THE LONG GOODBYE

I’m embarrassed to realize that I never even finished blogging about Raymond Chandler Month, which was, er, April. It turned out that The Long Goodbye is my favorite Chandler book. I’ll refrain from sharing all the quotes I jotted down from it, but I do have to tell you about this hilarious passage I think of as the Eyebrow Epic. Marlowe is questioning a guy, and every few paragraphs Chandler just cannot resist offering another aside about the guy’s enormous eyebrows. Each eyebrow description would be amusing enough in itself, but the cumulative effect was enough to make me chortle aloud on the Amtrak to San Diego. I think reproducing them out of context won’t quite capture the full humor, because the timing plays an important part—you finish laughing at one eyebrow gag and start trying to follow the conversation again, and then another eyebrow joke pops up, and then another, and then just when you think “jeez, how many eyebrow references can there be?” Chandler hits you with one more. Still, I can’t resist:

• “He hoisted a couple of eyebrows that would have interested a Fuller Brush man.”
• “He frowned. When a guy has eyebrows like that he can really do you a frown.”
• “He made with the eyebrows again. They fascinated me. Parts of them curled off all by themselves as much as an inch and a half.”
• “He looked sad when he said this. The eyebrows drooped at the outer corners to match his mouth. Give them a little more growth and they would be in his mouth.”
• “He remained dignified. His eyebrows went all the way with him.”
• “He sighed. His eyebrows waved gently, like the antennae of some suspicious insect.”