The arts in general owe a debt of gratitude not sufficiently recognized to William Randolph Hearst, the press tycoon: to serve as an inspiration for the film "Citizen Kane" and the novel "The Long Goodbye", should count for more than a simple anecdotal detail.
In the detective novel ranking, Raymond Chandler may be ranking second after Dashiell Hammet, author of "Red Harvest" and the archetypal "The Maltese Falcon", but for me, he will always be the first. He is the novelist I always wanted to be.
Chandler completed just seven novels, all about the same character, the private detective Philip Marlowe, living and surviving in the always ruthless Los Angeles. Unlike the "blond Satan" known as Sam Spade (Hammet's relentless detective), Marlowe's constant inner monologue, which serves as the basis for the novelist Chandler's narration, makes him much closer and more pleasing to the reader. Obviating this, the difference between Marlowe’s and Spade’s working methods is virtually non-existent.
Critics place "The Long Goodbye" under “Farewell, My Lovely” and "The Big Sleep", but I resent this having read the latter, because "The Long Goodbye" surpasses it by far. Chandler ages and matures, and this is reflected in detective Marlowe, who ages and matures in the same way. His healthy distrust not only of mobsters but also the legendarily corrupt Los Angeles Sheriff's Office (LASO), finally becomes plain misanthropy; Marlowe is more faithful to principles such as "friendship", “love” and especially "truth" than to people.
Philip Marlowe enters into a complicated friendship with an alcoholic veteran named Terry Lennox, with scars both on his face and in his spirit, who has no problem in becoming (for the second time!) the paid cuckold of a millionaire heiress even more drunk and dissipated than he is. After awhile, the moocher appears at Marlowe's house, asking him to be taken to Tijuana. The detective agrees under the sole condition of not telling him anything at all. Returning alone to Los Angeles, Marlowe is arrested and beaten by the police after he refuses to answer questions.
When he’s finally let go, he discovers that Lennox is blamed for the brutal murder of his wife, who happens to be the daughter of a millionaire newspapers owner, and who appears to have brutally forced the official investigation to an end. Marlowe, who has posthumously received from Lennox a "portrait of Madison," that is, a $ 5,000 bill, feels that it is his duty to investigate non-stop, without granting a single concession, until he proves the veteran's innocence, who’s the real culprit and finds out how sordid is the sordid the real truth.
Los Angeles in the novel is the same city of vice and depravity that appears in so many other novels and films, and the detective is crossing thru the vile fountains where they sin and crime flourish. In one novel the fountain can be the anachronistic world of pornographic libraries and the everlasting illegal gambling dens, or like in this one, colonies of "artists" where alcohol and drugs are the order of the day, not to mention the golden cages for wealthy elderlies, better known as "geriatric nursing homes", and doctor's offices where the doctor is more than willing to relieve you with morphine of your "pain" if the price is right.
It is disheartening that many of the vices that Marlowe’s world fights seem to be legal (or very close to being) now. But Marlowe would not mind, he would go on fighting for the truth and serving justice. Throughout the seven novels written by Chandler, it is clear that Philip Marlowe never stops, despite the requests of the evildoers, his own clients and even the police.
The social critique of the novel is poignant: a mocking radiography of the publishing industry, Hollywood scriptwriters, the LASO (whose head is focused only on doing well in newspaper photos and riding his beloved horse), the millionaire elite of the metropolis, the wrong way in which it is dgrowing, already on its way to become one of the largest in the world in terms of occupied territory, the press and the pettiness of the petty-bourgeois mobsters.
Also notable is the monologue where Potter, the ruthless and fearful tycoon, expresses to Marlowe his discontent with mid-twentieth-century society, starting with his own free-speech-mongering newspapers (only yearning to sell "sex, gossip and scandal" instead of serving their readers), and not limited to the hoopla represented by cosmetics and beauty articles. Another memorable monologue is that of Lieutenant Bernie Ohls, where he denounces how the deception of political correctness begins to permeate the police force, and grimly predicts that at the turn of ten years that police officers instead of practicing boxing and shooting, will be applying Rorschach and word association tests, so they could make the delinquents stop hating their mothers and finally reform.
Even more memorable, with an unmistakable reminder of self-deprecation is Marlowe's monologue, where he makes it clear that to become a detective one needs to be little less than a distressed Quixote, just to be getting punches, bullets and problems all the time, but that would never stop him from giving to a cop hell.
What about Hearst? In a not-so veiled form for the reader of the era, he is referred to one of the darkest facts in Hollywood history: the death of the film mogul Thomas Ince at the Oneida yacht, owned by Hearst. It is said that he may have accidentally died in place of Charlie Chaplin, whom Hearst tried to kill for seducing Marion Davies, his lover. William Randolph Hearst allegedly used all his strength to cover up the fact, not unlike how Harlan Potter closed the investigation of his daughter's murder, letting the corpse of Terry Lennox bear the blame. Marlowe is responsible for restoring his reputation by giving the culprit and making it public, which is a way of saying goodbye to his friend.
Also the ending is incredible; The last sentence of the novel says: "I never saw any of them again ─ except the cops. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them."
