down to go to sleep... I finished the last half of "The Long Goodbye" at about 5:00 am -- I was so wrapped up in it, that I failed to notice the time. Alas. Now, as for that review...

IF YOU HAVEN'T READ ANY CHANDLER, you should stop reading this and go take a look at his first Marlowe novel, The Big Sleep. It's worthwhile to read them in order, or at the least, to read that one first... you'll get a good feeling for whether or not you like Marlowe, and you'll learn a bit more about him. Then, if you like that, come back and take another look at this review.

IF YOU HAVE READ OTHER CHANDLER, then you already know, to some degree, what you're in for. You know Chandler's style, and I can promise you that this book offers up more of it, in abundance. I was a little thrown off for the first 50-some pages, because Marlowe has moved out of his trademark apartment and into a small house in a quiet residential neighborhood, and that didn't jive with me... but it works. Marlowe is, in his way, maturing. (If you've read his unfinished final work, Poodle Springs, then you know Marlowe will eventually get married. Perhaps this evolution says as much about Chandler as about his beloved P.I.)

Once the plot starts moving, of course, you're just along for the ride. Like all Marlowe novels, you have that perfect feeling of riding shotgun in the mind and conscience of a fascinating and well-developed character, and it's enough to sustain you through WHATEVER Chandler cares to write about. But, as I said, this is Vintage (no pun intended) Chandler -- some of his best work. Like several other books of his, I would give it more than 5 stars if I could, because nothing he wrote deserves less. The plot develops in three acts, which seem unrelated until he begins to pull them together, and when he does so, it is nothing less than amazing to behold. (I thought I was outguessing him, and knew what was going to happen. Stupid me -- he was still three steps ahead of me, and I had egg all over my face when I was done with the last page. I love him for that.)

If you're a mystery fan, or even a fan of good stylistic writing, this is some of the best stuff you could hope for. Call it pulp if you like, and say that Hammett outsold him if you must, but for my money, Chandler had more style than anyone else who's ever tackled the genre. Marlowe remains one of the best, most complete, and most enjoyable creations of literature that I have ever found, and I only wish that Chandler had left us more of him. *sigh*

BOTTOM LINE: If you haven't read this one yet, I envy you. It's a hell of a ride, and it's got plenty of re-read value. Worth owning, and a must for Chandler fans.

I first read "The Long Goodbye" in 1976, before I had read any other Raymond Chandler novels. The book practically set off an explosion in my brain -- I have been fascinated by Chandler ever since. No other book by Chandler matches this one's emotional tone.

This isn't a mystery novel, it is a great piece of literature. It is about friendship, love and betrayal. And the plot is complex and satisfying. Marlowe is defeated and in pain, and very, very alone.

I have read "Goodbye" three times since 1977 -- most recently last year -- and every time I am just amazed at the effect the book has on me. It possibly just touches me personally, but I really believe it deserves a rating among the great books of all time.

This epic Raymond Chandler novel is his most finely crafted and perhaps the best ever of its genre. Featuring Chandler's world-weary private detective, it mixes an intriguing plot with fascinating social comment. The plot concerns Marlowe's dealings with a drunk named Terry Lennox and his role in an escape from a murder charge to Mexico. Most of the novel, however is taken up in the rich suburbs of L.A. It has everything that all the best Chandler/Marlowe books have, clever, poetic, often humourous dialogue, cynicism, characters who seem tired of life and yet so full of it, and the sun-drenched L.A. setting. Those used to the more pacy narrative writings such as 'The Big Sleep' and 'The Lady in the Lake' may be a tad cool on this book as it spends as much time dissecting the lives of its downtrodden characters as it does unfold the plot. The later film version, brilliant though it is, does not even do this book justice. EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS BOOK!!

This book, the penultimate novel in noir pioneer Raymond Chandler's series of novels featuring private eye Philip Marlowe, is my candidate for the best American novel of the post world war 2 era. From the time he launched the Marlowe novels with the epochal The Big Sleep in 1939, it was crystal clear that Chandler viewed the detective novel as a vessel to be filled with pungent social commentary, an almost metaphysical portrait of a world gone wrong (call it Los Angeles), sharp character studies, and a fireworks display of the literary possibilities of the American vernacular. Chandler used the bits and pieces of the private eye/noir conventions as a coatrack to hang his stylistic concerns and dark worldview. He has more in common with Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner than he does with contemporaries like Hammett and Cain. (and very often he is the equal of Max Perkins' big boys).

