"لدى الفرنسيين عبارة تصف ذلك. الأوغاد لديهم وصف كل شيء وهم دائماً على حق:
أن تقول الوداع هو أن تموت قليلاً."

قرأت هذه الرواية بسبب "هاروكي موراكامي" الذي قال أنه قرأها فوق الستة مرات، وترجمها إلى اليابانية لشدة تأثره بأسلوبه، وبعدما انهيت الرواية نسيت هاروكي ووجدتني أقول لماذا لم نسمع بريموند تشاندلر كثيراً ويُذاع سيطه وتُترجم كتبه -الذي وجدت أنها كثيرة- فرواية "وداع طويل" بلا أدنى شك هي واحدة من أ��ضل روايات الجريمة والتحقيقات التي قرأتها في حياتي، والمحقق "فيليب مارلو" من أذكى المُحققين الذي قرأت عنهم، وذو شخصية فريدة للغاية، وذكاء يلمع بعينيه.

ما يُميز هذه الرواية عن أية رواية جريمة أخرى، أنها تحمل عُمقاً ومناقشات وقضايا مُعصدة تتشابك وتنحل لتتشابك أكثر، ثم تنحل في النهاية بإلتواءة جيدة، ومُفاجئة، والأكثر جاذبية أنه مُمهد لها طوال الأحداث، ولكننا لا نرى ذلك إلا بالتفجر الأخير عندما ظننا أن الرواية انتهت، ولكن كان هناك قنبلة في النهاية، ستُغير رأيك في أغلب الشخصيات، ولكنها ستجعلك واثقاً أن "فيليب مارلو" رجل ذو مبدأ مُحترم لا يخل به أبداً، وطوال أحداث الرواية ومُشاكسات "فيليب مارلو" الذي يعمل كمحقق خاص، مع الشرطة والعصابات، لكي يتوصل إلى الحقيقة، والحقيقة وحدها، طريق مُعذب مليء بالتساؤلات حتى حول نفسه، ينخرط "مارلو" في القضية حتى تصير حياته، لا عجب أنه عندما انتهت الحكاية ظل وحده بلا رفقة، فقد تأثر وانخرط فيها، ولمسها، ارتبط بها عاطفياً وليس فقط من البداية، ومُساعدته لأحد الشخصيات، ولكن طوال الأحداث وحتى النهاية.

الرواية أيضاً تستعرض الحقبة الزمنية بستينيات القرن الماضي، من خلال بعض الشخصيات التي مثلت الشرطة ورجال الأعمال ورجال العصابات، وأصحاب الصُحف، وكيف يخدمون بعضهم البعض، وقد يتعمدوا في تزييف الحقيقة من أجل المصالح المُشتركة. وكيف يُمكن أن يصل تزييف الحقيقة إلى التلاعب في الوقائع حتى، وتغيير مسار الأحداث، وكيف أن لغة المال هي اللغة الوحيدة السائدة حتى بين أعلى القيادات في الشرطة والقضاة وأيضاً الصحف ورجال العصابات، الكل عبداً للمال بشكلاً ما. ولم تُغفل الجانب الاجتماعي أيضاً وتأثير الحرب على الشخصيات، أحد الشخصيات حصل على ندبات بسبب الحرب، وبشكلاً ما كانت الحرب هي هزة نفسية له حولته كما رأينا في الأحداث، أيضاً وجود عنصر النساء كان فعالاً وحقيقياً، الإغواء الأكثر شراهة من المال، ولكن من قال أن الجمال لا يقتل؟

ختاماً..
رواية بوليسية كلاسيكية من الطراز الأكثر من جيد، مكتوبة بألغاز تُحل توالياً، حتى تتفجر عند النهاية، أحداثها جذابة غير مُملة على الإطلاق، وعملية التحقيق والبحث نفسها لم أقرأ مثلها من قبل، وجاءت الترجمة جيدة، لكنها كانت تحتاج مراجعة أخيرة من أجل التدقيق في بعض الكلمات.

بكل تأكيد يُنصح بها.

