Raymond Chandler (1) (1888–1959)

Well, this was delightful, which is not usually how one would describe noir, but I have BIG love for The Big Sleep, both the book and the movie. I grew up watching Humphrey Bogart bring characters like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe to life, and even now whenever I read Hammett and Chandler, it is Bogart's voice I hear in my head narrating the story. I love the darkness and the grittiness found in these pages, but also the clever use of dialogue and the language that is a world of its own. I show more love how Chandler makes the city a living breathing thing - a device that has been much copied by his admirers. When I heard that there was an annotated edition coming out for the first time ever, I immediately pre-ordered it. What a treat. The editors did a brilliant job of deciding what to highlight and also of choosing the book's layout. The original text is on the lefthand page and the notes are on the facing righthand page, making it so easy and enjoyable to read the story and the notes in tandem. And the size of the book is perfect - an oversized paperback that stays open without one having to fight or break the spine. I wasn't sure what they would choose to include, but I hoped for discussion on how the novel and the movie compared. I got this and so much more - maps and photos of the city of Los Angeles from Chandler's time, comparisons between the book and the movie with discussion about why certain things were changed, definitions and origins of the slang that is used throughout the text, and excerpts from the original pulp stories that Chandler used to piece together the novel - he stole the best bits from stories he previously sold to magazines to give us some of the most memorable moments of the novel, changing names and some content to gift us with an even better version. And I laughed out loud when I read that during the making of the movie they queried Chandler about who actually killed Owen Taylor - the movie is one you have to watch several times to wrap your head around the plot, which, to me, is part of its charm. Anyway, Chandler responded that he had no idea. I LOVE this! All this to say that the annotated edition met and exceeded my expectations - highly recommended to anyone with an appreciation of and/or a fascination with noir. show less

Raymond Chandler is one of the first names that come to mind when you think of hard-boiled detectives and noir mysteries. I was excited to see one of his stories told as a graphic novel. Arvin Ethan David with the writing, Ilias Kyriazis with the pencils and ink, and Cris Peter with the colors did an amazing job! Just by looking at the cover, you can tell they are in tune with the mood, the period, and the attitude of this story.
Philip Marlowe is the epitome of the seen-it-all, nothing fazes show more him, I'm going to solve this mystery sort of detective. When approached by another detective looking to subcontract a job, he decides to take it. A woman who works for a gambler has her hooks in a rich kid's son, and Marlowe's job is to get her hooks out of him.

Marlowe sizes up the girl and decides he likes her, even if he doesn't trust her. That makes his job just a little more difficult. His curiosity to learn what's really going on lands him in the path of a couple of fists and a couple of bullets. He solves the mystery eventually, but very few people end up happy.

This is a great story. It starts with great source material from Raymond Chandler, but David, Kryiazis and Peter translate it wonderfully into a graphic novel. Arvin David takes Chandler's prose and conveys it in the visual medium that allows pictures to tell the story while preserving the same snappy dialogue and inner monologues that make this work a classic. Kyriazis and Peter add the images that propel the story, conveying action, mood, and emotion through pictures and color. The lettering is extremely creative, not only with different fonts for each character, but also with the placement of the dialogue bubbles, which convey when dialogue is delivered rapidly back and forth and when it is delivered more languidly.

This was a fun read and a great visual experience. It also reminded me of how much I enjoy Raymond Chandler's work and makes me want to reread his stories. A great adaptation of the story, one that should be enjoyed by both old and new fans alike.

I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher. show less

This is probably the oddest and most hallucinogenic of Marlowe's mysteries. At times it felt like I was reading a Tintin adventure. Although it had the usual magnificent Chandler prose and wonderful deadpan dialogue, the racism that kept cropping up left a nasty taste.

It also contains this, which I think synthesises the entire noir genre with astonishing elegance:

After a while I felt a little better, but very little. I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I

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needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.

This was probably my favourite line, though: ‘The eighty-five cent dinner tasted like a discarded mailbag.’

