Talk:Raymond Chandler

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[edit] Philip Marlowe

There is no direct reference to or discussion of Chandler's major character, Phillip Marlowe -- nor is there any link to the Philip Marlowe wiki article. Guernseykid 05:10, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

The link is under the "Novels" section. However it could be made more prominent.

[edit] Chandler v. Hammett

One interesting item that could be added to this article would be a comparison of Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, who were almost polar opposites in some ways:

Hammett was a working detective. He only began to write when disabled by TB. He used the material of his own experience. His primary interest in the writing was to make a living, as witnessed by the many weak and novelty-type stories he published, especially those which could be considered "action" rather than detective. The cops in his stories are always good guys. Rich folks are always plain honest citizens except when they are actual, manifest, criminals or "deviates". His biggest themes - deriving from his actual experience as a detective - were the viciousness and stupidity of actual criminals and conversely, he was fascinated with the notion of the "master criminal", which he dealt with in many stories and novels - "the Gutting of Coufignal", "The Big Knockover", "Red Harvest", "the Dain Curse", "the Girl with the Silver Hair", and so on. He had no particular literary ambitions prior to his disability and forced retirement from the Pinkertons.

Now Chandler was a great admirer of Hammett - admired him for his strengths rather than his weaknesses. But he knew nothing, by experience, of the work of actual detectives. He was obsessive about the purity of his Art, and was enraged when some of his earlier stories that had been "cannibalized" - his own word - to provide material for his later novels were reprinted against his wishes. He was not at all interested in criminal "masterminds" and even, in the person of Marlowe, had no principled hostility to mob bosses, except when he came head to head with them. He used up far more ink on the subject of corrupt and brutal cops; and dissipated, bored, and miserable rich people who lived by unearned or undeserved wealth. Finally, Chandler had always possessed literary ambitions and had tried his hand, in England, as a poet and literary critic.

That's pretty interesting, and it rings true to me for the most part. It would take some legwork to make it truly "factual" and it could just be worked in to the existing text. Chandler's take on the cops and rich people has become engrained in American culture but Hammet belonged to a slightly earlier era. According to the bio, there was a several year gap between his detective work and his literary endeavors. He was a communist of sorts, so it's hard to see any great sympathy for the wealthy, but movies from the 1920's employed similar characterizations. I seem to recall Chandler used the term "cannibalized" to describe his own process of utilizing his short stories as material for his novels. Guernseykid 12:00, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chandler's ambitions

Chandler explains what he was about as a writer in the following excerpt:

How could I possibly care a button about the detective story as a form? All I'm looking for is an excuse for certain experiments in dramatic dialogue. To justify them I have to have plot and situation; but fundamentally I care almost nothing about either. All I really care about is what Errol Flynn calls "the music", the lines he has to speak (...) A long time ago when I was writing for the pulps, I put into a story a line like "he got out of the car and walked across the sun-drenched sidewalk until the shadow of the awning over the entrance fell across his face like the touch of cool water". They took it out when they published the story. Their readers didn't appreciate this sort of thing: just held up the action. And I set out to prove them wrong.

--Letter to Frederick Lewis Allen, May 7 1948. From "Raymond Chandler, Later Novels and Other Writings", page 1032


[edit] Misquote on Marlowe

I removed a misquote about Philip Marlowe from the article. The article suggested that Marlowe described himself as "a nice clean private detective who wouldn't drop cigar ashes on the floor and never carried more than one gun." The actual quotation is about his client Elizabeth Murdock, who you might say had rather Victorian attitudes and sensibilities. He says Ms. Murdock "wanted to hire a nice clean private detective who wouldn't drop cigar ashes on the floor and never carried more than one gun." I'm not so sure by this he was saying someting about himself so much as he was about Ms. Murdock who wanted dirty work done, without anyone getting dirty, so to speak. I take the statement by Marlowe to be a subtle criticism of Mrs. Murdock, not a self-description. --Jakob Huneycutt 04:56, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Judgement call

"Chandler's finely wrought prose was widely admired by critics and writers from the highbrow (W.H. Auden, Evelyn Waugh) to the lowbrow (Ian Fleming)."