At first The Long Goodbye seemed like a far more complex book than The Big Sleep because the character of Marlowe, heartless and invincible and infallible in the latter, in the former is fleshed out with various forms of weakness (subjectively defined). These include a tendency towards the romantic, bravado and braggadocio, insatiable curiosity (the bane of many existences, not least the young elephant's), and an inability to let well alone. A sharp contrast is drawn between his masterful and knowing demeanor and his apparent standing in the world, but the very sharpness raises questions about the validity of the contrast itself. Is Marlowe a picaresque tough guy battling his way through a big cruel world with every tool he's got? Is he a blustering, bumbling, overcurious smart ass with a tendency for emotional overinvestment in his work? Is he a misunderstood hero sacrificing himself on the altar of justice? Is he playing the other characters like chess pieces? Is he clued in or clueless, or both, and if so then which is the act? Is he a self-deluded loser?

I think this ambiguity, or complexity, is deliberate on Chandler's part. You could ask the very same questions about him, and about the book, but in Marlowe's words, "it's a nice quiet way to go crazy. You don't even scream, but you come awfully close."

“L’alcool è come l’amore. Il primo bacio è magico, il secondo intimo, il terzo un’abitudine. E poi si spoglia la donna”
C’è tutto quello che deve esserci in un romanzo del genere. Come principale protagonista c’è l’alcool, motore e spinta propulsiva della storia, che scorre a fiumi nelle case eleganti dei quartieri più esclusivi e nei bar silenziosi di Los Angeles; ci sono i bulli dal grilletto facile, grandi criminali tenutari di case da gioco in Nevada, messicani dal sangue caliente e con la violenza a fior di pelle; ci sono le pupe, splendide donne eleganti e sensuali che provocano bollori al primo sguardo (anche se poi, quando vai a guardare meglio, trovi marcio sotto pelle); ci sono poliziotti corrotti che girano scortati da gangster nelle strade di Los Angeles; ci sono anche poliziotti onesti che si sentono falliti per aver pensato che il mondo è diviso in due, i buoni e i cattivi da sterminare; ed infine c’è lui, Philip Marlowe, un duro, un cinico, un saggio che ha capito come va il mondo, cui è chiaro come “il potere d’acquisto del dollaro” sia ciò che fa girare le cose, ed il caso che gli si presenta ne è la lampante dimostrazione: la morte della figlia di un milionario californiano, magnate dell’editoria. Marlowe ci si imbatte perché il marito della donna è un suo “amico”, Terry Lennox, con il quale è abituato a condividere succhielli (bibite tipiche californiane, non pensate male!) malinconicamente seduti su uno sgabello del bar Victor. Cosa significa l’amicizia? Per Marlowe molto, tanto da spingerlo a immischiarsi in faccende pericolose, mettendosi in gioco seriamente, pur di salvaguardarla.
Il miglior Chandler letto finora, con un finale imprevisto e molto triste, che lascia con l’amaro in bocca, ma sempre più affezionati al rude investigatore.

Apparently, Chandler regarded this as his best book and I can see why. It’s longer than his other Philip Marlowe novels and this gives the author space to look a little deeper into his characters.

Two of the characters, Terry Lennox (an alcoholic war veteran) and Roger Wade (an alcoholic author), are clearly proxies for Chandler himself. This, to me at least, makes this book the most personal of the series. He speaks through these characters, not only via their dialogue and actions but also by the way other characters talk about them. Interestingly, Chandler chooses to kill both these characters off during the course of the book.

I found this novel to be like a Marlowe novel turned up to eleven. (Why don’t you just make ten louder?) It has everything I’ve come to expect from these books but moreso. As such, I enjoyed it more too and found it more touching. I’ve just found out that Chandler wrote this book as his wife was dying from a chronic illness. In hindsight, that makes perfect sense.

The French have a phrase for it. The bastards have a phrase for everything and they are always right. To say goodbye is to die a little.

-tPhilip Marlowe

To say goodbye is to die a little.

There are some books that just feel good to have on your dashboard, never too far from your fingertips to read in the tiny gaps between obligations and responsibility. The type of book that rides shotgun and keeps you company through the darker hours, through lonely nights at a shady laundromat or booze-soaked rainstorms on your porch. Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye is that sort of book, that sort of friend. The past few months have seen some bleak times and I’ve been on a Chandler kick to press through them. Of all the Marlowe adventures, this was the one that stands out like a lighthouse in a storm telling an unforgettable tale of murder and mystery. Chandler took noir to soaring heights of literary acceptance with his works, joining Dashiell Hammett as an essential author of the genre and The Long Goodbye leaves an eternal mark on the face of literature even more so that the more upbeat and hardboiled The Big Sleep that kicked off the Phillip Marlowe novel series and inspired fantastic films such as The Big Lebowski. Goodbye is a novel for hard times, hard drinking, hard living; an aged and more cynical than ever Marlowe proves he’s worth his salt in honoring the memory of a short-lived but impactful friendship with Terry Lennox. Lennox, a war-hero alcoholic, has been a victim of either suicide or arranged murder in a small Mexican town while on the lam escaping an accusation for murder of his rich wife, and Marlowe will stop at nothing to see through the doors slammed shut by political power and fear and discover the truth. While a bit bloated, this is a novel of near perfection in the mystery genre that is guaranteed to keep you up at night, gladly dropping more quarters for another dryer cycle in order to keep reading because a mystery with Marlowe is about as good as life gets.

