...And now I'm fresh out of Chandler.

Everyone's been telling me that The Long Goodbye is the best. I think they're right. Several people told me I should read it first. I think they're wrong. I think it's best when you know and love Philip Marlowe, and you know and love Chandler's writing, and he can come along and punch you in the gut and bowl you over all over again. Or shoot you in the head.

I loved this one the best. I loved Terry Lennox and I loved Marlowe for helping him and I kind of followed the whole plot and thought it was clever and probably the best. I love the last two chapters and wanted to punch Chandler for them at the same time. I love the way it finishes up, and I hate the way that Marlowe is just as alone, just as bitter, just as poor, at the end. Except, I hate it in a good way.

Probably the best plotted and the most emotional of the lot. If you're only going to read one, read this.

Excepcional, gran obra. Una lectura apasionante.

Raymond Chandler is the great Southern California poet of depair. The Long Goodbye is very much a sad look at relationships and how that affects one's psyche. I always felt Chandler is one of the great genius' of the sentence. You can tell how much he cares for the structure of his works - even when he sort of loses it at times. But it's part of the great car ride and he's the driver of course.

“I’ve had some rather strange experiences in this house. Guns going off in the night. Drunks lying out on the front lawn and doctors coming who won’t do anything. Lovely women wrapping their arms around me and talking as if they thought I was someone else. Mexican house boys throwing knives. It’s a pity about that gun but you don’t really love your husband do you?”

Private investigator Philip Marlowe has developed a tenuous friendship with the alcoholic and terribly scarred Terry Lennox. When Terry’s millionaire wife turns up dead, Marlowe reluctantly helps Terry run away. Marlowe’s belief in Terry’s innocence causes him to become involved with 3 terrible marriages, a drunken author, the powerful father of the dead wife, some gangsters, and the police who just won’t stop bringing Marlowe in for questioning. Good noir complicated plot and some social commentary. I loved the ending.

I recently finished the first of the Philip Marlow stories (The Big Sleep  (my review)) that I had not read in a long time. I decided to go back and read some of the higher points in the series to test my memory. I realize now that except for a few of Marlowe’s snappier similes I had completely forgotten how this story went. It was like reading the book for the first time.

I like reading these old noir classics. The original copyright or this book is 1953. The book was written 15-years after The Big Sleep. Frankly, I prefer the pre-war stories in the series to the post-war books. They’re more historically interesting and that time feels less familiar to me.

Prose is straightforward. Dialog and descriptive prose are about equal. I note that Chandler indulges in a lot more exposition in this book than in the Big Sleep. The book is modernly long at 380-pages. The earlier stories were brief by modern standards at around 250-pages. I greatly appreciate and miss the economy of those earlier stories.

Marlowe’s badinage is iconic. All noir Private Investigators are masters of the snappy comeback—it is part of the arch-type. The dialog is not sexually explicit, but it can be licentious. Differently from the other books in the series, Marlowe ends-up bedding the right woman. She makes a reappearance in n  Playbackn (my review). There was also no vulgar language used. I would have expected expletives being used as punctuation by some of the characters. Unlike in earlier books of the series, I did not have to research any long out-of-use slang terms. (I was disappointed not having to do that.) Finally, Chandler includes an extraordinary amount of exposition (soliloquies are also forms of exposition) by earlier standards in this book. He writes a bit about writing and a lot about how he sees the world. I laughed out loud at the sentiment that most fiction was, junk written for half-wits. (I thought of YA fiction.) I found his famous n  blondesn soliloquy to be more of a screed. I did find his skewering of the bourgeois lifestyle of Californians more than amusing.

Descriptive prose is likewise good. Chandler is an author preoccupied with atmosphere. It’s very rich, cynical and leftist.

Characters have always been important to the author. Many of this story’s characters are arch-typical noir types: Smart Talking PI (Philip Marlowe), femme fatale (Eileen Wade), "good" bad girl (Linda Loring), Heffe( Harland Potter), Good Cop (Bernie Ohls), Bad Cop (Captain Gregorious), etc.. Chandler wrote himself into the story as the alcoholic, writers blocked, Roger Wade. There are a certain amount of thugs, other than the thuggish police. Many of them are Latino. Latinos fared badly in this story. There is also a small amount of gay-bashing in this story, which was less than in earlier stories.

