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Re: RARA-AVIS: Chandler in WW I
David wrote:
>
> To really understand Chandler in respect of WW I as reflected in _The
> long goodbye_, you have to understand his war in which he served in the
> trenches and was buried in a shell explosion. None of the biographies of
> Chandler that I have read do justice to this experience because through
> American parochialism none of the authors bothered to research the
> regimental histories of the battalions of the CEF in which Chandler
> served.
If one chooses to believe regimental histories. One old soldier told me
not to takes them as the way things really happened, though in
Chandler's case, it may well have.
> "Ross Macdonald", (and why is he not being re-published when the
> repetitive trashy schlock of John D. is?),
I count 16 editions of MacDonald's works available in Books in Print.
You don't need as many Ross Macdonalds as you do John Ds because when
you read a Lew Archer you immediately forget the plot afterward and can
read it again and again just like it is a brand new book. But you are
correct, David, we need more.
the outsider viewing the
> American experience from a different perspective -- this is what makes
> his views on the Southern California of his time and place so trenchant
> -- and, in a way that transcends Hammett, (on whom all praise there be),
Except for The Thin Man, which is terrible (but then, as Robert B.
Parker said, "The Thin Man is unfortunate. Let us not speak of it.") I
attended a book talk last year about this work and it was the first
introduction to Hammett the 25 people attending had; they were
horrified, and vowed never to read another Hammett. There was I, the
lone voice, shrieking, "but no no no! Read the Continental Op stories!
Don't stop here!" To no avail, I'm afraid.I've always wondered if he
wrote The Thin Man as a movie scenario and polished it up into a novel
for money. This is probably discussed in a Hammett biography somewhere,
eh?
> makes Chandler oeuvre just that so much more classic, (i.e., immortal).
> There will never ever be another paragraphy so telling as his about the
> "Santa Anna wind". If I need repeat it, you need a course in basic
> reading.
>
I just wish the rest of "Red Wind" was as good as the opening paragraph,
don't you?
Richard King
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