I know that ‘The Big Sleep’ is more famous amongst his works, however since I have seen the movie, for my first Raymond Chandler book I decided to make a fresh start. Centred on his famous detective Philip Marlowe, ‘The Long Goodbye’ is the story of the brutal murder of socialite Sylvia, daughter of millionaire Harlan Potter, and the mysterious suicide of her husband and chief suspect Terry Lennox, a random drunk that Marlowe met outside a club one night.
I absolutely loved the character of Philip Marlowe. He was such an epitome of the cool detective of the 1950s era. I loved the way he conducted himself, the beliefs he held, his sense of loyalty, his sense of right and wrong. And it wasn’t that he didn’t get his share of pounding - at the hands of cops and goons alike - in standing up for his beliefs. I mean, it is easy to act cool when you know the whole world loves or fears you, and there is no danger of any opposition to anything you might say or do; to stand up for your ways, however big or small, even when it is dangerous to do so - now that’s really cool.
The writing was very well paced and made for easy reading. The plot constantly moved forward and I always got the feeling that I was ‘listening’ to someone tell a gripping story in the most interesting manner. There were times when the story did slow down a little, but just as I was reaching the point of wondering where it was all going, suddenly something would happen to swoop it all back up. Generally speaking, the twists in the story were not of the earth-shattering heart-stopping variety, but gentle turns and curves that kept the flow going. That said; there were some things that I did not see coming at all - such as the events that occurred after Marlowe’s meeting with Grenz!
I also really liked the insertion of social comments; every now and then the story features a short paragraph where Chandler goes a little deeper. While this story is more commonly known for its comment on the decadent society of the rich American, one of my personal favourites was the section on life inside a prison cell. It wasn’t anything heavily didactic or dramatically deep … it was just a short paragraph that made me stop for a moment and think. Also brilliant was the final verbal face-off between district attorney Springer and Henry Sherman, managing editor of The Journal - Sherman’s remarks were such a great slap on the face of the influential yet uncultured man that sits in Power.
I liked the ending a lot too - besides the factor of a surprise ending (always a must for a murder mystery) Marlowe’s final decision gave me a very ‘nice’ feeling too. Eileen Wade’s comment to Philip Marlowe, that “The tragedy of life, […], is not that beautiful things die young but that they grow old and mean” - added great significance to the final denouement of this story.
(One comment in conclusion: I was quite irritated by the constant use of the horribly distorted terms, “must of” and “could of”. Since I only read e-books, this could be the fault of the ‘proofreaders’ involved in the digitizing process and not the author’s lack of knowledge of basic English. Either way, it was a very annoying experience).
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