Plot is a two-parter. Marlowe’s altruism leads him into the case. A friend’s (Terry Lennox) wife (Potter’s daughter) is murdered. Lenox is martyred to protect the reputation of a rich and socially prominent father (Harland Potter). Marlowe sees the injustice in the cover-up. Serendipitously, a subsequent case involving the Wades connects to the Lenox murder. The last 100-pages unnecessarily tied-up loose ents. I thought the book went on overly long, with only the last two chapters being enough to deliver the major plot twist.

This story was interesting to me as the apogee of the author's fiction rather than as a detective story. Marlowe is fully developed. His snappy badinage and the author's use of metaphors and similes are all there. Although, I think they are slightly overripe at this point. The book went on overly long by previous stories. I also found the social commentary to be too heavy-handed. This may be my modern perspective. However, the story is still worth reading.

Considering my failed memory of Marlowe, I think I'm going to go back and read Farewell, My Lovely.

If you liked this story, you'd also be interested in the movie  The Long Goodbye (1973) . Although, I didn’t appreciate the update to more modern times (1970’s) or the cat.

Readers interested in early Chandler should read n  Chandler: Later Novels and Other Writingsn (my review) . This book would also be helpful in seeing the autobiographical aspects of this story.

I reread Chandler's private eye novel. Lots of nice touches are found in it. He even takes a few swipes at T.S. Eliot. Marlowe is now 42. He's as complicated as ever. If you like reading hardboiled private eye books, this one fits the bill.

Classic crime noir doesn't come much better than this. Possibly Chandler's best?
A stunning work that ticked all the boxes for what I'd want in a hard-boiled private detective novel. I blitzed through it and immediately wanted to read it read again. Although Robert Altman's film is updated to the early 70s it is also a masterpiece, and one of the most underrated and overlooked films from that decade - when I think The Godfather, Taxi Driver, etc..., I also think The Long Goodbye.

" هیچ تله‌ای به اندازه تله‌ای که خودت واسه خودت گذاشتی مرگبار نیست "

از نظر معمایی می‌تونم بگم کتاب جالبی بود. البته شیوه نقل قولش متفاوت بود. خیلی زیاد یاد "آوای فاخته" رولینگ افتادم و البته درستش به نظرم این بود که قبلا این کتاب رو می‌خوندم و موقع خوندن آوای فاخته یاد این میفتادم. دقیقا چرا یاد اون می‌افتادم؟ نمی‌دونم.

کتاب زیادی توصیفات داشت. خیلی زیاد. البته نه از اون توصیفاتی که همیشه حوصله سر بر هستند. از اون سری توصیفات که بعضی وقت‌ها آدم دوست داره بخونه و خودشو مشغول کنه و ذهنش رو رها کنه. نویسنده خیلی جاها زده بود توی جاده فرعی. شاید حداقل 100 صفحه از کتاب قابل حذف بود
یه چیزی بود که شخصیت افراد توی داستان یه مقدار نامانوس و غیر قابل باور بود. واکنش‌هایی داشتن که اونقدرا طبیعی به نظر نمی‌اومد و همین یه مقدار اعصاب آدم رو خرد می‌کرد.

یک مشکلی داشت که البته نمی‌تونم به نثر نویسنده مرتبطش کنم و احتمال میدم بیشتر مشکل از ترجمه بوده باشه و اون اینه که خیلی جاها منظور نویسنده منتقل نمی‌شد. متلک‌ها و تیکه‌هایی بود که احساس می‌کنم یه آدم که تو آمریکا زندگی کنه می‌تونه متوجه بشه اما برای اینکه یه فرد فارسی زبان یا کسی که توی جامعه آمریکا بزرگ نشده متوجه بشه لازمه که توی ترجمه‌اش دقت بیشتری انجام بشه.

