MandyThe Master of Noir: Raymond Chandler
June 5th 2008 14:25
My words pale into insignificance beside those of Raymond Chandler. So without further ado, let us observe the greatness of the master of noir fiction's prose. And please don't judge my writing skills on that sentence, I just can't think of a better way to put it.
As an entree to the wit and colour of Chandler's writing, let us savour this choice statement from the man in a letter to a publisher:
Classic.
"She's dark and lovely and passionate. And very, very kind."
"And exclusive as a mailbox," I said.
---The Little Sister (Chapter 19)
"I never saw any of them again - except the cops. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them."
---The Long Goodbye (Chapter 52)
"To say she had a face that would have stopped a clock would have been to insult her.It would have stopped a runaway horse."
--The Little Sister
"The General spoke again, slowly, using his strength as carefully as an out-of-work show-girl uses her last good pair of stockings."
-- The Big Sleep (Chapter 2)
"Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food."
--Farewell, My Lovely (Chapter 1)
"Her smile was as faint as a fat lady at a fireman's ball."
--High Window (Chapter 3)
"From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away."
--The High Window (Chapter 5)
"It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window."
--Farewell, My Lovely (Chapter 13)
And the ultimate Chandlerism, the best Philip Marlowe line ever:
"What did it matter where you lay once 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 about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now."
--The Big Sleep (Chapter 32)
As an entree to the wit and colour of Chandler's writing, let us savour this choice statement from the man in a letter to a publisher:
Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split.
Raymond Chandler: Tortured Writer TM
"She's dark and lovely and passionate. And very, very kind."
"And exclusive as a mailbox," I said.
---The Little Sister (Chapter 19)
"I never saw any of them again - except the cops. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them."
---The Long Goodbye (Chapter 52)
"To say she had a face that would have stopped a clock would have been to insult her.It would have stopped a runaway horse."
--The Little Sister
"The General spoke again, slowly, using his strength as carefully as an out-of-work show-girl uses her last good pair of stockings."
-- The Big Sleep (Chapter 2)
"Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food."
"Her smile was as faint as a fat lady at a fireman's ball."
--High Window (Chapter 3)
"From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away."
--The High Window (Chapter 5)
"It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window."
--Farewell, My Lovely (Chapter 13)
The great Humphrey Bogart as Chandler's PI Philip Marlowe
And the ultimate Chandlerism, the best Philip Marlowe line ever:
"What did it matter where you lay once 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 about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now."
--The Big Sleep (Chapter 32)
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