{"id":817,"date":"2010-08-12T22:03:36","date_gmt":"2010-08-13T06:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=817"},"modified":"2010-08-12T22:03:36","modified_gmt":"2010-08-13T06:03:36","slug":"review-the-long-goodbye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=817","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Long Goodbye"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Long Goodbye<\/em> is the Raymond Chandler novel that most people have heard of that isn’t The Big Sleep<\/a>. <\/em>After reading Sleep<\/em> I was pretty sure that I’d like anything Chandler wrote, and Goodbye<\/em> didn’t change that impression.<\/p>\n

There are many similarities between the two.\u00a0 Chandler’s voice is the same voice, and Marlowe’s the same character.\u00a0 There’s a mystery and dames and lots of stylized tough guy talk.\u00a0 The Los Angeles\u00a0 setting conveys a sense of place to the point that LA is nearly a character.\u00a0 In short, all Chandler’s strengths as a writer are here.<\/p>\n

The differences are in tone and theme.\u00a0 The Long Goodbye <\/em>really couldn’t be titled anything else.\u00a0 The pacing and tone make the reader feel the passage of time; the plot proceeds episodically over weeks, not the frantic rush of many mysteries.\u00a0 The revelation is slow and lurching, as one finds out secrets about ones friends and relations in life.<\/p>\n

The titular farewell also echoes through the text.\u00a0 This is a book about absent friends, and not idealized ones.\u00a0 The friend in question wasn’t Marlowe’s blood brother, nor did they see eye-to-eye. Their connection was made by chance, and develops awkwardly in fits. Yet friendship and decency impose obligations and attachments on men like Marlowe even when the relationship is rough hewn and haphazard.<\/p>\n

The two themes play off one another as Marlowe discharges his debts and pays his respects in the fits and starts by which our lives all progress.\u00a0 Chandler’s exploration of these uses a a clever traditional mystery plot in his unique style.\u00a0 I never try to figure out whodunnit, but I was pleasantly surprised by the big reveal.\u00a0 The trip is more interesting than the destination.<\/p>\n

Strongly recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Long Goodbye is the Raymond Chandler novel that most people have heard of that isn’t The Big Sleep. After reading Sleep I was pretty sure that I’d like anything Chandler wrote, and Goodbye didn’t change that impression. There are many similarities between the two.\u00a0 Chandler’s voice is the same voice, and Marlowe’s the same […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=817"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":827,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions\/827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}