I don't think passing subjective judgements on the merits of an author's writing should be a part of a 'pedia entry, unless the author described his own writing as low or highbrow (and I imagine Fleming did not describe his own writing as lowbrow). I wouldn't put the Bond novels in the same category as Auden, but that's my personal choice to make; it shouldn't be in a definitive article about literature.

I would suggest "...was widely admired by critics and writers as diverse as W.H. Auden and Ian Fleming."

Thoughts?

I agree -- but don't leave out Waugh. Hayford Peirce 16:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] "Repressed homosexual"?

"...Sonia Orwell (George Orwell's widow), who assumed Chandler was a repressed homosexual..." Where in the world does this come from? I'm quite the Chandlerphile and I've never heard of it, and googling it leads to nothing but this page. Surely this warrants deletion? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.32.93.230 (talk) 02:22, August 27, 2007 (UTC)

I put that in. Note that Orwell wasn't necessarily correct in her conclusion (although I suspect that she was). I read about this in a book I found in the stacks of Cal State Los Angeles, about twenty years ago. I can't remember the title or the author, and so couldn't put in a citation. I will say that listening to an audio tape of Chandler talking to Ian Fleming that he sounded almost like a caricature of a homosexual (although he was said to be drunk at the time) and based on that alone I can understand why Sonia Orwell would have "assumed". Eye.earth 21:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Did he speak with an English accent? Article mentions that he moved and went to school there. mdclxvi 07:03, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Eureka! I have found a recent reference to the mysterious 'repressed homosexual' assumption I discussed above. Turns out it was Natasha Spender, not Sonio Orwell, who reported it. Now an entire book has apparently been written about it. See the article for the reference. Eye.earth (talk) 21:44, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Raymond Chandler

Wikipedia's biography of Raymond Chandler states that Farewell, My Lovely was published in 1940. So did several other sites I checked. This is impossible. Chandler uses Joe DiMaggio's 1941 hitting streak to move along the story. Unless he had a crystal ball, Chandler could not possibly have known in 1940 what DiMaggio was going to do in 1941. I don't have the correct date, but somebody should; I'm guessing it was 1941. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.127.212.5 (talk) 15:53, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

My copy says "Origninally published 1st October 1940". --Dmol (talk) 19:22, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural references

I am moving the "cultural references" section (really, a trivia section) here for discussion.

  • British post-punk band The Three Johns released the single "Pink Headed Bug" in January 1983, using phrases from Farewell My Lovely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.144.32.165 (talk) 10:34, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
  • The British rock musicians Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians released the song “Raymond Chandler Evening” in the Element of Light (1986) album.
  • In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Field of Fire”, Odo and Miles O'Brien admit to being Chandler aficionados.
  • In the Friends situation comedy episode “The One With Rachel’s Dress”, Chandler mentions Raymond Chandler in reply to Joey’s asking if any famous Chandlers exist; Joey retorts, “Name someone you didn't make up”.
  • The lyrics to Jim Carroll's song “Three Sisters” include “But she just wants to lay in bed all night reading Raymond Chandler”.
  • On a rare split 12" record (with Castanets), free jazz duo I Heart Lung titled each track in homage to Raymond Chandler: "Speedboats for Breakfast" referring to Chandler's guess as to what the early residents of Santa Monica ate in the morning, "Song of the Boatman of the River Roon" from an early poem by Chandler, and "If I Were A Young Man Now" from a letter written late in his life.
  • The detective novelist Robert B. Parker based his detective, Spenser, on the Chandler tradition; Spenser was born in Laramie, Wyoming, where Raymond Chandler was conceived. Parker has a Ph.D. in English literature, his thesis was partly about Chandler's writing.
  • The days of the plot in the film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang of Raymond Chandler works: the short story “Trouble is My Business”; the novels The Lady in the Lake, The Little Sister, and Farewell, My Lovely; and the essay “The Simple Art of Murder”.
  • In James O'Barr's The Crow graphic novel, the lyrics to the song, “Raymond Chandler Evening” by Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians, are in the panels leading to the Eric Draven character bursting into the Fun Boy character’s room.
  • Country/Goth band Miss Derringer uses the Chandler line "Dead Men Weigh More Than Broken Hearts" (The Big Sleep) as a song title in the album 'Lullabies'.
  • The Argentine novelist and journalist Osvaldo Soriano used Phillip Marlowe as a character in his first novel, Triste, solitario y final (Sad, Lonely, and Final) a phrase spoken by Marlowe in The Long Goodbye. In that novel, Soriano wrote as himself, an Argentine lost in Los Angeles, who meets an older Marlowe. Together they must solve the last mystery about Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Soriano died in 1996, but his novels were translated, despite that, Triste, solitario y final is difficult to find in English translation.