Chandler recycled the same story elements over and over again, knowing plot has nothing to do with story. All of his novels go something like this: Marlowe gets hired to help someone out of a jam, closes the case pretty quickly, but the solution has raised more questions than answered. Marlowe pursues the truth on his own, realizes his client has been concealing a past crime from him and he had initially been hired to tidy up the loose ends. Along the way he narrowly escapes seduction by a dark lady and a fair lady, is arrested and threatened by the cops, beaten up by hoods, and goes nose to nose with a fearsome but super-smart crime boss, who invariably is less corrupt than the wealthy clients or the police. At the end Marlowe solves the latent mystery behind the first one, and closure only leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. Only once did Marlowe ever kill anybody, and only once (prior to the last novel Playback, where he's yikes, engaged) does he sleep with anybody.

Marlowe himself, who narrates the books, is quite a construct. He charges 25.00 a day plus expenses, and he doesn't do divorce work. He lives alone in a shabby Hollywood rental bungalow, drinks too much, plays the tough lout but reads Flaubert secretly, plays solitary chess as a hobby. He seems to prefer to take a beating than hand one out. He hates the rich, has contempt for the cops, and loathes bullies of all stripes. He is a magnet for women, but lovemaking to him seems largely to consist of elaborate verbal dueling/repartee. His celibacy seems a choice, a means of retaining purity and honor in a corrupt world, but a choice that he is aware is pathological and self-defeating.

When Chandler wrote The Long Goodbye in the early '50's, the private eye genre had already been frozen into nostalgic cliche. The violent nihilism of Mickey Spillane had supplanted Chandler's knightly quester. Chandler perhaps felt free to expand his pallet -- while the outline of the plot follows all the conventions the earlier books did, here the length is doubled, the pace slowed down, the genre elements give way to richer characterizations and an even deeper ambivalence in the soul of Philip Marlowe. Chandler apparently knew he would be retiring Marlowe soon, so he sent him off with a full-fledged novel. I will divulge none of the specifics, except to say that The Long Goodbye takes Marlowe's singular virtues -- idealism, cynicism, loyalty, doggedness -- and submits them to deep questioning. Along the way, the reader is treated to the definitive portrait of Los Angeles as the place where people come to flee their past and change their identity -- the Great Wrong Place, and Chandler's pitch-perfect metaphor for all that's wrong with America -- the denial of history, the insane materialism, the false belief in escape-as-redemption.

Calling this a hard-boiled mystery is like calling Moby Dick a book about whaling. While The Long Goodbye is a terrific example of the genre, it's also a meditation on our culture and our failings and the impossibility of heroism in the modern world. It's no stretch to say the Chandler sought to re-create Eliot's Wasteland for mass consumption, concealed in the trappings of pulp fiction. Here he succeeds.

You don't read Raymond Chandler for the plots--you read him for the magnificent "hard boiled" prose. The Long Goodbye is probably his most complex work, full of world-weary insights and a somewhat more "tender" Marlowe. The great pleasure of The Long Goodbye is seeing how the main character, Philip Marlowe, reconciles his cynical view of humanity with a genuine desire to help a few unfortunates in life. The best Marlowe... classic....

Donald Gallinger is the author of The Master Planets

Don't get me wrong from that summary up there. I liked The Big Sleep, it was one of the great novels of any type, mystery or otherwise. But there is something about The Long Goodbye that really gets you. Something about it that's beautiful and dark and all around wonderful.

"Beautiful" is not a term often applied to hardboiled novels like this, but this book is. The story of Philip Marlowe finally confronting his age, finally finding someone he might spend the second half of his life with, The Long Goodbye takes you into Marlowe's mind and soul the way no other of Chandler's seven Marlowe novels does.

This novel, the sixth in the series, is so good that most people overlook the fact that there was a seventh (many people, when they mention Chandler, leave out "Playback"). Although "Playback" was a good novel, The Long Goodbye is, in a sense, Chandler's long goodbye to his readers, giving them one very memorable classic before he died.

I can't possibly gush about this novel anymore. All I can say is that you should read it.