I greatly appreciated the contrasts drawn between luxurious Beverly Hills palaces and scummy tenements, as well as between Basin City’s shiny exterior and all the crime lurking below. In this episode, Marlowe seems to be more laconic than ever and everyone seems to be flirting with him. A smart young lady follows him about, tries to do his job for him, and gets annoyed when he doesn’t take the hint. A Basin City cop keeps calling him ‘baby’. A dangerous blonde dame plies him with booze then sits in his lap. And a guy named Red listens to his woes and holds his hand. But as ever, he ends the novel on his own, out of pocket and likely in search of a drink. Good old Marlowe. show less

The World of Raymond Chandler: In His Own Words is a TheWorldOfRaymondChandlermust read for pulp mystery fans in general and Raymond Chandler fans specifically. Anyone who reads this blog knows I love pulp mystery fiction and one of its icons is Raymond Chandler. Barry Day does an excellent job of synthesizing Chandler’s life and thoughts through his writing, both published output as well as letters. I’ll try to use Chandler’s own words in this review.

Dashiell Hammett certainly was the show more father of the hard-boiled mystery. “Hammett took the murder out of the Venetian vase and dropped it into the alley…He was spare, frugal, hard-boiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before.” But Chandler “…concentrated on the detective story because it was a popular form and I thought the right and lucky man might finally make it into literature.” And he did!!!!!

For instance, “There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edges of the carving knife and study their husband’s necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.” Literature!

Or, of Miss Morny in The High Window: “The mascara was so thick on her eyelashes that they looked like miniature iron railings.”

Or, more sparingly: “…a shaft of sunlight tickled one of my ankles.”

Chandler was a big fan of Hammett, Erle Stanley Gardner, John Houseman and Shakespeare, not so much of Hemingway, mystery writer James M. Cain and playwright Eugene O’Neill. Included are many excerpts of letters to Gardner, Chandler’s publishers and friends.

Using both photos and words, Day tackles many of the things that Chandler (and his alter ego Philip Marlowe) liked and disliked:

L.A.: “Los Angeles…a city where pretty faces are as common as runs in dollar stockings.”

Veronica Lake (or Miss Moronica Lake, as he liked to call her) in The Blue Dahlia: “The only times she’s good is when she keeps her mouth shut and looks mysterious.”

Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep: “Her eyes were pools of darkness, much emptier than darkness.”

By the way, he always pictured Cary Grant as Philip Marlowe but agreed that Humphrey Bogart was a natural for the part.

Day follows Chandler’s descriptions of Marlowe’s various offices and apartments in earlier and later works and how they changed…or in some cases how he described the same scene in different words. He follows Chandler’s and Marlowe’s thoughts on women, big business, homosexuality and Hollywood. He enumerates Chandler’s preoccupation with hairlines, eyes, people’s figures, and faces, such as: “He was a tall man with glasses and a high-domed head that made his ears look as if they had slipped down his head” or his face was “…like a gnawed bone…”, “…as intelligent as the bottom of a shoe box…” or my favorite “…a great deal of domed brown forehead that might at a careless glance have seemed a dwelling place for brains.”

Marlowe was always wisecracking, such as “Take your ears out of the way and I’ll leave.”

Chandler’s thoughts on mystery writing include: “I really don’t seem to take the mystery element in the detective story as seriously as I should…the mind which can produce a cooly-thought-out puzzle can’t, as a rule, develop the fire and dash necessary for vivid writing.” He certainly didn’t want to be lumped in with the Agatha Christies and Rex Stouts of the mystery genre. “Very likely they write better mysteries than I do, but their words don’t get up and walk. Mine do.” (Very modest, wasn’t he?)

Throughout most of Chandler’s troubled life, there was one constant, Cissy, his wife of over 30 years (who was 18 years his senior): “She was the beat of my heart for thirty years. She was the music heard faintly at the edge of sound.”

While The World of Raymond Chandler is somewhat of a biography, it is really a tribute to Chandler’s words. So, in conclusion, to quote the London Times in its obituary to Chandler, “In working the common vein of crime fiction he mined the gold of literature.” show less