To label this novel perfection would be to bastardize any opinions on the literature more widely accepted by the academy that I’ve previously championed and praised, but few novels have felt like a better friend in hard times than The Long Goodbye. Or perhaps it’s just that I like occupying Marlowe’s headspace. I even named my new cat after him upon completion of The Big Sleep. Marlowe is the type of man you wish you were, but not one you’d want to spend time with. He is fearless and devoted nearly to a fault, unafraid to play the asshole to get what he wants. He swims upon his moods and cherishes those moments of getting right up in someones face just to drown out a bad feeling or ascertain the truth. He calls everyone out on their bullshit and possesses a moral compass so strong that nobody besides himself seems to be worth a damn. Pushy and thorny, Marlowe is the hero for me. Reading a Chandler novel is much like geeking out on the old John Wayne films I’d watch with my father as a child, particularly True Grit. There are the pitfalls of blatant misogyny, racism (particularly towards Latin Americans in this one, which with my love of Latin American literature was particularly not cool) and cornball dated humor, but it is honestly very easy to overlook when the plot is that engaging, the writing that ‘cool’ and the novel so entertaining. How can you not love a novel with a passage like this:

Alcohol is like love...The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl’s clothes off.¹

This is the sort of novel that keeps you pouring a glass along with Marlowe—perhaps is that what they mean by an ‘active reader’, one who empathizes with the character and drinks when he drinks?—and despite being a pot-boiler of a thriller, never insults the intellect. The twists are fresh and the writing crisp. Granted, the novel is a bit bloated and some elements may raise the ‘really?’ eyebrow of critique, but on the whole it works. It is easy to consider many bits as cliche in the modern day, but important to remember that it was Chandler that invented it before it became cliche. There is also a really charming self-consciousness to this novel with regards to the writing. ‘Why did I go into such detail?’ Marlowe asks of himself, ‘because the charged atmosphere made every little thing stand out as a performance.’ The writing truly fits the scene and the P.I. narrator. While in most novels it would be easy to sneer at a lengthy passage on the physical description and dress of a character as they first walk on the scene, here it is at home since Marlowe would need to analyze a fresh face for all they are worth to build a profile of them quickly in order to interact with them and press for the goal. Chandler has a true gift for dialogue and character mannerisms as well, creating a wide, engaging cast. ‘He was a guy who talked with commas, like a heavy novel,’ he says at one point, and the dialogue of each character is always brilliantly nuanced. There is even a wonderful sense of satire on authors present, with Chandler poking fun at top-selling authors who write for profit and not for artistic merit, as is shown with Roger Wade. The continuous satire and critique of Hollywood and California that permeates Chandler’s novels comes alive in comical form with the desert sobering-up-clinic and the mentally challenged guard who cannot separate his fantasy role-playing of cowboys and tough guys from reality. On the surface it is easy to scoff at these scenes, but Chandler plays for something deeper.

It is fascinating to have read Chandler grow as a writer and to see his characters develop and age over time. Like a racoon, Marlowe has grown older and meaner and tougher, but all the more honorable, strong-willed and fearless.

n  Maybe I was tired and irritable. Maybe I felt a little guilty. I could learn to hate this guy without even knowing him. I could just look at him across the width of a cafeteria and want to kick his teeth inn

The relationship between him and Ohl has soured a bit, both of them really elbowing the other in the ribs with more force and sadistic pleasure, with Ohl no longer a chain-smoker but constantly rubbing an unlit cigarette between his lips. What has not changed is the insight into Los Angeles and Hollywood, blossoming now into subtle jabs of social insight with Marlowe looking down at all the socialites as their sins and flaws seem to define them. The Long Goodbye reads almost like a western where the territory is wild and untamed and crime running rampant not as a driving force but as a symptom of the American lifestyle we have let cultivate itself. Power and greed and evil are seen here as byproducts of a society ruled by its own fear and vice, and Marlowe must navigate these deadly waters to uphold the good names of himself and those he cares about.

