I was going to give this one a pass. However, after reading the above I just have to at least give a book with an ending like the above a chance. :) I hope it is worth the effort, but some whose opinions I generally respect liked it.

I didn't like the book at first, but it is one of the books that gets better with a close reading and a reflecting, I found.

"Today we're trained to be goody two-shoes, covering our eyes and ears from those things we're taught to disbelieve in. But the world keeps rubbing them in our faces. Evil is always there; you can't get rid of it. You just shift it around, and then are horrified when you trip over it. And you try to destroy anyone who take those hands covering your senses, even if they're only trying to remind that reality is there; not knowing that in the end you're just creating more evil by denying it..."

- Red

I don't think it needs to mean anything. He probably just threw it out there, thought it sounded alright, and left it in. Chandler wasn't interested in writing detectives and plot-driven novels as he was in writing quality literature. The plotting of the Big Sleep is less than clock-work. He just throws stuff in. sometimes it meanders all over the place. He doesn't care. I guess as long as he had the end worked out, it all worked out. He was probably drunk a lot of the time.

Chandler is a superlative novelist who happened to use the vehicle of detective stories. He saw the world as a dark place and created a character to rub against it.

I suspect the strength of his evocation of California in the forties is aided by his upbringing in England. He went from rainy shores to sun-soaked. It amuses me that he spells towards with an 's.'

The Long Goodbye is the novel of his I like the most. It is his opus.

I think Chandler is the true inheritor of Scott Fitzgerald's crown. They both write about class, spectral nights and the heights and the depths of the human soul.

I absolutely disagree, and I will endevour never to watch the movie. Though I do appreciate Bogart gave a memorable performance.

I agree and I think this goes along with my comparison of Chandler with The Great Gatsby. They both analyze decadence and wealth. Truly books for our time. They both also have a remarkable gift for description.

Someone mentioned Chandler's characters as 2-D. I don't know that I'd agree with that. I can still remember that psychopath dressed as a cowboy. The description was chilling, and I can't say why. I think it was in the Big Sleep. And the wicked, drunken, rich girl at the end who is so casual about others and life. She's a Buchanan alright.

In my neck of the woods, that's the way people talk. I've always wondered about the proper usage of that. My Granddaddy Sharpe, who had a third grade education, had a very unique way of speaking. He would speak of this here here and that there there and always pronounce the "Elm" in "Elm Avenue" with two syllables. Could you picture Bogart as Marlow speaking like that?

He wrote that one as a means of dealing with his wife's last illness I believe. Sissy was dying (the ultimate long goodbye) and he (as I understand it) wrote it for her first and foremost.

I think Americans pronounce the 's' but they don't spell with it, unlike the British.

If you mean El-um, like Fil-um (for film), that would be Irish, or possibly Geordie.

No way did Marlowe speak like that, lol.

There's a crazy chapter in the middle where a drunken binge turns into something resembling an acid trip. You don't read that in conventional detective tales.

On another note, I've read that Chandler's plotting was not the tightest. I'd agree with that. I think he said that when he didn't know what happened next, he'd send in a guy with a gun.

In his case, more like El-em. Irish influence? Perhaps.

:rofl:

That bi-syllabic prononciation is still quite common {but not universal} is certain parts of the west of Ireland. I hear it quite frequently.

American English is a derivative of Irish English.

I did not participate in this discussion when it was going on but I LOVED this book when I read it. Of course I have seen the movie first (which I also loved) and thought the book was great. I always thought of Bogart and Bacall when reading and thought they exemplified the characters well. I just love the name Eddie Mars.

I have not read much more from Chandler but this one was awesome.