This time around Marlowe runs into a drunken writer, a wounded beauty and a lot of headaches. Narrated by Elliot Gould.

MY GRADE: B plus.

It's everything you want from Chandler – femmes fatales and bent cops and hoodlums with guns and '50s slang, and dialogue that only sounds clichéd because so many people since have tried to copy it.

‘Alcohol is like love,’ he said. ‘The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you just take the girl's clothes off.’

Or again:

Cops never say goodbye. They're always hoping to see you again in the line-up.

I don't know if I agree with those who say this is his masterpiece – maybe I preferred Farewell My Lovely. But it's definitely up there. As always, the plot is impossible to follow and the murder mystery is less important than painting a mood-picture of Los Angeles at a particular time. It probably never existed exactly like this, but reading him makes me nostalgic for it all the same.

This one wrapped up very satisfyingly at the end, with a series of encounters and dialogues that felt like the title being played out, and made it seem like the last book of a series (although it isn't, quite): I particularly loved the gruff, manly conversation with Bernie Ohls at the finish. His relationship with Marlowe – the back-and-forth of two men who respect each other but aren't sure if they like each other – reminded me of the dialogue between Bogart and Rains at the end of Casablanca.

Chandler got more autobiographical here than he usually does, and there is a hint of introspection behind some of the snappy similes – one character (like Chandler) grew up in England before going off to fight in a world war; and another, even closer to the bone, is a tired, aging genre novelist who (like Chandler) types on yellow paper and drinks too much, and worries that he's been wasting his literary gifts on pulp fiction.

If Chandler worried about that himself, he shouldn't have. I don't even really like crime fiction much, but his stuff, as the Sunday supplements like to put it, ‘transcends genre’. In other words the sentences sing, and you're reading for a lot more than just plot resolution. This was pure pleasure from start to finish.

به نظرم خوب بود. خیلی وقت بود یه کتاب اینطوری نخونده بودم که نتونم ازش جدا بشم و هی بخوام بدونم‌ بعدش چی میشه. فیلمهای کتابای ریموند چندلر رو دیده بودم ولی تا حالا اصل کتاباشو نخونده بودم. در مجموع به نظرم این جزو آثار خیلی خوبش بود. سرنخ هایی که تو متن مطرح میشدن رو دوست داشتم و روندی که برای باز کردن گره ها طی شد هم به نظرم خوب و راضی کننده بود.
در کل به نظرم 4.5 امتیاز خوبیه که گرد بالا میکنم و پنج میدم:)

پی نوشت: هیچ وقت چند روز مونده به امتحان رمان جنایی شروع نکنید:)))

A powerful tale of bitterness and anger and pain, of Chandler putting his Marlowe on a suicide mission, a story of horrific collateral damage without redemption, and of the betrayal of unwise love. Wow.

I like Mystery novels that are literary. I know the term "literary" is broad and hazy but let's just say that literary is a special attention that is given to the language and to the characters, and this is in addition to the creation of suspense. One of the little pleasures of life is picking a book at an airport because you have four sleepless hours ahead of you and discovering soon after take-off that the book you thought would be easy fun is making you feel and think and pause to re-read that sentence again. Or maybe the author whacks you with an unpretentious metaphor that clears your brain like a shot of mental antihistamine. Raymond Chandler died in 1959 and it is the rare airport gift shop that has any of his books. I went and looked for his books and, in particular this one, because I wanted to read one of the early masters of the genre. I wanted to see if there was some kind of essential structure to the mystery novel that the current writers that I like follow. There are certain commonalities that great mystery novels follow and looking at the authors who developed those structures is very helpful. (If you are interested in seeing what these "structures" are I recommend the book Writing Mysteries, edited by Sue Grafton.) But here I want to write, not about the essential style and structure of the genre that I found in Chandler, but about a kind of philosophical underpinning that makes this book great and which I think is also found in the greatest mystery writers. In this story you will find a kind of very human detective (the anti-hero in many ways) who has one good quality going for him. He wants to find the truth. When everyone is satisfied with the appearance of truth, he is not. When no one cares for the truth anymore, he still does. If the truth is painful (to himself and others), it doesn't matter. When the person that was killed was not of much value to society, he still believes finding the person who snuffed out that poor and miserable life, is worthwhile. The motive for this pursuit is not religious or ethical or patriotic. Most often than not the pursuit of truth seems to be the only thing that is holding the detective from giving up on himself and on life. It was Chandler, in this book, that helped me to discover why I like these "literary" mystery books. There's something about seeing Marlowe, and his detective friends, pursue and desire truth that gives me strength and some kind of faith and yes, a little courage. Maybe because watching the news with each channel offering a different version, or listening to politicians who, at best offer only partial views of the whole truth, leaves me impoverished and sad. Here in this well written work, there is solace to be found and a reminder that the truth exists and can be searched for and often found.

