The Long Goodbye. By Raymond Chandler

The Long Goodbye

Raymond Chandler

Chancellor Press. First published 1953.

This is one of seven Philip Marlowe novels in an omnibus collection, and in my opinion, the best of them, showcasing all the essential Chandler skills. Marlowe is a 'hard-boiled' detective, to the extent he is almost a parody of himself - recall, for example the 'Calvin and Hobbes' comic strips in which Calvin is a fedora-clad private eye. Marlowe drinks and smokes incessantly, gets beaten frequently, and has no family or even firm friends. He makes very little money from his profession of detection, just enough to pay his rent, and buy his drinks, his cigarettes and an occasional sandwich. His job takes him to the weirdest of places and puts him in contact with the most corrupt of people. But he remains pure and heroic, a strong, handsome knight, clad in rusted but serviceable armour, mounted on a broken-down but faithful steed, forever riding against  nasty giants who constantly threaten his integrity. 

Chandler is in my opinion the finest exponent of this school of fiction. Dashiel Hammett was among the first, and there have been many others - the two MacDonalds (John D. and Ross) also come to mind. But though some of the others may have better plots, Chandler's books have the best writing, at least of those I have read. 

The story at first appears to be actually two stories. In the first part Marlowe resists stiff police pressure and remains loyal to a friend. In the second part, he is employed to investigate the reasons why a famous author has suddenly taken to becoming far more drunk than usual, symptomatic of deep psychological stress. About three-quarters of the way into the book, the two story lines are brought together, and the book ends in some satisfactory melancholy. The writing is superb, with a whole lot of 'nifties'. As I have remarked earlier, both Chandler and Wodehouse are students of Dulwich College in London, and perhaps it was there that both learnt a similar writing style, though, of course, they have employed it in widely different genres - Chandler more seriously, Wodehouse lightheartedly. Here are some examples from Chandler to illustrate what I mean. 

'You're just a little cop-hater, friend. That's all you are.'

'There are places where cops are not hated, Captain. But in those places you wouldn't be a cop.'

'In my book, you're a nickel's worth of nothing.'

'Next time bring a gun.'

'I got a guy to carry the gun.'

'A man doesn't make your kind of money in any way I can understand'.

The book is well-plotted, though it does get extremely sentimental at times, unrealistically so. In all his stories, and especially in this one, Chandler has an overarching theme running through it, usually of a 'left-liberal' nature. In this book, the main theme is loyalty and friendship, but above both are honesty and integrity. Chandler speaks through Marlowe as a friend of the poor, the underdogs, and especially the honest. He doesn't think too badly of 'honest' thugs, but hates the rich, corrupt upper class that has earned all its money and privilege dishonestly, but pretends very successfully (at least to themselves) to be above such degrading behaviour. The other socio-political theme that runs through the book is one individualism, an almost John Galt-like independence of society. In today's world, these two themes are contradictory. But in 1953, apparently, one could still hold both to be different aspects of the same philosophy. Perhaps this is what adherents of the Tea Party do today.