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.

This is the sixth and last of the full-length novels that Raymond Chandler wrote featuring his iconic detective, Philip Marlowe. It's also the most personal in that Chandler seems to have based two of the characters, Terry Lennox and Roger Wade, at least in part on himself.

At the book opens, Marlowe meets a man named Terry Lennox outside of a nightclub. Lennox is very drunk and his date drives off and leaves him. Marlowe, being a good samaritan, takes Lennox to his own home, sobers him up and then drives him home to the mansion that Lennox shares with his very promiscuous and extremely wealthy wife. On the basis of this incident, Marlowe and Lennox strike up a friendship of sorts and occasionally get together for drinks. Then one night, Lennox turns up and asks Marlow to give him a ride to Mexico, no questions asked.

Well, what are friends for?

Marlowe gives Lennox a ride and from that point, things generally go to hell in a handbasket. It's very difficult to say anything else about the plot of the novel without giving things away that the reader will want to find out for him or herself. This is, though, one of Chandler's best novels, full of the social commentary and great prose for which Chandler was so deservedly famous. This plot is actually a little less convoluted than some of the others and it's fun to watch it unfold. I finished the book this time around, after reading the other Chandler novels in order, regretting even more than ever the fact that there are only six of these novels along with a number of short stories. I could have used a lot more.

On a side note, this novel was published in 1953 and is set sometime around 1950. It was finally filmed by Robert Altman in 1973, starring Elliot Gould as Marlowe and the story is set in the early 1970s rather than the early 1950s. A lot of people like the movie a lot, but I've seen it twice and have never been able to warm up to it. Given the way that Humphrey Bogart inhabited the role of Marlowe and really made it his own, I just couldn't buy Gould as Marlowe. Also, Marlowe, who seemed to perfectly belong to the late 1940s and early '50s, seemed out of place in the 1970s--almost anachronistic. For my part, then, when I need a Philip Marlowe film fix, I'll stick with the Bogart version of "The Big Sleep," and I'm sure I'll be coming back to this and the other novels again and again in the coming years.

Možda je nepravedno ali je svejedno istinito: kad god čitam Čendlera, podsetim se koliko je Hamet bolji.
A dobar je i Čendler, s velikim uživanjem zapliće i mrsi svoje klupko (do kraja malo i pretera), žene su mahom prelepe i fatalne, muškarci malo raznovrsniji, ali najčešće suvo duhoviti, Marlou pije kao smuk i cinično kritikuje društvo i ljudski rod kao takav, da bi se, kad prigusti, pokazao kao neizlečiv romantik. Standardno i standardno dobro.
(Ali ipak: Čendlerov noar fazon je lakše imitirati, pa stoga i parodirati, nego Hametov. Nema tog Čendlera koji može da dobaci do Crvene žetve.)
U ovom konkretnom slučaju mora se pohvaliti i prevod Aleksandra Markovića koji je nekako baš po meri i kolokvijalan i živ i koristi starinski žargon baš kako treba u ovom kontekstu. Odavno nisam videla tako uspešno uzgred iskorišćenu onu odvratnu reč "faćkalica".

Chandler wrote tighter, tougher books, but this one was his masterpiece. I'd been pulled into loving noir by Hammett & W. R. Burnett but they didn't write like Chandler. The Long Goodbye has all the best snappy dialog and constant menace, but it had something more. It was cynical poetry, it had the brittleness and immediacy of the "existential", as we used to call it.

It had a thoroughly adult, disillusioned worldview but it also had a hero who refused to renounce his principles, even when his principles brought him nothing but grief. Marlowe's loyalty and friendship are wasted on the unworthy Terry Lennox. His best efforts are for naught on the blocked writer Roger Wade. His attractions are wasted on Wade's guileful wife.

All the little details of the book added to its luster. The $5,000 bill Lennox gives Marlowe to get him to Tijuana, the fussing about the right way to make a gimlet with the bartender, Marlowe punching Mendy Menendez in the gut out of sheer frustration. And the lyrical, cynical passages about L.A., about the cops, about the aging Marlowe himself are priceless. And it's true about the book being semi-autobiographical. The alcoholic, blocked writer Roger Wade is Chandler. Never a prolific author, we're all glad Chandler got this one written.

”’Alcohol is like love,’ he said. ‘The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. […]’”

They usually drink a lot in those hard-boiled novels, but rarely do they muse on their drinking habits, instead of taking them just for granted, the way they do in Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, which was written in 1953, four years after The Little Sister, the fifth of seven novels following the PI Philip Marlowe as he walks the mean streets of Los Angeles. The final novel, Playback, was published in 1958, and when Chandler died one year later, he had got four chapters into the unfinished Poodle Springs. Giving it a little leeway, you can say that the distances between the individual novels would grow longer in the course of the years, which might be a sign of their author finding it more and more difficult to deliver – interestingly, The Long Goodbye has the writer Roger Wade, who is facing the same problem – and that Chandler might have found it hard as well to breathe new life into a literary character that had accompanied him since 1939. He himself regarded The Long Goodbye as his best work and even though there are some rather lengthy passages that might have been done away with and no harm done, I can see why he would think so highly of this novel, which is quite different in tone from all its predecessors.

