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"I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun." Farewell, My Lovely (Chapter 34)
"I called him from a phone booth. The voice that answered was fat. It wheezed softly, like the voice of a man who had just won a pie-eating contest."--"Trouble Is My Business" (Section 2)
A friend turned me on to Thompson a couple of years ago, and I can't recommend him highly enough if you're into that genre. I started with Pop. 1280, which turned out to be a good beginning; that or TheGetaway, though you can't really go wrong with any of them.
*makes note to seek out more Chandler on her next trip to town*
Though I don't really understand her
I love my sister, her name's Miranda
The boys from uptown they can't stand her
The more she denies them the more they demand her
But she just wants to lay in bed all night
Reading Raymond Chandler - Jim Carroll
Thanks for reminding me - it's about time for me to go back and re-read Chandler again.
"She's a charming middle age lady with a face like a bucket of mud and if she's washed her hair since Coolidge's second term, I'll eat my spare tire, rim and all." -- Farewell, My Lovely (Chapter 6)
The Collected Stories hardcover that's put out by Knopf is an excellent way to get a whole lot of Chandler at a low price--you get a few stories that aren't detective stories, and a few that are clearly dry runs for his novels.
If you like Chandler you may also like Ross Macdonald. Lew Archer is a bit more blue collar than Marlowe, but they're cut from the same cloth. His books are getting hard to find, but used book stores seem to have lots of them.
jonmc, are you a Jim Carroll fan? I saw him on the "tour" for his first album. Great show in a tiny club. His second album wasn't so hot (IMO) but that first one is really strong.
The Big Sleep has one of my favorite opening paragraphs:
It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.
You have to mention Dashiell Hammett here too: The Maltese Falcon, The Continental Op and Red Harvest are all great books and pre-date Chandler by a decade or so.
Oh hell yeah to Hammett, also David Goodis (Shoot the Piano Player) my darlings and eventually Charles Willeford (Cockfighter on through the Hoke Mosley Series, not to ignore The Burnt Orange Heresy and The Shark Infested Custard) and then dip down to the great works of Chester Himes (Cotton Comes to Harlem and a million others, want a great title: Blind Man With a Pistol) from there wild out, there is so much great American noir, before we even touch the European stuff and parts East, Maybe I should make a post.
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