The Long Goodbye is a cornerstone of noir and mystery that rises above any genre into simply being a beautiful piece of literature. A searing social critique orchestrated with dazzling plot twists, enviable dialogue prowess and a firm grounding in doing what is right simply because it is right, Chandler has created a masterpiece that is just as potent today as it was when first written. This is the sort of novel that scratches an itch of being both a fluff read and an intellectual endeavour (there must be a term for this somewhere) and grabs the reader by the throat and heart and won’t let go until the final, heart wrenching few lines. Plus, the Robert Altman film starring Elliott Gould is fantastic (though not a perfect adaption it still works) and rivals even Chinatown as a masterpiece of noir cinema. This novel was a true comfort on many a dark night and it was sad to see it end. Marlowe is a true literary hero and one I won’t ever forget.
4.5/5

‘Out there in the night of a thousand crimes people were dying, being maimed, cut by flying glass, crushed against steering wheels or under heavy tires. People were being beaten, robbed, strangled, raped, and murdered. People were hungry, sick; bored, desperate with loneliness or remorse or fear, angry, cruel, feverish, shaken by sobs. A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness.
It all depends on where you sit and what your own private score is. I didn’t have one. I didn’t care.
I finished the drink and went to bed.’

¹ While there is plenty of drinking to be had (finish this novel without wanting to go order a gimlet, I dare you), Chandler does well to also add an air of caution to the intake of alcohol. To drink in moderation is one thing, but the horrors of alcoholism and excess make up a major portion of the novel. ‘A man who drinks too much on occasion is still the same man as he was sober. An alcoholic, a real alcoholic, is not the same man at all. You can't predict anything about him for sure except that he will be someone you never met before.’

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.

" 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

As research for a novel I'm writing, I'm reading detective fiction and stealing everything of value. My story takes place in L.A. of the early '90s, but I'm buying every type of firework on the stand and lighting the fuse. Though I've seen Philip Marlowe adapted to film or television, my introduction to the fiction of Raymond Chandler is The Long Goodbye, the author's sixth novel featuring the Los Angeles private dick. Published in 1953, it's long in the tooth, but it's a testament to Chandler's immense literary skill that more than sixty years of copying and pasting by others hasn't stripped this novel of its vitality.

The first-person account begins with Marlowe's enigmatic relationship with Terry Lennox, a fop he brings home like a stray dog, sobering him up, cooking him breakfast and giving him enough bucks to catch a bus to Las Vegas where a job awaits. Terry reappears in Marlowe's life married to Sylvia Potter, the daughter of publishing magnate Harlan Potter. Not long after, Terry appears on Marlowe's doorstep with a gun in his hand. He offers Marlowe five hundred dollars to drive him to Tijuana. Terry hasn't shot anybody with that gun, but doesn't claim innocence over whatever fate has met his promiscuous wife.

Returning home, Marlowe finds two homicide cops waiting. His wise guy act doesn't go over well with the LAPD, who are looking for Terry Lennox and notify Marlowe that Sylvia has been found dead in her guest house in Encino, her face beaten to a pulp with a bronze statuette. Marlowe doesn't believe Terry would do anything like that and loyalty costs him some smacks in the face and three days in jail. The cops let him go when Lennox is located in a small mountain town in Mexico with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Marlowe doesn't believe Terry would kill himself either.

I thought about Terry Lennox in a detached sort of way. He was already receding into the distance, white hair and scarred face and weak charm and his peculiar brand of pride. I didn't judge him or analyze him, just as I had never asked him questions about how he got wounded or how he ever happened to get himself married to anyone like Sylvia. He was like somebody you meet on board a cruise ship and get to know very well and never really know at all. He was gone like the same fellow when he says goodbye at the pier and let's keep in touch, old man, and you know you won't and he won't. Likely enough you'll never even see the guy again. If you do he will be an entirely different person, just another Rotarian in a club car. How's business? Oh, not too bad. You look good. So do you. I've put on too much weight. Don't we all? Remember that trip in the Franconia (or whatever it was)? Oh sure, swell trip, wasn't it?

