February 2014: Raymond Chandler

February's selection is Raymond Chandler, who I'm a bit sad to say I've never yet read! What are your suggestions, surely some of you guys are familiar with his work! What do you think of him? Is he worth his practically infamous status?

(PS, don't you hate when touchstones don't take the first time around? grrr.)

I'm going to start at the beginning with The Big Sleep. I saw the movie based on it several years ago but my memory is a bit fuzzy on the details, so I don't think that will end up spoiling it at all.

That might wind up being mine, too. I'll have to see what the library has, I'm sure it won't be too much.

I believe that I read The Big Sleep, but it was so many years ago, that it would be a good re-read.

I only have one slim volume (80 pp), namely Killer in the Rain which I will read in February.

I hope that a new lurker can join this challenge. I am a long time fan of Raymond Chandler, and delighted that you have picked him for February's Monthly Author Read.

I shall read "The Big Sleep", for me the novel that sums up all the qualities that make Chandler so great-complex plotting, terrific sense of place- oodles of atmosphere.

Maura, you are of course more than welcome to join us! And please feel free to join the group and stick around, too! :)

Glad to know The Big Sleep is a good pick, are there any others you recommend?

A lot of people rate The Long Goodbye as Chandler's stand-out title. Marlowe has more personal involvement with a client in this one and the friendship he develops with him has extreme consequences for his case. It's a long, involving read and well worth a try.

the Little Sister has long been my favorite.

I'll be reading Farewell, My Lovely, the second of the Marlowe books. I wasn't overly impressed with The Big Sleep, but it might be more that noir isn't generally my cup of tea.

I read both Farewell My Lovely and The Big Sleep years ago. Somewhere around the house I have a Raymond Chandler Omnibus, but the other day I came across The High Window, which I'd never heard of and know nothing about, so I've chosen it for my February Chandler read.

>11 Oandthegang: LOL Funny you mention those titles. I just picked up mine from the library, the only one they had, an Everyman's Library omnibus of The Big Sleep + Farewell, My Lovely + The High Window. Not sure if I'll read all three or not, we'll see how much time I have with my other plans! :)

I just came across this piece on The Big Sleep on the Guardian newspaper website. It is interesting , particularly in identifying the different type of hero whom Chandler has created.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/feb/06/raymond-chandler-new-form...

Has anyone been reading their Chandler yet? I've just finished Jane Eyre, so I'll be starting tomorrow!

I finished The Big Sleep in the omnibus I got, really great! I love the constant evocative (and amusing) metaphors Marlowe is forever tossing out, along with all his witty quips. Oh, and the murder mystery angle was pretty good too. ;))

As a fan of Film Noir I find that The Big Sleep reeks with that noirish atmosphere. Reading it again I was struck by the pervasiveness of rain and darkness; it echoes the dark corners of LA society that Marlowe is investigating. Chandler's use of language is, I would argue, unique to him. The combination of his English Public School Education and the pulp magazines where he learned his craft produces something quite special.
I was also amused to realise just how sexed up the Howard Hawks film version is. Lauren Bacall's Vivien is more prominent and she and Bogart are given a lot of very sexy dialogue, presumably to capitalise on their hot box office status.

Yeah that stuff was added after, because of their chemistry working so well and all (for obvious reasons).

Farewell, My Lovely is finished, loved it! Marlowe was a bit less amusing this time, a little grittier, but unlike The Big Sleep, where the butler is the only character (aside of Marlowe) who's witty enough and whose appearances are something to keep an eye out for, Farewell actually had a wealth of enjoyable characters to care about. I'm anxious to see what #3 brings! :)

Is no one else reading yet? I finished all three, loved them all. His style was brilliant.

"All I knew about the people was that they were a Mrs Elizabeth Bright Murdock and family and that she wanted to hire a nice clean private detective who wouldn't drop cigar ashes on the floor and never carried more than one gun. And I knew she was the widow of an old coot with whiskers named Jasper Murdock who had made a lot of money helping out the community, and got his photograph in the Pasadena paper every year on his anniversary, with the years of his birth and death underneath, and the legend: His Life Was His Service."

Yes, we're back in Chandler territory, and Marlowe's taken on a new case. (Does anyone know if the choice of Marlowe for a name was significant?) Mark Billingham in his introduction to the 2005 Penguin edition comments that Chandler gave him a taste for dark and realistic crime fiction, where the solving of the puzzle is less important than character. I'm not sure about character, let alone plot - what Chandler delivered was style.

I finished The High Window about a week ago, and I've just had to read the back cover to remind myself what it was about. Although The High Window is perhaps weaker than his more well known works, I must confess that I've not entirely followed the logic of any of his plots. I seem to recall that one of his biggies, The Big Sleep or Farewell, My Lovely or possibly The Lady In the Lake famously has a character disappear inexplicably leaving a bit of a hole in the plot. I note from the introduction that The High Window was twice made into a film, once as 'Time To Kill' in 1943 and once as 'The Brasher Doubloon' in 1947, but neither was successful.

Regardless of plot Chandler is always satisfying to read; one reads them for the smart aleck one liners, the imagination inevitably superimposing Bogart on the author's original Marlowe, and the splendid similies ("Her hair was as artificial as a nightclub lobby"). Much alcohol is consumed, and much tobacco is smoked. There is a degree of strong arm and fisticuffs. The gentle reader calls from the sidelines 'No, don't give Marlowe your keys! Don't arrange to meet him later! You know it will end in tears!", but deaf to the reader's entreaties the characters hand over their keys, make appointments, and die. The very predictability is part of the satisfaction of reading these books.