I enjoyed the atmospherics and mood of this one, the last of Chandler’s detective stories featuring Philip Marlowe. This one is different in being more meditative and in having more of a focus on alienation among the wealthy residents of gated compounds. Chandler also restrains Marlowe’s use of colorful similes in his interior monologues, which became a cliché in many of his imitators. Compared to the earlier tales, Chandler is more judicious here in the playful, sardonic banter Marlowe uses for dismaying and undermining his adversaries, part of his signature cool bravado in the face of danger.

The story begins with Marlowe helping his sensitive alcoholic friend Lennox escape to Mexico, with no questions asked. Soon he learns his faithless, wealthy wife has been brutally murdered, with Lennox the prime suspect. Marlowe stays mum during brutal police questioning and is held in jail for a few days. His initial temptation to investigate the case as a possible frame is undermined by reports of Lennox’s suicide and written confession. The case comes up again when he begins to find links with another PI job. A publisher tries to hire him to uncover the roots of a writer’s block and violent behavior when drinking. Though he turns the job down, the guy’s seductive wife draws him into their situation. A murder takes place that he might have prevented, putting Marlowe into high gear to solve the linked cases and foil the pervasive efforts of powerful forces to suppress the truth.

Despite the troubles with alcohol that beset his two main characters and Chandler himself, he has a wonderful way of capturing the allure Marlowe finds in drinking with Lennox:
“I like bars just after they open for the evening. When the air inside is still cool and clean and everything is shiny and the barkeep is giving himself that last look in the mirror to see if his tie is straight and his hair is smooth. I like the neat bottles on the bar back and the lovely shining glasses and the anticipation. I like to watch the man mix the first one of the evening and put it down on a crisp mat and put the little folded napkin beside it. I like to taste it slowly. The first quiet drink of the evening in a quiet bar—that’s wonderful.” I agreed with him. …
“Alcohol is like love,” he said. “The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl’s clothes off.”

Chandler’s prose has some more delights in capturing the casual attitudes of the rich on power of money:
“I’m a big bad man, Marlowe. I make lots of dough. I got to make lots of dough to juice the guys I got to juice in order to make lots of dough to juice the guys I got to juice.

A rich businessmen has his formula for success nicely boiled down:
You can’t have quality with mass production. You don’t want it because it lasts too long. So you substitute styling, which is a commercial swindle intended to produce artificial obsolescence.

Marlowe’s jaded attitude about conventional justice is nicely expressed is this diatribe:
“Let the law enforcement people do their own dirty work. Let the lawyers work it out. They write the laws for other lawyers to dissect in front of other lawyers to dissect in front of other lawyers called judges so that other judges can say the first judges were wrong and the Supreme Court can say the second lot were wrong. Sure there’s such as a thing as law. We’re up to our necks in it. About all it does is make business for lawyers. How long do you think the big-shot mobsters would last if the lawyers didn’t show them how to operate?”