خب حالا که رسیدم به بخش ترجمه بهتره بیشتر در موردش بنویسم. اگه دو سه صفحه اول رو بخونید، ترجمه کتاب بسیار روون به نظر میاد. از نظر متن و نگارش فارسی هم اگه فقط جملات رو بخونید فکر می‌کنید روونه اما جملاتی صرفا روون که در بسیاری جاها نمی‌تونه منظور خاصی رو برسونه. یه سری جمله برگردانده شده بدون مفهوم. پوچ. توی این ترجمه چنین جملاتی بسیار به چشم می‌خورد. برای همین لذت خوندن کتاب رو خیلی خیلی کاهش داده بود.
یک ایراد دیگه مترجم این بود که توی کتاب جملات اسپانیولی که با حروف فارسی نوشته شده بود زیاد بود. اینکه نویسنده تو متن اصلی آیا پانوشتی برای این جملات گذاشته بوده یا نه؟ نمیدونم اما اینو هم باید در نظر بگیریم که خواننده آمریکایی با چنین جملاتی آشنایی بیشتری داره تا خواننده ایرانی و فارسی زبان. بهتر بود توی ترجمه فارسی برای این جملات توی پانوشت معنیشون ذکر می‌شد چون جاهای بسیاری دو تا دیالوگ اسپانیولی رد و بدل میشه و به عنوان یه خواننده ایرانی هیچی از مفهومش نخواهید فهمید. نمیخوام به مترجم تهمت بزنم و خیلی تند برم اما احساس می‌کنم ترجمه نکردن جملات اسپانیولی نه از وفاداری مترجم به نثر اصلی که از نقص دانشش ناشی می‌شد.

علاوه بر این جملات، خیلی از کلمات بدون ترجمه اومده بود توی داستان که اگه مثل من حوصله سرچ کردنشون توی اینترنت رو نداشته باشی هیچی از مفهوم جمله نمی‌فهمی. دیگه برای اینجور کلمات جدا باید پانویس می‌ذاشت! حتی توی بعضی قسمت‌ها تغییر لحن بسیار آزاردهنده‌ای اتفاق می‌افتاد. مثلا وسط یک مکالمه گویش گفتاری به نوشتاری تبدیل می‌شد! اینجاست که معلوم میشه یک ویراستاری صحیح چقدر می‌تونه توی نتیجه نهایی تاثیرگذار باشه. خلاصه که شاعر میگه: صورت زیبای ظاهر هیچ نیست، ای برادر سیرت زیبا بیار...

خداحافظی طولانی اولین اثری بود که از چندلر خوندم و اولین کار کارآگاهی فیلیپ مارلو، اما چون یک کتاب دیگه از این سری قبلا هدیه گرفتم، حتما بازهم سراغ فیلیپ مارلو خواهم رفت. امیدوارم اون مترجم بهتر عمل کرده باشه تا من بتونم با قطعیت بیشتری بگم که نثر چندلر رو می‌پسندم یا نه.

امتیازم به کتاب یه چیزی بین 2 و 3 است که به بالا گردش می‌کنم.

همین

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

So are you familiar already with the "One Book One Chicago" (OBOC) program? We're not the first city to do it (in fact, we stole the idea from Seattle), but are definitely now the largest city in America to do so; basically, roughly three or four times a year the Mayor's Office and the public library system choose an important and popular book (usually a 20th-century novel), stock the various libraries around the city with thousands of extra copies, host a whole series of events around the city tied to the book itself (often co-sponsored by various creative and corporate organizations), and otherwise do as much as possible to convince the entire city of Chicago to read the book all at once, all in the same thirty-day period. And when it works, it really is quite the great little experience; imagine walking around a city of four million people and constantly running across others reading the same exact book you're reading, in cafes and on the train and at discussion clubs and while waiting in line at the supermarket, and all the fun little intelligent conversations such a thing inspires among complete strangers.