The High Window's plot includes a Nutty Female. Nutty Females do turn up in Chandler's work from time to time, and I assume they are a reflection of popularization of psychoanalysis at the time. I think they are a bit of a flaw, but take them as part of the period setting.

So, while I definitely think that everyone should read at least one Chandler, this is not one that I would recommend.

And for realistic crime I would recommend the Martin Beck series starting with Roseanna.

He weaves amazingly intricate plots, I find them fascinating. I assume you're thinking of the chauffeur in The Big Sleep, which when it was made into the movie with Bogie the scriptwriters had a little difficulty keeping things straight, and called him up to ask about that point, where he admitted that he didn't know who'd done it. My own supposition is that it was suicide, as the cops had claimed. There's good reason to think it, with all the rest of the details.

I have to disagree about your calls from the sidelines, though, and the predictability comment. How could anyone possibly predict who did what in a Marlowe story?? As you already mentioned, even Chandler himself didn't always know!

Marlowe is mostly a reflection of Chandler. The alcoholism, the smoking, the outlook on LA life, the slightly misogynistic yet protective feeling about women, it was all him. The only thing that wasn't, was the career choice. But Chandler had done a lot of odd jobs, so it still fit, in a way.

My favorite of the three was Farewell, My Lovely. Great characters, good story, plenty of twists, the fabulous wit, it's all there.

I couldn't predict who had done anything, just the body count. As you say, the plots are intricate, which is doubtless why, as i've already conceded, I get to the end without the plot having really sunk in, but I stand by my claim, certainly with regard to this particular book. A character who could have had a fairly simple conversation with Marlowe instead suggests Marlowe meet him later at his apartment, and gives him keys to let himself in. The minute he offered his keys I knew he would be found dead, and of course he was, though why or by whose hand I didn't know.

I haven't read the big three since university, and will doubtless do so again. I'm perhaps a slightly atypical whodunnit reader as I never really care who did it, I'm just along for the ride.

Thank you for clearing that up. I was sure it was one of the movie ones, and had an idea it was someone's husband, or former husband, but someone of comparatively low status.

I'd wondered if the choice of Marlowe had anything to do with the playwright, but perhaps not.

It's possible, because he was quite literary (he calls the one guy Hemingway in Farewell, and makes a joke about saying the same thing over and over, when Heathcliff the dog makes his appearance Marlowe instantly asks on hearing the name, Wuthering Heights? etc), but the intro in my Everyman's Library edition discussed other instances but didn't comment about the name, so... *shrugs*

I have always heard that Chandler was deeply affected by his education at Dulwich College in South London, also the alma mater of P.G. Wodehouse. Students had a good grounding in the classics and other literature and critics have commented on the old fashioned, almost chivalric virtues of Marlowe. On the first page of The Big Sleep he notices "a stained glass panel showing a knight in shining armour rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree..." Could Chandler be referencing the not dissimilarly named Malory of Arthurian legends fame here? A bit fanciful perhaps, but Marlowe does tell General Sternwood that he "..went to college once and can still speak English if there's any demand for it." This being the case I was surprised that when Vivian Regan mentions Proust he asks who he is.

Having finished this, my favourite, of Chandler's novels I was struck by the haunting beauty of this passage near the end and thought that I would share it. I don't think it gives too much away to anyone who has not read it.

What did it matter where you lay when you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring for the nastiness of how you died or where you fell."

What a writer!

LOL, Marlowe doesn't say anything straight to anybody, he was only saying that to get her goat, his entire conversation with her was double-talk and goading her until she got upset enough to throw him out.

Well, no, it doesn't give the story away, but it does give away what the title comes from. I'd considered using that quote for my review, but decided against it for that reason. But yeah, it's a good example of his abilities. :)

What a fabulous idea, Chandler and Wodehouse getting together to reminise about the old school.

I forgot to come back and mention it on this thread but I also read The Big Sleep back in February ... in fact, I ended up reading it (sort of) twice. I accidentally got an audio "adaptation" the first time, which was a staged reading of an abridged version of the book, complete with a full cast and sound effects. This was kind of neat, but it felt like I was watching the movie again rather than reading the book (although this version was truer to the book than the movie was). Then I got an audio version that was the full book, this time read by actor Elliott Gould, with whom I was surprisingly impressed. I quite enjoyed the book and agreed with a lot of what was said here already - the style, the comedy, the characters, these really made the book. I read a comment elsewhere in which the reader noted that despite having incredibly dated things in the book (i.e., the whole plot revolves around a naked photograph sold on the sly ... and now we have pornography on the web 24/7, teenagers sexting, and barely clad people on the TV, runway, magazines, movies, etc. etc.), the book still feels surprisingly fresh and modern. It's a strange sensation, but I thought the same thing when reading it. At any rate, I'll definitely be seeking out other Chandler books in the future.

019. Killer in the rain
Finished reading: 22 February 2014



The obvious advantage of the Penguin Modern Classics mini-series is that each volume offers a taste of an author at a very low price. Thus, Killer in the rain offers the title story of what was originally published as a short story collection in a slim, small-size pocket book.

Killer in the rain is a detective story with elements of murder and blackmail. The style of writing brings together a number of features which have long since become the cliche hall-marks of the detective genre. Perhaps the style of Chandler's fiction is a tat more literary than the regular pulp.

An interesting diversion in a genre I do not usually prefer to select my readings from.