Chandler seems to have some fun with frustrations of the police over mental health concerns in society’s response to crime:
“You two characters been seeing any psychiatrists lately?”
“Jesus,” Ohls said, “hadn’t you heard? We got them in our hair all the time these days. …This ain’t police business any more. It’s getting to be a branch of the medical racket. They’re in and out of jail, the courts, the interrogation rooms. They write reports fifteen pages long on why some punk of a juvenile held up a liquor store or raped a schoolgirl or peddled her to the senior class. Ten years from now guys like Hernandez and me will be doing Rohrschach tests and word associations instead of chin-ups and target practice.

So you get the picture that there is a bit of preaching in this story. But we often never sure which attitudes align with Chandler’s own. I choose to believe the following words of Marlowe are close to his own, and I appreciate the tongue-in-cheek aspects behind them:
“You’re a damn good cop, Bernie, but just the same you’re all wet. In one way cops are all the same. They blame the wrong things. …Crime isn’t a disease, it’s a symptom. Cops are like a doctor that gives you aspirin for a brain tumor, except that the cop would rather cure it with a blackjack. We’re a big tough rich wild people and crime is the price we pay for it, and organized crime is the price we pay for organization. We’ll have it with us for a long time. Organized crime is just the dirty side of the sharp dollar.”
“What’s the clean side?”
“I never saw it. …Let’s have a drink.”

Through this tale we get a dose of the metaphor for the detective as a cynical but good hearted agent who strives to address the social ills of corruption and greed with truth and justice. But here the heroic aspects are infused with the tragic element of impotence in the face of rank consumerism and selfishness in society in the early 50s. Altman as the director of the movie version in 1973 (starring Elliot Gould as a surprise) highlighted the existential and chaotic aspects of this outlook and put a Don Quixote-like aspect to Marlowe’s tilting at windmills.

بین سه تا داستانی که از چندلر تا حالا خوندم - یعنی این کتاب، پنجره ی مرتفع و بانوی دریاچه - این داستان یکم پایین تر یا حتی هم سطح بانوی دریاچه است ولی از پنجره ی مرتفع بهتره - این مقایسه ام ترجمه رو هم در بر می گیره. اگر اواخر این کتاب رو نادیده بگیریم حتی می تونم بگم که بهترین کتاب چندلره که تا حالا خوندم

اینکه از اواخر کتاب چندان راضی نیستم کلیتش دلیه و نمی تونم منطقا بگم دلیلش چیه - شاید اینکه چندلر بعد از اینهمه گله گشاد کردن داستان تو جمع کردن عناصر یکم سمبل کاری کرده. البته اینو قاطعانه می تونم بگم که قصه ی مرگ تری و ملاقات تری و مارلو در آخر داستان تو کت من نرفت - شاید اگه داستان تری رو همون جور ول می کرد بهتر بود حتی

در یکی از ریویوها هم از ترجمه شکایت شده بود هم از اینکه از اول معلوم بود داستان تری جدی نیست. والا برای من هیچ کدوم از این ایرادا وارد نبود. ترجمه به نظرم معقول بود - و رفت و آمدام بین متن فارسی و انگلیسی مؤید این نظرمه؛ در مورد قصه ی تری هم به نظرم اومد که شک من خواننده اتفاقا خواست نویسنده هم هست

حاشیه: البته متن سانسور هم داشت مثلا در بخش مربوط به صحبت مارلو با هربرت و آیلین در کافه یا در بخش آمدن خواهر سیلویا به خونه ی مارلو

Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye is different to all his other Philip Marlowe books; it’s twice as long, semi autobiographical and it’s a platform for social criticism. While people say this book was never on the same level as The Big Sleep or Farewell, My Lovely, Chandler (and other critics) considers it his best work even though he was going through a lot of agony writing it with his wife was terminally ill and the alcoholism he was suffering.

In the book Marlowe forges an unhealthy friendship with a drunk, which lands him in a situation he could have avoided, if he wasn’t loyalty to his friends. Which leads him into a whole lot of situations that could have been avoided; but this does make for an interesting and unique story. The dialog and the situation make this book possibly the best Marlowe book written (in my opinion). It’s tight and well planned, the story is a lot less complexity, but more socially relevant.