And the latest OBOC choice (their fourteenth) is a real doozy, too; it's The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler, the last great novel by one of the most truly American writers our country has ever seen, a book both popular with the mainstream and historically important to the world of arts and letters. And indeed, Chandler is so distinctly an American artist precisely because he both helped invent and perfect a truly American form of the arts, so-called "detective" or "crime" or "pulp" fiction, a genre which first gained popularity in the rough-and-tumble first half of the 20th century and is by now an international phenomenon and multi-billion-dollar industry. It's the perfect genre for Americans to have latched onto, fans say, because crime fiction examines the exact dark side of the coin which pays for the American Dream as well; this idea of a truly market-driven, truly free society, whereby busting your hump and believing in yourself can legitimately get you ahead of all the other schmucks of the world, whether that's through noble activities or criminal ones. No one is better suited than an American, the theory goes, to see the complex symbiotic nature of both these options -- the hidden dangers of capitalism, the dark seductions of crime -- and thus it is that this style of fiction is one that Americans are distinctly known for.

Now, that said, The Long Goodbye is also atypical of the usual type of work Chandler first got famous for; another detective tale to be sure, starring his usual standby antihero Philip Marlowe, but this time a wearier and more socially-conscious man than before, in a tale written late in Chandler's life (in fact, just six years before his premature death). Because that's an important thing to know about Chandler, especially to understand the mystique surrounding his work and enduring popularity, is that he was a bit of a rough-and-tumble fellow himself, although unusually so; a pipe-smoking, chess-studying, erudite nerd who was nonetheless a heavy boozer and womanizer, someone who not only managed to snag a lucrative corporate executive job in the middle of the Great Depression but also lose it because of showing up to work drunk too many times in a row. Chandler had never meant to be a full-time writer, sorta stumbled into it ass-backwards because of his vices, and was always very critical of the other things going on in his industry and the other people being published; it's because of all these things, fans claim, that Chandler writes in such a unique and distinctive style, and the fact that such stories got published at the exact moment in history they did that ended up making him so popular.

Because that's the other thing to understand about Chandler if you don't already, that along with a handful of other authors, he helped define the "smart pulp fiction" genre of the 1930s, '40s and '50s, the same genre that spawned gangster movies, film noirs and more; so in other words, not just spectacular stories of derring-do among criminal elements, tales of which had already been getting published regularly for the lower classes since Victorian times, but also bringing a slick, Modernist style to the stories, a clean minimalism to the prose inspired by such contemporary "authentic" peers as William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway and more. Reading The Long Goodbye for the first time this week, in fact my first Chandler book ever, I can easily see why people have been going so nuts for his writing style for 75 years now and counting; because Chandler had a natural ability to get it exactly exactly right, to not underwrite his stories even a tiny bit and not overwrite them either, to bump up nearly to the edge of cheesiness at all times but to rarely ever step over. That after all is why literally thousands of pulp-fiction projects have rightly faded into obscurity now over the last half-century, but with writers like Chandler still being chosen for programs like OBOC; because Chandler had a born mastery over the subtleties of it all that most other writers before and after him have lacked.

For those who don't know, as mentioned The Long Goodbye concerns a recurring character of Chandler's named Philip Marlowe, a private investigator from whom we now derive many of our stereotypes concerning the subject -- the shabby urban office with the frosted-glass window, the sudden appearance of dangerous dames with gams that just won't quit, the tough-as-nails sad-sack private dick who don't take no guff from nobody no how. Ugh, see how easy it is to fall into cheesy Chandleresque mannerisms? And this is the flipside of reading Chandler anymore, of course, something you need to actively work against while reading his books if you want any chance of deeply enjoying them; it's imperative that you forget all the cultural stereotypes and cliches that have come from the world of pulp fiction, that you not immediately think of a tough-talking Humphrey Bogart while reading this but rather approach it as a contemporary reader in the 1950s would, one who has no preconceptions about what they're getting into. Because in many ways, a trench-coated tough-talking Bogart type is bad casting when it came to the Marlowe that Chandler originally presented to the public; his Marlowe is a lot more like the author himself, a quiet intellectual who mostly enjoyed staying at home, who talked in the clipped and gruff way he did merely because he was a borderline sociopath and nihilist, who wanted as little to do with the rest of humanity as possible.

