Portrait of Marlowe by Chandler

I have started reading this book again and in it I found a description of iconic private eye Philip Marlowe by his author Raymond Chandler which I found fascinating, for reasons which I will state below. Here it is:

"The date of his birth is uncertain. I think he said somewhere that he was 38 years old, but that was quite a while ago and he is no older today. He was born in a small California town called Santa Rosa about 50 miles from San Francisco. Marlowe has never spoken of his parents, and apparently he has no living relatives. I don't know why he came to Southern California, except that eventually most people do, although not all of them remain. He is slightly over six feet tall and weights above 13st 8lbs. he has dark brown hair, brown eyes, and the expression "passably good looking" would not satisfy him in the least. I don't think he looks tough, but he can be tough. If you ask me why he is a detective, I can't answer you..."

Chandler wrote this in a letter to an enquiring fan. So this descrption his fascinating for many reasons. Even in this letter, Chandler remains literary and evocative, it reads like a part of one of his novels. What is also just as interesting is the level of uncertainty: Chandler describes Marlowe physically in minimalist terms and is vague about his character's background. We get a better idea about his mindset, but even then it is more by evocation and the use of a few words than deep analysis. In sum, Chandler is writing here about someone he knows but not completely and not perfectly, rather than a character he created. So that is why I am obsessed about this quote. Now I want to find and read the whole letter.

"To swap punches with a power shovel"

"I need a man good looking enough to pick up a dame who has a sense of class, but he's got to be tough enough to swap punches with a power shovel."

I am reading Trouble Is My Business by Ramond Chandler and this is how someone describes his legendary private eye Philip Marlowe. It fits him, but it fits so many that were inspired by him and it is such a great and vivid description that I wanted to share it here. I love reading Chandler just for such lines.

Marlowe and Mozart

I am finishing The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler, which features private eye and cynical hero Philip Marlowe. In one chapter, he is held in police custody and discusses with the police officer about... Mozart. The policeman plays piano in his spare time and is actually a Mozart aficionado. Here is what he says about the composer: "You'd be surprised how difficult some of that Mozart is. (...) It sounds so simple when you hear it played well." And then: "Mozart is just music. No comment needed from the performer." And Marlowe observes in his narration: "You could see he was a man who loved to move his hands, to make little neat inconspicuous motions with them, motions without any special meaning, but smooth and flowing and light as swansdown. They gave him a feel of delicate things delicately done, but not weak. Mozart, all right. I could see that." Marlowe got Mozart in a nutshell.

#Noirvember: time for crime (fiction)

When November comes, I change my reading genre and go from horror to crime fiction (which is actually the main genre I read all year round). This is nothing new for the month, or at least nothing unique: I learned on Twitter that there is a hashtag for it: #Noirvember. I am currently reading The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler, which features legendary private eye Philip Marlowe. I was in the mood for a good old fashioned hard-boiled thriller and I want to be up to date with the crime classics (as I am not, to my great shame). What I love about Chandler, it is how he slowly builds the settings and characters to create atmosphere and suspense. I might blog more about it, until then if you have any crime read suggestions for #Noirvember, please let me know in the comments.

The Long Goodbye

Sometimes I wonder if Vraie Fiction should not be renamed Crime Fiction. Anyway, I recently finished a novel which I wanted to recommend to my readers: The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler. His longest novel, his most autobiographical, maybe the most literary, maybe also the most existentialist.It was also the one Chandler considered to be his best. In it, private eye Philip Marlowe befriends Terry Lennox, alcoholic married to the daughter of a media mogul and reluctantly helps failed writer Roger Wade, also alcoholic. Both plots intertwine and merges seamlessly, death and violence abound, in the end the dead have little to envy the living, who manage to survive but at a heavy price. They are wounded, scarred, both emotionally and physically. It's more than four hundred pages, but it never feels like it, in fact you would wish the story to last a little longer, so as not to say goodbye too early.

Dorothy Malone and The Big Sleep

I learned something quite sad yesterday: Dorothy Malone passed away. I only knew her from a single scene in The Big Sleep, where she played the geeky yet sexy bookshop clerk who flirts with private eye Philip Marlowe. It is an extended scene from the novel, yet it remains quite short, but very memorable. I don't want to sound nostalgic, but you don't make seduction scenes like this anymore, where no innuendo is lost, nothing is gratuitous, every word, look, movement is so effective. So I decided to share it on this blog as an homage to the actress.

Reading The Big Sleep again

"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 a handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue socks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed detective ought to be. I was calling on four millions dollars."

Philip Marlowe, describing himself and his environment in The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler.

The books we re-read are more important than the ones we read. This is the case for me right now, as I had been wanting to revisit this crime fiction classic for ages, since I had read it the first time in college/cégep in our class of American literature. Now I am reading it solely out of pleasure, and in the original language. The start of the novel is still pure hardboiled crime fiction bliss and maybe the best the genre ever gave. There were private eyes before, but none truly defined the genre like Marlowe did. I might blog about the novel more in the weeks to come, right now I just wanted to share its first few lines, because they are that good. I also wanted to encourage my readers to discover or rediscover The Big Sleep.

The Big Sleep (just because)

I was just thinking about it: I am in the mood to watch some old black and white crime movies, some good old fashioned stuff full of atmosphere. I thought about watching The Big Sleep and I am very tempted to buy it. I read The Big Sleep in cégep, in its French translation (by Boris Vian), for a course in American literature. I never read it again, even though I read now most of the novels of Raymond Chandler (well, the majority of them). The movie, however, I watched a few times, the first time in cégep for the same course of American literature. It's one I never get bored of. The plot is a bit muddled up at times, it has differences from the novel that don't quite work, but there is such atmosphere! Oh and there is Humphrey Bogart. He does not quite look like Philip Marlowe, he is a bit too old for one, but he's got this attitude. And he's Bogart. I recently discovered the trailer on YouTube. I watched it over and over again today. I uploaded it here, because it has plenty of atmosphere too.

An orchid in the snow

"Sternwood: I seem to exist largely on heat, like a newborn spider. The orchids are an excuse for the heat. Do you like orchids? 
Marlowe: Not particularly. 
Sternwood: Nasty things! Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, and their perfume has the rotten sweetness of corruption."

I know I already quoted the above here, but I had to use it again for this post. I was looking for a new picture for this month and the new year, something that would look like winter yet not too much like Christmas. So I found this one dad sent me, an orchid in the conservatory, where you cans ee the snow in the background. I thought it was an interesting contrast. And at the moment I am reading Farewell, My Lovely. Not the same novel, but it still from the same author and it features Philip Marlowe. So to kick start my year as a reader I am reading a crime fiction classic and to kick start this year as a blogger (yesterday's post was barely more than an announcement, but I will come back to it), I have this interesting picture. Please feel free to give me your impressions about it.

Orchids, corruption and literature

My father grows orchids and I took this picture last time we visited my parents. I have been wanting to put it here for a while to accompany this quote I have been wanting to put on this blog. It is from The Big Sleep. I read the original classic of Raymond Chandler fifteen years ago in cégep in its French translation. I want to read it again in its original language. I do not remember exactly what was written in the novel, but in the movie the quote goes like this:

"Sternwood: I seem to exist largely on heat, like a newborn spider. The orchids are an excuse for the heat. Do you like orchids? 
Marlowe: Not particularly. 
Sternwood: Nasty things! Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, and their perfume has the rotten sweetness of corruption."

Evidence that crime fiction can also be genuine literature. Orchids can be quite creepy plants if you think about it: their flowers have something ophidian or arachnoid. I never thought they smelt much of anything, but their beauty has indeed something nasty.