From:
Category: Other
Date: 6/23/99
Time: 4:48:14 PM
Remote Name: 209.222.119.5
Re: Raymond Chandler
I love Chandler and always have. I think he was the first modern American virtuoso writer who could still, somehow, be chatty. I spent a lot of time thinking about Chandler, but in brief, I think his work has a marvelous unity of purpose. By this I mean that the substance of the books and the style of the books work towards the same goal. I think Amis has a similar unity of purpose, style and substance working hand in hand.
Chandler books are all about "figuring it all out" or, to be less lofty, "trying to make sense of it all." The "mystery" is just a fairly obvious metaphor for that quest. Marlow uses his tools -- detection, the chess games -- Chandler uses his -- the language, the outrageous metaphor and simile. "He had a face like a collapsed lung." I can't imagine reading that sentence for the first time, but it makes such sense and gives you a clearer than clear idea of what this guy looked like in all the important ways.
Gary Chapin