And then again.īrilliant plotting, or pulling rabbits out of a hat? And who cares? It's breathtaking.Īt the end I still have my doubts that this is Chandler at the peak of his powers Reflective, even weary-if that's possible-attitude.īut then, when you least expect it, the far-flung plot miraculously manages to pull together.Īnd then when you expect it even less, it Much of the lyricism and sparkling dialogue of earlier Chandler is gone, replaced by a more He doesn't seem motivated to actually do anything about what Marlowe takes another, seemingly unrelated job finding a missing drunken writer.īoth cases. The man reportedly commits suicide there. He helps escape to Mexico after the man's nymphomaniac wife is murdered. The detective has had an odd friendship with a rich drunk whom It, we're not sure what exactly Marlowe is working on, or if he's even The Long Goodbye is a more sprawling novel than we're used to from Chandler. The edge is blunted but the change is often mistaken for the growing subtlety of maturity. Or is Chandler just starting to lose it? There's a loss of focus, a coarsening of sensibility, that seems to afflict aging alcoholic American writers (think late Steinbeck or Hemingway or Fitzgerald). Is the author in late life perhaps losing patience with his character's limited role? Perhaps starting to doubt whether a slumming angel like Marlowe can have any effect in cleaning up the moral corruption of American big-city life? Is The Long Goodbye long because it is saying goodbye to the strictures of the mystery genre and venturing into more mainstream areas of social criticism and psychological analysis? Chandler-that is to say, sleuth Philip Marlowe in the book-certainly seems more cynical than usual about the state of civilization. Or if maybe they think it must be deep since it's so long. Which makes me wonder whether it's the length the critics are praising. CRITIQUE | THE TEXT | THE MOVIES So long, or too long?Ĭhandler's longest novel is also his most praised.

The long goodbye first edition