When someone asks, “Which three books have meant the most to you?” I can answer without having to think: THE GREAT GATSBY, Dostoevsky’s THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, and Raymond Chandler’s THE LONG GOODBYE. All three have been indispensable to me (both as a reader and as a writer)…— Haruki Murakami（村上村树）The Long Goodbye is a novel by Raymond Chandler, published in 1953, his sixth novel featuring the private investigator Philip Marlowe. Some critics consider it inferior to The Big Sleep or Farewell, My Lovely, but others rank it as the best of his work. Chandler, in a letter to a friend, called the novel “my best book”.The novel is notable for using hard-boiled detective fiction as a vehicle for social criticism and for including autobiographical elements from Chandler’s life. It was dramatized for television in 1954 for the anthology series Climax!. In 1955, the novel received the Edgar Award for Best Novel. In 1973, Robert Altman filmed an adaptation set in contemporary Los Angeles, with Elliott Gould as Marlowe. An adaptation of the novel was broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on 16 January 1978.