As a detective novel, The Long Goodbye is probably just middle-of-the-road: Marlowe befriends a guy named Terry Lennox, and when one day Terry needs his help in getting out of the country because his wife was brutally murdered, Marlowe, having an implicit belief in Terry’s innocence, not only drives him to the Mexican border but also undergoes an ordeal of several days when the police subject him to more than just an interrogation, and he still keeps mum for the sake of friendship. Later, he learns that Terry has committed suicide after penning down a full confession of the crime. Again, a little later, Marlowe falls in with the writer Roger Wade and his wife Eileen: Roger has a drinking and a drug problem, partly because writing novels is putting more and more pressure on him, partly, however, because there seems to be some dark or uncomfortable secret that has slipped from his mind and that he tries to get to the bottom of by hitting the bottle. All in all, the mystery plot is extremely threadbare and relies too heavily on coincidence – so much so that it is almost ludicrous.

But who reads Chandler exclusively, or even at all, for his plots?

The first thing I noticed once again is that in point of style, Chandler is head and shoulders above all the other mystery writers that I know. Would you fancy a sample? This is from Roger Wade’s written self-reflexions:

”’Well, I took it. Both hands. Poured it in the glass, too. Hardly spilled a drop. Now if I can hold it without vomiting. Better add some water. Now lift it slow. Easy, not too much at a time. It gets warm. It gets hot. If I could stop sweating. The glass is empty. It’s down on the table again.

‘There’s a haze over the moonlight but I set that glass down in spite of it, carefully, carefully, like a spray of roses in a tall thin vase. The roses nod their heads with dew. Maybe I’m a rose. Brother, have I got dew. Now to get upstairs. Maybe a short one straight for the journey. No? Okay, whatever you say. Take it upstairs when I get there. If I get there, something to look forward to. If I make it upstairs I am entitled to compensation. A token of regard from me to me. I have such a beautiful love for myself – and the sweet part of it – no rivals. [..]’” (p.524)

This is not only an example of the superiority of Chandler’s style, which amply recompenses a reader for the shortcomings of the plot, but also of the writer’s true concerns: He wants to say something that really matters and not only entertain his readers – strangely, this is another parallel between Chandler and his character Roger Wade, who makes his money by writing prurient historical fiction but wants to create something more lasting and valuable. Both Wade and Terry Lennox have a drinking problem – exactly like Chandler himself – and the problem of alcoholism looms large in this novel without being romanticized. We see the dire consequences of addiction in Wade’s life, and we are also invited to think about possible reasons why people are on the bottle. In both these men’s cases, the big wars of the 20th century might have had something to do with it. Apart from personal issues like alcoholism or writer’s blockade, Chandler also uses this novel to express his rather disillusioned view of society – of general callousness, of corruption – a side-plot involves the connections between the police and gambling rackets and how Marlowe gets caught in the crossfire between mobsters and the police –, of the culturally levelling effects of mass consumption and of the social consequences of the war. When Marlowe rebukes Terry Lennox for mixing with what he calls “hoodlums”, the other man says, ”’That’s just a word, Marlowe. We have that kind of world. Two wars gave it to us and we are going to keep it. […]’” (p.381). Harlan Potter, a cynical and embittered businessman, who owns nearly all the newspapers in town, a little later undertakes a sweeping swipe against contemporary society, from which I quote just a few thoughts:

”’[…] We live in what is called a democracy, rule by the majority of the people. A fine ideal if it could be made to work. The people elect, but the party machines nominate and the party machines to be effective must spend a great deal of money. Somebody has to give it to them, and that somebody whether it be an individual, a financial group, a trade union, or what have you expects some consideration in return. What I and people of my kind expect is to be allowed to live our lives in decent privacy. I own newspapers, but I don’t like them. I regard them as a constant menace to whatever privacy we have left. Their constant yelping about a free press means, with a few honorable exceptions, freedom to peddle scandal, crime, sex, sensationalism, hate, innuendo, and the political and financial use of propaganda. A newspaper is a business out to make money through advertising revenue. That is predicated on its circulation and you know what the circulation depends on. […]’”(p.547)