I love this character and I’m sad to be almost at the end of all the Marlowe books, but this one will stand out more than the others for the depth and biographical nature. Don’t expect this book to be the same as all the other Hard-Boiled novels Raymond Chandler wrote, this is definitely unique.

"Mallory s-a ridicat și s-a dus pășind lateral spre bărbatul cu păr roșcat. Când a ajuns pe la jumătatea distanței, polițistul cu păr cenușiu, Jim, a scos un țipăt înăbușit și a sărit spre Macdonald, agățându-se de buzunarul lui. Macdonald l-a privit surprins. A întins mâna lui mare, l-a apucat pe Jim de ambele revere ale hainei și l-a ridicat. Jim a agitat pumnii spre el și l-a lovit în față de două ori. Macdonald a strâns din buze."
"Am stat nemișcat, ascultând intens. Dincolo de mine nu era nici sunet, nici lumină. Am scos pistolul din tocul de la subraț și strângând patul, l-am coborât pe lângă corp. Respiram superficial, din vârful plămânilor. Atunci s-a petrecut ceva neașteptat. O rază de lumină a apărut pe sub ușa batantă care dădea spre sufragerie. Umbra aprinsese lumina. Ce umbră imprudentă! Am traversat bucătăria, am împins ușa, deschizându-o, și am ținut-o așa. Lumina se revărsa în alcovul care era sufrageria, dincolo de arcadă. M-am îndreptat într-acolo și, neatent-mult prea neatent! -, am trecut de arcadă."

I told my wife as I read this,"I'm savoring every page like a piece of fudge". I'm doing some rereads this year, and I picked this Chandler. The Long Goodbye was the 6th of Chandler's 7 Philip Marlowe novels, written in 1953. After I got back into it, I became curious and looked at the Goodreads ratings of his books - The Long Goodbye is the highest rated.

Before anything in his line of work happens, Marlowe happens to meet a very drunk Terry Lennox outside a bar, being treated very rudely by his date. While Marlowe doesn't often nurture friendships, something about Terry is appealing to him. "I'm supposed to be tough, but there was something about the guy that got me. I didn't know what it was unless it was the white hair and the scarred face and the clear voice and the politeness."

Terry tells him he was once married to the woman, and that she is filthy rich - her father is the immensely wealthy and powerful Harlan Potter, a newspaper magnate, among other things. They get remarried, but Sylvia is soon found brutally murdered, and Terry is a wanted man. He has Marlowe drive him to Mexico, and then Marlowe learns that Terry killed himself there. Then Marlowe is approached by a publisher to help figure out why one of his star writers, Roger Wade, can't finish a book. When Roger disappears, the beautiful Eileen Wade asks for his help.

One thing that I always enjoy in Chandler's novels is the way he lovingly references Los Angeles haunts. Here we have scenes in Laurel Canyon, Westwood, Sepulveda Canyon and on Cahuenga Boulevard and Mulholland Drive.

I could rhapsodize all day about Chandler's writing and his fascinating stories. I suppose it's like anything else, you either like him or you don't. And of course there's a lot to enjoy about Philip Marlowe. I do find one thing strange - he's always declining payment. I realize that is supposed to tell us that he is highly principled and operates under some strict self-imposed code. But I wonder if Chandler felt that seeing him paid would somehow cheapen his hero.

"I kissed her some more. It was light, pleasant work."

This line, near the end, made me laugh in my chair, and threw into focus Chandler's mastery (as if there were any question). It's the lightest moment in the book, like a quick gulp above the turbid waters of filthy wealth, permanently scarred humans, violent boozy hazes, and crappy culture, before a quick sinking back down into Marlowe's dirty aquarium where he's one of the few fishes without illusions and a self-serving game, which might help explain his surprising reserves of compassion and tenderness.

Besides being a lazy white knuckle journey through moral quagmires, it is also an extended oblique commentary on The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, though I didn't bother to tease it all out, just rode with the references as Chandler outdid himself on every page.

He is the Boris Karloff of literature.

I would have given this six stars if I could.