Thursday, April 23: Femme Fatale
EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND
by Deborah Elliott-Upton
It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way – but not as far as Velma had gone. –
—Farewell, My Lovely
“Tall, aren’t you?” she said.
“I didn’t mean to be.”
Her eyes rounded. She was puzzled. She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother to her.
—The Big Sleep
I’m an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard.
—“The King in Yellow”
The above are examples of what are affectionately referred to as Chandlerisms1. They are the kind of quotes readers remember long after the story has ended. Sometimes, they make us smile, sometimes cry, but we recognize the writing as something special worth remembering.
Raymond Chandler did what most writers end up doing: he stole from himself. Characters, plotlines and sometimes entire passages were adapted from one of his stories into another. When the Muse gives a writer something wonderful, it’s difficult to let it go without fully using all the nuances of a character, plot or place. Chandler’s debut novel, The Big Sleep, in 1939 left his readers wanting more hardboiled stories. He followed with Farewell, My Lovely, The High Window, The Lady in the Lake, The Little Sister, The Long Goodbye and finally Playback in 1958. In the mid to late 40s, he produced scripts for “Double Indemnity” (with Billy Wilder), “The Blue Dahlia,” and “Strangers on a Train” (largely rewritten by Czenzi Ormonde, one of Ben Hecht’s assistants, who was hired by Hitchcock when Hecht was unavailable), based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel.
“I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners. I don’t like ’em myself. They’re pretty bad. I grieve over them long winter evenings.”
—The Big Sleep
Philip Marlowe made his first appearance in a short story in the October 1934 issue of Black Mask.
For Velma
Philip Marlowe became the man’s man of private detectives. There’s a bit of Marlowe in current fictional detectives – even those of the female variety. The P.I. in fiction is almost always a loner, a bit sarcastic, yet witty, can’t quite make a relationship work and has a love/hate relationship with law enforcement officials.
The reason everyone steals from Raymond Chandler is his characters work. That, and everybody loves Raymond.
- A collection of similes, one-liners, and turns of phrase that could be written only by Raymond Chandler. [↩]
It amazes me writing professionals advise us not to write like Chandler and Hammett, and yet they define American detective fiction and we love ’em.
Clever stinger on that last line! Might be the best we’ve seen!
Of course, The Big Sleep was stolen from one (or more?) of Chandler’s short stories. As I recall a boy turned into a dangerous young woma in the process. WIthout anaesthesia, too.
I was glad to see the picture of Grace used as the ‘female variation’. She is as close to a feminine version of a Chandler character as you’ll find… :]]
I believe most writers steal from themselves and we’re influenced by other writers that we read and enjoy — especially when they are great writers. I know that the Chandler-like detective (as I described in today’s post) is supposed to be unsalable these days, but it seems to me there are plenty of writers doing exactly that. Spenser comes to mind…as well as the Jesse Stone movies.
Robert W. Chambers, not Raymond Chandler, wrote “The King in Yellow”.
Thanks, Elizabeth for the correction. This quote had been passed along by a fellow writer and we both thought it sounded very Chandlerish and didn’t question it. So good we have lots of people online who do know. Again, thanks. I always like to know when I’ve got something wrong.
Seems to me we need more people writing like Chandler, not fewer.
I agree heartily. Chandler was something else when it came to the back-chat end of things. A mystery novel of mine that came out recently doesn’t do too badly, either, in that department, but I doubt if any of the zingers are in the same class with the redoubtable Mr. Chandler. Still, an occasional wisecrack couldn’t hoit anyone, hardly.
I’ve read “The King In Yellow” and I didn’t catch any Chandlerisims. Poor Mr. Chambers was a bridge between thew worlds of Bierce and Lovecraft but he wasn’t Chandler…
(An heir to Poe, yes….)
Deborah–You did not get it wrong. It is true that Robert W. Chambers wrote a collection of short stories in 1895 titled THE KING IN YELLOW, but in 1938 Chandler’s short story “The King In Yellow” appeared in Dime Detective. And Steve Grayce, his PI in that story, does the “I’m an occasional drinker, . . . ” line just the way you quoted it.
Ernest, you are my champion!
Even if those words hadn’t come from Chandler, I still thought it sounded so much like him. So I’m really glad they really did. YEA! Many thanks for every one of you who care enough to share your information with the rest of us. I really do appreciate it when our CB readers jump in with comments.
Leigh wrote:
“It amazes me writing professionals advise us not to write like Chandler and Hammett, and yet they define American detective fiction and we love ‘em.”
I think the reason for that advice is a tendency for inexperienced writers to devolve into unintentional parody. It’s a matter of knowing the tune, but not how to play the instrument.
Good point, Fred! I hadn’t considered that.
WOW! I sure didn’t know Chandler wrote a story called “The King in Yellow!!” He probably knew about the Chambers book and maybe we can imagine him smiling as he read it! I guess I really stand corrected here!