The Long Goodbye question

The books aren't particularly sequential except in one very important way - if you read them in order, you do get to experience the changes which come over Chandler over the years, and if you buy all of the books (which I reccommend) , read them in order of publication and after you finish one, leave it a month or so before the next, so you get a small sense of being one of his original readership, waiting patiently for the next Marlow book to come out. I do this myself every few years. It's great.

It is a great place to start on Marlowe. Then you may not want to read anymore as this is one of the best of the genre ever written.

In my goodreads review of The Long Goodbye, essentially I refer to it as 'hidden' great literature. I'll stand by that and just say go enjoy the story.

Chandler doesn't require you to have a backstory for Marlowe.

Check out the Elliot Gould film version. One of the great 'hidden' jewels of Cinema!

Begin with The Big Sleep. This is the first Marlowe novel. It also has two movie versions, the first with Bogart and Bacall and the second with Robert Mitchum.

While it's not absolutely necessary to read Marlow in order The Long Goodbye is probably best read after.

Raymond Chandler is, in my opinion, the best mystery writer -- ever. The interesting thing is that it's not an eccentric opinion because most people would put him in the top five.

And what makes him great is that he's a fabulous writer.

While The Long Goodbye is one of the best Marlowe novels, it's also the one that deconstructs the very same genre that Marlowe helped to establish. The Big Sleep and Farewell My Lovely are fantastic reads, worthy of standing beside The Long Goodbye. However, The Long Goodbye is fundamentally and structurally and thematically different than any of the other Marlowe novels. You would be doing yourself a disservice by not reading the establishing novels before reading the one that resists the genre that Chandler helped create.

Start with The Big Sleep.

I would start with the Big Sleep. Maybe just becuase it's the first one written. It's not essential as to the best of my recollection they are NOT particulary sequential.

As someone who really loves Raymond Chandler, and has read everything, my answer to you is:

1. You do not need to read these books in order for a few obvious reasons that become crystal clear once you've read them.

2. The High Window is probably his masterpiece. Not many people get to it because they usually stop at The Big Sleep or The Long Goodbye -- some will get to Farewell, my lovely but venture no further. When they remake this -- it will rebirth Chandler as 'the next big thing', hahaha. Don't worry, he's laughing about that, too.

3. It's my opinion, but please avoid the Elliot Gould movie as well as anything with Robert Mitchum in it. I really felt they were a slap in the face to the material. Especially Farewell, My Lovely. Once you've read that book once, you'll see how badly the treated the source material. Read it twice and you'll be like me, and hope for someone to come along and really do it justice. I'm betting Chandler was rolling in his grave after that was released.

3b. Humphrey Bogart was honestly *the only* Marlowe. Chandler even admitted later, that as the years past, he wrote every single Marlowe story with Humphrey Bogart pictured in his mind. You can feel, hear and see Bogart in every book -- very clearly. That should be all anyone needs to know about that.

4. Raymond Chandler has several audio interviews that are fascinating and available on Youtube. He was friends with Ian Fleming (James Bond) and many other authors and some of his essays are eye-opening.

5. The short story collection -- Trouble is My Business. Fascinating. Start there if you must. I think that's where it all begins anyway. I'd have to google the chronology of it, but this is my fast and dirty late night answer.

6. Raymond Chandler was easily one of the greatest authors of the last century -- that most people have never read. Most also don't understand his cultural significance and his impact on literature. He was aped in *every single genre* for the next fifty years and beyond.

7. The Lady in The Lake is a real inward journey for the reader as well as an adventure, but it will surprise you how good he actually was. It's a really well-crafted story.

"That's all I got to say about that." -- Forrest Gump.

Having read several of Chandler's novels and short stories, all I can say is that The Long Goodbye is one of my favorites. I think The Big Sleep was the first of Chandler's books that I read. However, I think that Marlowe's character evolves over the course of the books, meaning the Marlowe in the Big Sleep is not exactly the same Marlowe in the Long Goodbye (albeit pretty close). I would say start wherever you like though, but my suggested order is Big Sleep, Long Goodbye, then any other you choose or perhaps a collection of his short works.

If one wants to have a choice of which to read first, instead of just which to buy - Chandler is in Public Domain in Canada, and there are a number of his at gutenberg.ca, and he certainly should be in public domain 50 yrs after his death... I just read "The Long Goodbye" and thought it was great.

I have to hand, for only a pound, Trouble is my Business, Penguin, 1980, but it is Philip Marlowe-less 'first published in 1946.
The protagonists are called Malvern, Dalmas, Reseck and some other dude, similar in modus operandi to Marlowe, ( I just cannot find his name in this slim volume that I hold here in my hand. ) For bibliography's sake, Penguin first got hold of this treasure trove of pulp era Chandler in 1950. Vintage stuff, throwaway lines that bounce off the walls, people who look like rats (with gats), an ever changing maze of plot and counter plot. Probably the best, and most original, playful, hard boiled literature in the world. Marlowe came later, big shoes to fill though.

Read them in order (Big Sleep, Farewell, High Window, Lady in the Lake....). The Long Goodbye is highly regarded and revered, but for me is actually a great detraction from the flippant wit and hasty prose of the other works. It was too self-involved and introverted by comparison to the others and is a masterpiece that should almost be studied.

The Big Sleep is the masterpiece that should be read...