The Long Goodbye
Outside of a 1940's Hollywood nightclub, a congenial drunk falls out of a Rolls Royce and his lady friend drives away leaving him on the pavement. Surprisingly, Raymond Chandler's alter ego, the cynical, private detective Philip Marlowe, picks the lad up and takes him to his home to sober him up.
Within the first few pages the window has been opened from the stifling, antiseptic culture of political correctness that is suffocating us and the reader encounters a refreshing noir breeze from a writer who is not afraid to step on someone's toes or kick them in the shins with a little smack mouth:
- The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.
- "He's just a lost dog," she added with a cool smile. "Perhaps you can find him a home. He's housebroken - more or less."
- She brightened up suddenly, "Oh- Las Vegas? How sentimental of him. That's where we were married."
"I guess he forgot," I said, "or he would have gone somewhere else."
- I caught the rest of it in one of those snob columns in the society section of the paper. I don't read those often, only when I run out of things to dislike.
The drunk is Terry Lennox. The lady is his ex-wife, daughter of a multi-millionaire, reclusive newspaper tycoon. Marlowe helps the badly wounded war veteran make his way to Las Vegas for a fresh start in life where a wartime buddy will give him a job. Shortly thereafter, he gets a letter from Lennox saying that he and his wife have not only reconciled, but have remarried.
A casual friendship develops upon his return. Marlowe feels sorry for the war hero who is little more than a kept man to cover up his wife's promiscuous lifestyle from the gossip columns and her strict father.
Late one night, Lennox shows up at Marlowe's door begging for a ride to Tijuana where he can catch a flight deeper into rural Mexico. He has to get away. His wife has been murdered. Marlowe complies and is no sooner back home than he is taken into custody to be repeatedly beaten and interrogated by the cops. He says nothing and is finally released after Lennox allegedly commits suicide in Mexico after leaving behind a confession.
Shortly after Lennox is buried in Mexico, Marlowe is threatened by the cops, the family's attorney, the District Attorney's office as well as a gangster who shared a foxhole with Lennox in Europe, to keep well away from any further inquiry into this matter. In spite of receiving a $5000 bill from Lennox as a token of their friendship that was mailed before his alleged suicide, what can Marlowe do? Lennox is dead and buried and the case is closed. For your historical perspective, may I add here that a brand new Cadillac club coupe cost $2700 in 1948 and yes, they actually had $5,000 bills back in the day! In fact Benny Binion, that congenial gangster-turned-businessman, had a wall of one hundred $10,000 bills hanging in his Las Vegas casino to inflame the Mom and Pop slots players into dreams of winning their way into a mansion of their own on Easy Street if only they would keep feeding his machines.
Life goes on. Marlowe is finally distracted from his friend's death when the publisher of a best-selling author wants to hire him to find out if his writer is being blackmailed for something from his past since he has gone on a violent drinking binge and cannot finish his latest pulp masterpiece. It is not about the novelist's contribution to mankind. The publisher needs the cash flow. Marlowe is reluctant to take this case which sounds like little more than "intervention" until the author's drop-dead, gorgeous wife gets him aside and explains that not only is her husband a violent drunk, but he has been missing for three days. Will Marlowe please find him? The prescient crime reader will intuit that this new assignment will somehow lead back to Terry Lennox's bludgeoned wife. Just do not expect a straight line across the pages to finger the real murderer. That would take all the fun out of this jaunty noir romp through1940's Hollywood.
Chandler's character etchings are as indelible as his smack mouth language. From cops with varying degrees of violence and inferiority to equally violent gangsters with a touch more of class, from the comfortable, cocktail party carriage trade lacking every component of class except oodles of money to their sultry wives bearing every shade of guile and adultery, from shyster doctors preying on the sick, the vulnerable and the elderly to everyday folks just trying to make a buck before heading home and popping a cold beer, Chandler populates his novels with an aquarium full of colorful, shimmering, unforgettable species.
Let me sprinkle a few more quotes into the aquarium:
- It was so quiet in the bar that you could almost hear the temperature drop as you came in at the door.
- Once in a while in this much too sex-conscious country a man and a woman can meet and talk without dragging bedrooms into it.
- "I have a good idea, Doctor. Why don't you see a good doctor?"
- He had short red hair and a face like a collapsed lung.
And from the femme fatales:
- "I always find what I want. But when I find it, I don't want it anymore."
