It’s interesting to see that Raymond Chandler’s novel The Long Goodbye has been voted the best crime book of all time, whatever that means.
It is a good novel, if long. There is a film version of it by Robert Altman which takes many liberties with the story but is true to the spirit of the book, whatever that means.
There are also at least two BBC radio versions of it. The Ed Bishop one is the one to listen to.
Chandler did not write many books. Erle Stanley Gardner wrote over 80 Perry Mason books alone, and they are interchangeable. The ones in the thirties and those from the sixties are really no different. This is definitely not true with Chandler. From his first full length novel, The Big Sleep, through Farewell My Lovely to The Long Goodbye, there is a story being told.
By the end, Marlowe (the detective) is tired and old. He feels defeated. He just wants it to stop. He has one thing left, his integrity.
There’s a sense of time passed and old age and disillusion on nearly every page of this book. It only comes out if you have read the others first.
Don’t think Chandler is like Agatha Christie or even Dashiell Hammett. He is really not. The stories become slow and ponderous, the language rich and beautiful. The plot? well, who cares about that?