Because man, the world that Chandler paints in The Long Goodbye is certainly not the most pleasant or optimistic one you'll ever come across; a world full of spoiled, weak little hairless apes, running around flinging their own excrement at each other and succumbing to their basest vices at the slightest provocation. And indeed, this is one of the other things this particular novel is known for, much more so than any of the other novels of Chandler's career, as being one of the first truly complex and brutally honest looks at the entire subject of alcoholism, a tortured look at the subject from an active addict who bitterly blames the moral weakness of the alcoholics as much as the disease itself. In Chandler's world, the majority of bad things that happen to people happen because of those people's own actions and attitudes; because they are petty, because they are weak, because they are greedy, because they are spineless. Sure, occasionally a person might get framed for a murder they didn't actually commit, or other such unfair crime; but ultimately that person has been guilty of countless other sins in the past for which they were never caught, making it impossible to exactly feel bad for them when it comes to the one particular trumped-up charge.

It's a delicious milieu that Chandler creates, but for sure a bleak one, a remorseless universe that like I said is punctuated by this sparkling dialogue that at all times shines; it's very easy to see after reading this why his work caught on so dramatically in the first place, and why organizations like the Chicago Public Library are still finding it so important to bring him to people's attention. And unlike a lot of other so-called "Important Historical Work," actually reading through The Long Goodbye never feels like some dated chore; I mean, yes, as mentioned, the dialogue has a tendency to border on cheesy, but usually stays on the good side of that line as long as you're not reading along out loud in a wiseguy New York accent. (And by the way, to see an excellent example of how to present Chandleresque dialogue in a non-cheesy way, please see my review of the truly brilliant 2005 Rian Johnson contemporary high-school noir Brick.) It's a book that not only delivers a simple lurid entertainment, but also gets you thinking about a whole variety of deeper topics for days and weeks afterwards; I'm glad the OBOC people picked it for the program, and I'm looking forward to attending the various Chandler-related events going on around the city throughout the rest of April. I encourage you to pick up a copy as well, if you haven't already.

Queer Eye for the Private Eye

"People have such queer ideas about private detectives."
Raymond Chandler, "The Long Good-Bye" (page 69)

Kiss Me Goodbye (An Ode to Philip Marlowe and Terry Lennox)
[Apologies to Martin Fry and Christopher Marlowe]

I never promised you eternity
I never meant to be unkind
All I gave, you returned to me
Now love's the last thing on your mind.

I never promised you a miracle
What you desired was a guarantee.
This song’s not meant to be satirical
Our love was just a carnal parody.

Nothing in this world's invincible
No one's heart is made of stone
Now I know I'm yours in principle
I'm the one thing you'll never own.

It only took a glass or two of bourbon
(Or were they gimlets?) downstairs at Victor’s
No way could our love be that suburban
We held each other like two constrictors.

I can’t recall what I metaphor
She seemed to be like a simile
You were more queenly than sophomore
Adorned with your silver filigree.

If I promise you infinity
There's so much more to share with you
Did you expect the holy trinity
In all I say and all I do?

Let me tell you this much, man to man,
There’s no love any greater than this
If you’ll be my star, I’ll be your fan
Make me immortal with just one kiss.

When you left, you were invisible
Although I drove you to the airport
I thought we’d be indivisible
Even if one of us had been caught.

It's not emotional extravagance
We said farewell a thousand times
Why pretend there'll be a second chance
Unless this last kiss changes your mind?

If you can live your life without me
Turn and walk away
Minutes turn to hours
Hours turn to days
If you can't stand a single moment
Then go but kiss me goodbye.


SOUNDTRACK:

ABC - "Kiss Me Goodbye"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrJP2...