Most of these references are so short they are mostly pointless. For example, "The British rock musicians Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians released the song “Raymond Chandler Evening” in the Element of Light (1986) album." Really, so what? Of what possible importance is it that Chandler was mentioned in a pop song? How does that elucidate the subject? Most of this, it seems to me, can go and the article is not hurt one jot. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 23:16, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I am a new Wikipedia participant and need advice

I am immersed in Raymond Chandler. I am also an experienced writer and blogger who is used to sourcing and prides myself on my research skills. I am not sure of the fine distinctions made as to what is appropriate for a Wikipedia entry.

I spent some time writing this am about a comparison between the book "The Big Sleep" and Howard Hawks' movie, "The Big Sleep". When I came back to the Chandler listing, my stuff had been removed. That's fine and fair. I'm just feeling my way around. But maybe whoever removed it should tell me why the stuff I spent time writing was inappropriate.

There are a few passages in the main page which could be construed as opinion without sourcing. For instance, the paragraph that begins, "Critics and writers, ranging from W.H.Auden to Evelyn Waugh..." The next sentence reads, "Although his swift-moving, hardboiled style was inrpired mostly by Dashiell Hammett, his sharp and lyrical similes are original: The muzzle of the Luger looked like the mouth of the Second Street tunnel; The minutes went by on tiptoe, with their fingers to their lips" defining private eye fiction genre...Yet Philip Marlowe is not a sterotypical "tough guy" but a complex, sometimes sentimental man of few friends..."

Is it okay to call a writer's similes original if you quote some of his similes to prove it? Is that what is meant by sourcing in those cases? The fact that Raymond Chandler defined private eye fiction genre, well, that seems like opinion to me. Many would disagree and say that Hammett did. Probably (especially) Chandler would agree that Hammett defined it (see: The Simple Art of Murder.) Then the page writer wrote about the character of Philip Marlowe as not some stereotypical tough guy, but a complex person, etc. That seems to me to also be subjective interpretation.

I wrote about Marlowe's character in the book The Big Sleep and how it differed from the Bogart Marlowe especially by contrasting one scene with Carmen Sternwood, when he came into his apartment and found her naked in his bed. I think my example offered an acute illustration of Marlowe's character as delineated by Chandler in The Big Sleep. And the scene I used was taken directly from the book. Should I have quoted the passage referred to? I mean, in that scene Marlowe certainly wasn't the ordinary gumshoe or Mike Hammer.

Then this sentence: "Raymond Chandler also was a perceptive critic of pulp fiction; his essay "The Simple Art of Murder" is the standard reference work in the field. It is the standard reference work? By whose standards? Is that conventional wisdom?--Katiebgood (talk) 21:20, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Let me address some of your points. First, sourcing means using citations to reliable, published sources, not first hand evidence. If there are other places that need sourcing and are possibly contentious, it does not excuse adding more. They too should be modified or removed, which you are of course welcome to do. Content analyzing Marlowe doesn't really belong here, this is a biography of Chandler, and there is a separate Philip Marlowe article. VanTucky talk 22:46, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Newtown School

According to yesterday's Sunday Independent, Raymond Chandler, who had an Irish mother, "claimed to have been at" the Quaker Newtown School, Waterford. Is that verifiable? Millbanks (talk) 10:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

According to Tom Hiney's biography, RC and his mother stayed in Waterford before moving to Norwood in London. No mention of how long, or where he went to school.--Dmol (talk) 19:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

According to the chronology in Later Novels and other Writings, Chandler moved with mother to London in 1895, stayed in Norwood, and spent summers in Waterford Ireland. It then says Attends Church of England and goes to local school, but the school is not named.--Dmol (talk) 17:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)