What a jaundiced rant this is, but also how well it succeeds in summing up even our present-day societies in all their poor hypocrisy. Marlowe aptly and elegantly retorts to this, and later tells the man’s daughter, ”’Fine. He explained civilization to me. I mean how it looks to him. He’s going to let it go on for a little while longer. But it better be careful and not interfere with his private life. If it does, he’s apt to make a phone call to God and cancel the order’” (p.549) but there is little doubt that Chandler himself was maybe not too far away from sharing this bleak outlook on life. After all, his hero Marlowe has grown quite melancholic and more helpless in his romantic ideals than before, which can also be seen from the fact that the sappy witticisms, up to now a trademark of his, have become rather far and few between. Apart from that, Marlowe has to learn a final and dire lesson, namely this – that friendship is, in Ambrose Bierce’s words, a ship that is able to carry two people in fair weather, but generally only one in foul. And this is probably the longest goodbye Marlowe has ever had to say …

To tie it all up, The Long Goodbye will definitely disappoint any reader who is after a suspenseful crime story rich in twists and surprises but it is an impressive legacy of a writer who, through sad experiences of his own – at the time of writing this, Chandler’s wife was terminally ill and he was seriously contemplating suicide – and through his view of society, was becoming more and more pessimistic and fed up. I must say that the older I get, the more I think I would have got on like a house on fire with Mr. Chandler.

Note: The page references in my review refer to the Penguin Modern Classics edition The Big Sleep and Other Novels.

I would have given this six stars if I could.

When you can guess the author, after reading only a few pages of any of his products, there is the certain sign that this one is ( or will be ) a classic. Women, booze, slang, adventure, twist, all of them are here, in a trade-mark product.

That's the case with Mr. Chandler and his Marlowe, even if The Long Goodbye is quite a little bit too long...

A down and out friend of Marlowe's flees to Mexico with Marlowe's help, his wife dead under suspicious circumstances. Marlowe's friend soon turns up dead, an apparent suicide. But what does his death, if anything, have to do with a drunk writer Marlowe finds himself watching?

I'm not really sure how I feel about the Long Goodbye. It's Chandler so the writing is great, with Chandler's trademark similes and hard-boiled atmosphere. On the other hand, it's written a little differently than his other Philip Marlowe books. It's more philosophical and less crime-oriented. The two victims in the story seem to be stand-ins for Chandler himself.

It's still crime oriented, though. It took me forever to figure out how the two seemingly unrelated cases were linked. I got there just before Marlowe did but it was a close shave.

What else is there to say without giving anything away? Chandler once again delivers the goods, just not in the same package as usual. Still, it was a very enjoyable read.

Chandler is the Poet Laureate of noir. A prose as beautiful and sad as a distant radio at night.

Chandler’s known as the king of LA noir and word is this is his best. His writing is lean and clean, short staccato sentences with not a word wasted. Almost poetic in its brevity – not to be confused with lack of substance. Humour me, I’m trying it out on this review it's fun - you should try it sometime  Marlowe’s amazingly complex, a fast-talking P.I. surviving on tough cynicism. Deep down just a stand-up guy with a soft spot for underdogs. Got a moral core that earns him no thanks, just a whole whack of trouble and an enemy around every corner. There’s a suicide and a murder everybody’s pushing Marlow to drop. "You know something, kid? You think you're cute but you're just stupid. You're a shadow on the wall.” But walking away just ain't in his make-up.

A taste of Marlow's world “I drove back to Hollywood feeling like a short length of chewed string. It was too early to eat, and too hot. I turned on the fan in my office. It didn't make the air any cooler, just a little more lively. Outside on the boulevard the traffic brawled endlessly. Inside my head thoughts stuck together like flies on flypaper.” He builds characters effortlessly – again in just a few words. Take this pair of Homicide Detectives "He was gray blond and looked sticky. His partner was tall, good-looking, neat, and had a precise nastiness about him, a goon with an education. They had watching and waiting eyes, patient and careful eyes, cool disdainful eyes, cops' eyes."

Plot's a bit convoluted but moves along nicely. Don’t get caught up trying to keep it all straight. Instead enjoy the ambiance and the deliciously broken people. Majority of them clinging to sanity by a thread. Roger Wade is interesting, a bestselling pulp fiction author who hits the bottle hard. Rumour has it this is semi-autobiographical.
Heads-up: Written in the 50’s so you'll need to take in stride some racism. Women are broads and they're all bad news. He seems to like them anyway. "So they're human, they sweat, they get dirty, they have to go to the bathroom. What did you expect-golden butterflies hovering in a rosy mist?”

Way I see it I lucked out. My GR buddies guided me to Chandler as an intro to the world of hard-boiled detective novels. My 1st stab at it, have nothing to compare it to. Can’t rate by genre so 4.5 stars as pure entertainment – it was a blast.

The Long Goodbye is one of those novels that you want to read with a strong cup of coffee, sipping with mindful pleasure, surrounded by varnished wooden furniture with an overall air of elegance. It's also one of those novels that happen to be a sublime example of American literature.

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.