Ostensibly a detective story, this novel is one of the great achievements of twentieth-century literature. In the first three pages alone, Chandler perfect encapsulates the apathy of modernity, and the prize and rewards offered the lone man who resists the shiftless world of phrases like "who cares?" The mystery itself isn't as intriguing as Chandler's earlier work, but the depth of characterization, passion, and what can only be described as epic humanization carry it far beyond the calibre of his previous books. Written in flawlessly penetrating and insightful prose, this novel has more philosophical weight than volumes of French existentialism.

"The Long Goodbye" is unlike most of Chandler's other novels. It's longer. It's loaded with more description, internal life, and character investigation. Its plot -- though seeming more random -- is actually tighter and more pointed than his earlier work. In some ways it's more ambituous and revealing than his other work. In other ways, it contradicts his earlier writing style. But no matter how you look at it...it's awesome.

There are a couple of things I've always admired in Chandler.

First, he conveys everything in scene. After an obligatory physical description, everybody is characterized through dialog or action. As a result, the plot flies by, and we are treated to a very concrete, participatory read.

Second, Philip Marlowe tells us almost nothing about himself or his background or even what he's thinking, but we know him better than we know ourselves, thanks to the gritty voice, the nature of his observations, and the conclusions he makes about his world.

"Goodbye" does these things, but slides more towards self-introspection. There are lengthy passages where Marlowe spends time by himself. These passages could seem awkward to the die-hard hardboiled detective fan, but they work. They also show Chandler's writing ability.

In "Goodbye," a writer of popular novels plays a prominent role. Roger Wade writes romance best-sellers; he despises his own genre novels and aspires to write more literary fiction. As a reader of "Goodbye," it's easy to see the paralells between Wade and Chandler, and "Goodbye" seems to be an attempt to write something "literary."

But based on the success of "Goodbye" on its literary merits, it's evident that Chandler wrote the hardboiled dectective novels because he wanted to; not because he couldn't do anything else.

My second Raymond Chandler novel has elevated my opinion of him even higher than I thought possible. Chandler is an absolute master of the noir genre. His grittiness, dialogue and characters are matched by almost no one else. This book just flies by and is such a page turner that I had it finished in less than two days. Too bad Chandler wasn't more prolific; I'll have all of his stuff read by the end of the year.

The Long Goodbye brings Marlowe into constant conflict with lowlifes almost immediately after the book starts. Marlowe befriends a drunk who happens to be married to a beautiful, rich heiress. The only problem with this is she's a nymphomaniac and ends up dead. Marlowe helps her hubby escape and ends up in trouble with the law (of course). The rest of the book sees Marlowe hired to keep a famous author sober so he can finish his novel. Marlowe ends up entwined with the author's wife and their crazy butler, Candy. Needless to say, all of these threads wind together in the end. Even revealing this much to you in no way spoils the book. There's so much going on here that you'll be constantly wondering how Chandler is going to bring it all to a head. He does, and he does it beautifully.

The book is top heavy with all sorts of clever dialogue. Marlowe's putdowns lead to endless howls of laughter (at one point, he describes a guy with as having a "face like a collapsed lung"). My favorite part of the book is when Marlowe confronts the three quack doctors while trying to track down the alcoholic author. Marlowe is the man!!

This book should be required reading for anyone interested in noir. I'd recommend it to anyone who just likes to read. I can't wait to read more of Chandler's novels. I'll try and space his books out so they last a long time. Too bad Raymond Chandler didn't start writing at an earlier age.

This is a book for people who love to read. They are a small group.

Elmore Leonard once said, concerning his writing, that he "leaves out the stuff people don't want to read." I interpret that to mean that he writes for people who don't like to read, or, rather, who haven't the patience or attention span to read other than dialogue. There are many of them, those folks who don't like to read, and ironically they are the ones keeping the publishing industry alive. You will find them bragging in parties or writers' groups about how many books they've read that week. "I'm reading five right now, two almost finished, I'm about to begin another, and all together I've read seventy-two this year."

These are people who are more interested in "getting through" a book rather than taking the time to enjoy it. I understand. In younger and less discriminating days I did the same. Now I can barely find a handful of books a year I deem worthy to begin, most of which I find I haven't the stomach to finish. And when the contemporary standard of excellence in the mystery genre has become Evanovich, where is one to turn?

To the past, unfortunately, for the wasteland that has become today's fiction brings a thirst for quality which can only quenched by quality. 'The Long Goodbye' remains the standard of excellence for mystery novels, and though many continue to assault the citadel, all continue to fall abysmally short.