- "Please be kind to me. I'm no bargain to anyone."
Promise me, promise me, do not, I repeat, do not peek at the ending! There are not many such surprises left on this side of glory.
Within the first few pages the window has been opened from the stifling, antiseptic culture of political correctness that is suffocating us and the reader encounters a refreshing noir breeze from a writer who is not afraid to step on someone's toes or kick them in the shins with a little smack mouth:
- The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.
- "He's just a lost dog," she added with a cool smile. "Perhaps you can find him a home. He's housebroken - more or less."
- She brightened up suddenly, "Oh- Las Vegas? How sentimental of him. That's where we were married."
"I guess he forgot," I said, "or he would have gone somewhere else."
- I caught the rest of it in one of those snob columns in the society section of the paper. I don't read those often, only when I run out of things to dislike.
The drunk is Terry Lennox. The lady is his ex-wife, daughter of a multi-millionaire, reclusive newspaper tycoon. Marlowe helps the badly wounded war veteran make his way to Las Vegas for a fresh start in life where a wartime buddy will give him a job. Shortly thereafter, he gets a letter from Lennox saying that he and his wife have not only reconciled, but have remarried.
A casual friendship develops upon his return. Marlowe feels sorry for the war hero who is little more than a kept man to cover up his wife's promiscuous lifestyle from the gossip columns and her strict father.
Late one night, Lennox shows up at Marlowe's door begging for a ride to Tijuana where he can catch a flight deeper into rural Mexico. He has to get away. His wife has been murdered. Marlowe complies and is no sooner back home than he is taken into custody to be repeatedly beaten and interrogated by the cops. He says nothing and is finally released after Lennox allegedly commits suicide in Mexico after leaving behind a confession.
Shortly after Lennox is buried in Mexico, Marlowe is threatened by the cops, the family's attorney, the District Attorney's office as well as a gangster who shared a foxhole with Lennox in Europe, to keep well away from any further inquiry into this matter. In spite of receiving a $5000 bill from Lennox as a token of their friendship that was mailed before his alleged suicide, what can Marlowe do? Lennox is dead and buried and the case is closed. For your historical perspective, may I add here that a brand new Cadillac club coupe cost $2700 in 1948 and yes, they actually had $5,000 bills back in the day! In fact Benny Binion, that congenial gangster-turned-businessman, had a wall of one hundred $10,000 bills hanging in his Las Vegas casino to inflame the Mom and Pop slots players into dreams of winning their way into a mansion of their own on Easy Street if only they would keep feeding his machines.
Life goes on. Marlowe is finally distracted from his friend's death when the publisher of a best-selling author wants to hire him to find out if his writer is being blackmailed for something from his past since he has gone on a violent drinking binge and cannot finish his latest pulp masterpiece. It is not about the novelist's contribution to mankind. The publisher needs the cash flow. Marlowe is reluctant to take this case which sounds like little more than "intervention" until the author's drop-dead, gorgeous wife gets him aside and explains that not only is her husband a violent drunk, but he has been missing for three days. Will Marlowe please find him? The prescient crime reader will intuit that this new assignment will somehow lead back to Terry Lennox's bludgeoned wife. Just do not expect a straight line across the pages to finger the real murderer. That would take all the fun out of this jaunty noir romp through1940's Hollywood.
Chandler's character etchings are as indelible as his smack mouth language. From cops with varying degrees of violence and inferiority to equally violent gangsters with a touch more of class, from the comfortable, cocktail party carriage trade lacking every component of class except oodles of money to their sultry wives bearing every shade of guile and adultery, from shyster doctors preying on the sick, the vulnerable and the elderly to everyday folks just trying to make a buck before heading home and popping a cold beer, Chandler populates his novels with an aquarium full of colorful, shimmering, unforgettable species.
Let me sprinkle a few more quotes into the aquarium:
- It was so quiet in the bar that you could almost hear the temperature drop as you came in at the door.
- Once in a while in this much too sex-conscious country a man and a woman can meet and talk without dragging bedrooms into it.
- "I have a good idea, Doctor. Why don't you see a good doctor?"
- He had short red hair and a face like a collapsed lung.
And from the femme fatales:
- "I always find what I want. But when I find it, I don't want it anymore."
- "Please be kind to me. I'm no bargain to anyone."
Promise me, promise me, do not, I repeat, do not peek at the ending! There are not many such surprises left on this side of glory.
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