The Long Goodbye

3 stars, rounded up to 3.5

Classic noir entertainment and a very enjoyable read. I couldn't help hearing Bogart's voice narrating the terse prose, which was fun at the beginning, but grated by the end.

I was leaning toward a rating closer to 4 stars, but Marlowe's tough guy act wore thin over the course of the novel. I never entirely connected with Marlowe. Are we expected to believe that he's a martyr to his rigid yet opaque ideals of honor and justice? He spends a lot of time and energy berating others for their shortcomings, but doesn't bat an eye when he makes a pass at or attempts to seduce married women. He feels aggrieved and misunderstood, but you never get a good feel for what makes him do the things he does.

The 50s slang hasn't always aged well, but Chandler does a great job of putting the reader into southern California in the years after WWII. Chandler's description of a landscape and city that I'm sure have now changed beyond recognition is excellent.