It is generally agreed that The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler’s penultimate novel, is his final masterpiece. A single reading easily affirms that. A rereading, which brings with it a foreknowledge of events and the ability to consider all its far-reaching elements collectively, creates a corollary to that longstanding assertion: yes it is a classic--but it should not have been. There are several structural flaws, though each can be quelled with the same irrefutable response. For example: the book opens with several chapters dedicated to Terry Lenox--a drunk Phillip Marlowe helps and befriends--without anything of significance or anything of much interest happening; why should we, the reader, stick around for this? The answer: It’s Chandler and it’s Marlowe. When something finally happens and after its immediate consequences are faced, we move on to another case--an actual case--with no connection to Lenox or anything that had come before; why should we believe this book will end up with anything resembling a coherent story? It’s Chandler and it’s Marlowe. And after completing the second case almost immediately--the locating and retrieving of Roger Wade, an alcoholic writer who disappeared during a bender--the people in and around said writer keep dragging Marlowe back into their lives for no apparent reason; why should we believe there’s going to be some actual detecting in what is supposed to be a private detective novel? It’s Chandler and it’s Marlowe.

The Marlowe part of the answer is important. It’s the same reason a decade later John D. MacDonald created a character named Travis McGee, through whom he could comment on cultural and environmental matters. Marlowe is as self-aware as he is aware of the world around him, a character to whom social commentary comes naturally, the perfect vehicle for Chandler’s purposes. One of the ironies of The Long Goodbye is that Chandler puts most of his observations into the mouths of other characters. That would be a problem if Phillip Marlowe were merely a mouthpiece. At his core he is, as he has always been, the moral center of any situation, any group, any environment. It’s that essential, unwavering characteristic that allows a single character to elevate what should have been an uneven and disjointed novel.

I chose to reread The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye back-to-back because Megan Abbott cited her own experience in doing so in an introduction to Reed Farrel Coleman’s Walking the Perfect Square (Busted Flush Press, 2008). She used Marlowe as a yardstick against which to measure the darkness of the overarching journey of Coleman’s Moe Prager--and, yes, there is some of that present in the 14 years between the two Chandler novels. The most obvious example here is an instance where Marlowe lets himself be put in a torturous situation that seemed avoidable. And yet when it comes to the subject of darkness I am drawn more to Bernie Ohls, Marlowe’s only friend in The Big Sleep; the only other honest person in that book, certainly the only honest cop. In The Long Goodbye Bernie Ohls is still fighting the fight but it’s no longer the good fight. He’s made compromises along the way, compromises Marlowe could never make. The two men contrast Chandler’s most famous quote: “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.” Marlowe, even after being engulfed by the nastiness of The Big Sleep, is still a man of honor. Bernie Ohls could not remain untarnished. And he is aware of it on some level as he stands next to Marlowe. Just as Chandler’s imitators are aware that they have also fallen short, perhaps because they too often fail to realize that the mean streets in question are almost never literal. Their failure was inevitable. Is there any doubt as to why?

It’s Chandler and it’s Marlowe.

What follows, of course, is just my (generally worthless) opinion. As genre (the crime/detective novel), High Window is Chandler's peak. It's a perfect specimen. His next book, Little Sister, though good, ran into trouble (see my review). It was somewhat deeper, more ambitious, a little literary..., but Chandler didn't know how to get an increasingly bitter, frightened, alcoholic 62 year-old author, with great craft-skills, to continue to write a 38 year-old, hardboiled character. It was a crisis of middle age, and the seams showed.

In the Long Goodbye, Chandler solved the problem by putting the aging alcoholic self into other characters -- and that then left him free to treat Marlowe (now 42) from a more objective point of view. And the result, though not as taut as a genre-piece, is a fine, deep, sad, piece of literature: Raymond Chandler's Long Goodbye.

He died, from alcoholism, a few years later. But he was a fine and important 20th century American writer, who anticipated without pretense, and without any prompous literary shennanigans, much of the sorrow of what would prove to be the early stages of our moral and material decay. The contrast with the hopefulness of his early novels, when he describes an L.A. not yet even built... just rising from the hills... itself is a large part of the pathos that is Chandler.