CONVERSATIONS
(CwHD) is a weblog about words and language and other nonsense. CwHD
began May 1, 2017. Besides thematic essays, the site provides a
vehicle for sharing my own words and language. In July, 2017, I
opened The Bookstore. This page provides an overview of my published
work. Print and ebook copies are available through my publishing
website (link in sidebar):
majikwoids
Previously,
I listed the six most influential author's of detective stories. This
week's post concludes the biographies of those writers.
Raymond
Chandler
(1888
- 1959)
"Chandler
wrote like a slumming angel ..."
The
New Yorker
Raymond Thornton Chandler
was born in Chicago on July 23, 1888. At seven, his divorced mother
took him to live in England. He attended prep schools early on, then
went to university in France and Germany. Like Rex Stout before him,
Chandler cobbled together a career in business before failure there
pushed him into a writing career. He developed a distinctive prose
voice and a knack for pungent metaphor. Often quoted is this: It was
a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass
window.
On his return to England
after his European studies, he set out on a writing career with mixed
results. By 1912, frustration moved him to the United States. A
variety of jobs followed: tennis racket stringer, creamery book
keeper and others of that sort. In 1917, he joined the Canadian army
and fought in France. After his discharge, Chandler returned to Los
Angeles.
At 36 he married Pearl
"Cissy" Pascal who was 18 years senior to Chandler, and
already twice divorced. He worked as a bookkeeper for an Southern
California oil syndicate despite what he believed to be a corrupt
industry with disreputable executives. With the depression, the oil
business, too, slumped. Cissy's health began to fail and Chandler
began drinking and carousing with company secretaries. He was fired
in 1932.
Unlike Stout, necessity
pushed Chandler to writing. A growing market for detective fiction
seemed the path to take. His first story was published in 1933, sold
to Black Mask Magazine. The demands of the pulp fiction
market---tight plots, word length, subject matter---gave him a
template to work within and he soon mastered the medium. He excelled
at creating an emotional climate through apt description and original
dialogue.
His first novel was
published in 1939. The Big Sleep introduced a tough, cynical,
sharp tongued Los Angeles gumshoe named Philip Marlowe. Chandler's
prose was an artful combination of English prep school grammar and
the rough street talk of 1930s. More lucrative work followed. As a
scriptwriter, he earned Oscar nominations for Double Indemnity
and The Blue Dahlia.
Amidst
this success, his wife Cissy struggled with fibrosis of the lungs.
She died in 1956. Her death devastated Chandler. His self-described
'long mourning' produced bouts of destructive drinking and at least
one suicide attempt. His biographer, Frank McShane, remarked that "
...
the
emotional sensitivity that made [Chandler's] literary achievement
possible also made him miserable as a human being."
Despite
his 'long mourning' Chandler managed to write six more Marlowe novels
as well as a number of short stories. Two of the books, Farewell
My Lovely
and
The Long Goodbye,
are regarded as classics of the genre.
His
legacy as an artist contributed to the careers of many writers.
Those that followed --- Robert Parker, Michael Connelly, Timothy
Harris, Arthur Lyons, Max Allan Collins, Robert Crais, Walter Mosley,
Sara Paretsky and many others --- all built the edifice of their work
on Chandler's foundation.
