Customer Reviews

Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler

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Raymond Chandler died 43 years ago, yet the seven novels he wrote have ALL been in print since their original publication. Why? Because Chandler was a first-rate prose stylist who took the hard-boiled detective novel places it had never been before...and has seldom been since.

THE SELECTED LETTERS OF RAYMOND CHANDLER is for anyone who loves THE BIG SLEEP, FAREWELL MY LOVELY and all the rest. It gives us a chance to get inside Chandler's head, to listen to him expound on Hollywood, the art of writing, the publishing business, the agony of seeing a wife die a slow death.

Like Sam Clemens, Chandler wrote a good many letters. And like that other great American original, not all the letters are memorable, but a LOT of them have a snap and bite that still resonate a half century later. For example:

"Television is really what we've been looking for all our lives. It took a certain mount of effort to go to the movies. Somebody had to stay with the kids. You had to get the car out of the garage. That was hard work. And you had to drive and park. Sometimes you had to walk as much as half a block to the theater. Then people with big fat heads would sit in front of you and make you nervous. Reading took less physical effort, but you had to concentrate a little, even when you were reading a mystery...And every once in awhile you were apt to trip over a three-syllable word. That was pretty hard on the brain....

But television's perfect. You turn a few knobs, a few of those mechanical adjustments at which the higher apes are so proficient, and lean back and drain your mind of all thought. And there you are watching the bubbles in the primieval ooze. You don't have to concentrate. You don't have to react. You don't have to remember. You don't miss your brain because you don't need it. Your heart and liver and lungs continue to function normally. Apart from that, all is peace and quiet...And if some nasty-minded person comes along and says you look more like a fly on a can of garbage, pay him no mind. He probably hasn't got the price of a television set."

Like I said. Chandler was one of a kind. Writing letters or writing novels.

This collection offers the fan of America's most under-rated novelist a glimpse into his mind, this relationships, his thoughts. The index allows a reader to find very specific references to subjects. Highly recommended for the serious student of Chandler.