The hell it was a swell trip. You were bored stiff. You only talked to the guy because there wasn't anybody around that interested you. Maybe it was like that with Terry Lennox and me. No, not quite. I owned a piece of him. I had invested time and money in him, and three days in the icehouse, not to mention a slug in the jaw and a punch in the neck that I felt every time I swallowed. Now he was dead and I couldn't even give him back his five hundred bucks. That made me sore. It was always the little things that make you sore.

Marlowe receives a visit at his office from a flashy hoodlum named Mendy Melendez and his bodyguard. Melendez delights in taunting Marlowe as a "cheapie" not worth the bother, except to threaten about making publicity off the Terry Lennox case. Melendez claims that Terry not only saved his life in the war, but the life of a Vegas gangster named Randy Starr. Marlowe later receives an envelope with Mexican stamps, a note written by Terry and a $5,000 bill in it. Needing something else to occupy himself with, Marlowe accepts a meeting at the Ritz-Beverly with a potential client, a New York publishing agent.

The agent pitches Marlowe the job of investigating his client Roger Wade, author of tawdry and popular historical novels who's struggling to finish his latest. Spencer and Wade's wife believe there might be something in Roger's past driving him into a bottle and need someone to watch him. Marlowe turns the job down, until he's joined by Mrs. Eileen Wade, a fairy princess blonde whose manner gets the dick's attention, but not enough for him to take a job as male nurse for her drunk husband though. Visiting Marlowe at his office the next day, Eileen Wade notifies Marlowe that Roger has been missing for three days, leaving only a name on a piece of yellow paper, "Dr. V."

Marlowe draws on a contact in a high-end Beverly Hills private investigation firm, a place he turned down a job in, for a list of L.A. area quacks with the last name "V" who for the right price prescribe their services to people like Roger Wade. Infiltrating the operations of three quacks one at a time, Marlowe leaves with nothing but disdain for their practice.

I paid my check, left my car where it was, and walked the north side of the street to the Stockwell Building. It was an antique with a cigar counter in the entrance and a manually operated elevator that lurched and hated to level off. The corridor to the sixth floor was narrow and the doors had frosted glass panels. It was older and much dirtier than my own building. It was loaded with doctors, dentists, Christian science practitioners not doing too good, the kind of lawyers you hope the other fellow has, the kind of doctors and dentists who just scrape along. Not too skillful, not too clean, not too much on the ball, three dollars and please pay the nurse; tired, discouraged men who know just exactly where they stand, what kind of patients they can get and how much money they can be squeezed into paying. Please Do Not Ask For Credit. Doctor is In, Doctor is Out. That's a pretty shaky molar you have there, Mrs. Kazinski. Now if you want this new acrylic filling, every bit as good as a gold inlay, I can do it for you for $14. Novocain will be two dollars extra, if you wish it. Doctor is In, Doctor is Out. That will be Three Dollars. Please Pay the Nurse.

In a building like that there will always be a few guys making real money, but they don't look it. They fit into the shabby background, which is protective coloring for them. Shyster lawyers who are partners in a bail-bond racket on the side (only about two per cent of all forfeited bail bonds are ever collected). Abortionists posing as anything you like that explains their furnishings. Dope pushers posing as urologists, dermatologists, or any branch of medicine in which the treatment can be frequent, and the regular use of local anesthetics is normal.

Of course, Marlowe finds Roger Wade. Of course, Roger & Eileen Wade knew Terry & Sylvia Lennox. Of course, the mysteries of Sylvia's murder and Roger's ennui are related. And of course, Marlowe figures it out, despite the rich and powerful, the police and a criminal element not wanting anything figured out. What I loved about The Long Goodbye from its hangover title to its reveal on the last page is the character of Philip Marlowe. He doesn't have a deep past or seem to have much of a future either, nor does he seem to travel far. He's like an audience member at a game show, sitting in one place, incredulous, while the sets and prizes keep revolving in front of him.

So passed a day in the life of a P.I. Not exactly a typical day but not totally untypical either. What makes a man stay with it nobody knows. You don't get rich, you don't often have much fun. Sometimes you get beaten up or shot at or tossed into the jailhouse. Once in a long while you get dead. Every other month you decide to give it up and find some sensible occupation while you can still walk without shaking your head. Then the door buzzer rings and you open the inner door to the waiting room and there stands a new face with a new problem, a new load of grief, and a small piece of money.

While I felt The Long Goodbye dragging on a little bit, I think the reason Raymond Chandler has stood the test of time is that as filmed or liberated as some of his plots have been over the years, nobody can write this wee-small-hours-of-the-morning prose, mix together various elements or make it feel as timeless as Chandler does on the page. This novel was loosely but memorably adapted in 1973 by filmmaker Robert Altman with Elliott Gould as Marlowe, clinging to Chandler's dusty '50s values of loyalty while L.A. had entered the Me Decade. An often self-indulgent film, I prefer the novel, which functions better as a story and allows the reader into Marlowe's mind.

Word count: 119, 606 words

Raymond Chandlers The Long Goodbye I think is better than The Big Sleep becuase it is more about how dark and dreary LA can be. A place where it used to rain (and its raining again now!), and where no one connects even though that is all they want to do. Its a lonely book. Like five stars that live in the same sky but somehow never quite share their shine. Loved Lennox though.

This is my first time reading The Long Goodbye, continuing my first run-through of the Chandlers, and I have to say I'm rather amazed.

The prose in all of these is really something else. Gorgeous comes to mind, as does sharply evocative; like having a 6 1/2 screwdriver melted down to be turned into a cocktail drink at the ritziest bar in LA.

I've never read a murder mystery that gave me such a rich impression of a steamy romance, but here we are. This super short book went down SMOOTH. If you see my eyes bugging out it's only because of the fumes.

Definitely a must-read for ... anyone.

This was recommended to me and I wanted to love it but, it doesn’t pick up until page 150. I felt like putting this book down so many times, I don’t understand the 4.08 overall rating. I’m giving it 3 ⭐️’s for the twists and turns, I did not expect the ending. The Long Goodbye was indeed a long goodbye, read, and could have been 100 pages shorter. The last 50 pages were excruciating There were 3 times I thought the story was picking up and then I would go back to being disappointed.

“I went out the kitchen to make coffee - yards of coffee. Rich, strong, bitter, boiling hot, ruthless, depraved. The life blood of tired men.”

I'm not a big fan of this type of book. Its pages are populated with tough, hard-bitten, cynical men, who think that wise cracking and punching people are normal ways to communicate. The world in here is filled only with the dregs of humanity - be they millionaires or unemployed bums, they are all the scum of the earth. The reason being, we learn by inference, is that the world is a hollow cheat, and nearly all humans are rotten to the core just waiting an excuse to lie, steal or kill.

It's not a view I'm all that fond of and the short clipped sentences, smart-ass patter and the constant contempt for humanity (especially it often seems, the female part of it) wears me down.

The 'hero' of Raymond Chandlers series is the private detective Philip Marlowe a perfect example of this hard boiled sort of guy. He's straight (both morally and sexually), doesn't like being given the run around and generally thinks everything is pretty lousy.

“I'm a licensed private investigator and have been for quite a while. I'm a lone wolf, unmarried, getting middle-aged, and not rich. I've been in jail more than once and I don't do divorce business. I like liquor and women and chess and a few other things. The cops don't like me too well, but I know a couple I get along with. I'm a native son, born in Santa Rosa, both parents dead, no brothers or sisters, and when I get knocked off in a dark alley sometime, if it happens, as it could to anyone in my business, nobody will feel that the bottom has dropped out of his or her life.”

I won't give a synopsis of the plot, like most of these types it's hopelessly convoluted and all you really need to know if you read it is that nearly everyone in the book will be trying to use Marlowe in some way or be lying to him, or be trying to beat him up because he's a smart talking wise guy who should learn to keep his mouth shut.

Philip Marlowe isn't the sort of guy who thinks tact is a virtue when dealing with rich people. As he puts it “I belonged in Idle Valley like a pearl onion on a banana split.” Which is kinda sweet in a way; this must have been a time when a banana split was somehow considered luxurious and a little bit decadent... :-)

He's independent and won't kiss anybody's arse no matter how large their bank account. In fact he pretty much despises the wealthy right from the get go, because: “There ain't no clean way to make a hundred million bucks.... Somewhere along the line guys got pushed to the wall, nice little businesses got the ground cut out from under them... Decent people lost their jobs.... Big money is big power and big power gets used wrong. It's the system.”

Of course he probably also despises you if you're a cop, a drunk or a woman. Really, it's not much of a surprise that Phillip Marlowe doesn't seem to have a whole lot of friends :-)

I found this a little more interesting than my previous dips into the genre, mostly because the woman hating was kept to a low (comparatively) and the plot was followable until the end when I started losing the thread a little. So I've probably marked it a little higher than I normally would.