Raymond Chandler

[SRW]

I was on my way to the doctors and wanted to have something to read. I saw a book, it didn't look hard but it looked as if it had heard all the answers and remembered all the ones it though it might be able to use sometime.

I got to the doctors office and the receptionist looked me over coolly. Well, you have to sign in brown eyes.

Her eyes were wide set, and there was thinking room between them.

All and all it was the best hour wait for a doctor I have spent in a long time. I felt I was really in the mean streets of LA in the thirties. So I went out and got "The Lady in the Lake" on audio so I can listen while I drive to work.

To bad he only wrote 7 novels, 8 if you count the one published after his death, I don't cause the pages seem so heavy they just don't turn as fast.

[NoZed Avenger]

I know Chandler was supposed to be better . . . but I still prefer Hammett.

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But I've read all from both/own all from both

[SRW]

Originally posted by NoZed Avenger
I know Chandler was supposed to be better . . . but I still prefer Hammett.

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But I've read all from both/own all from both

Well I don't know which is better, posibly because I have never read any Hammett. If he is as you say better than Chandler I am going to rectify that situation. So where to start? What would you say is the best Hammett to start with.

With Chandler I always use "Farwell My Lovely" to get people hooked.

[NoZed Avenger]

Originally posted by SRW


Well I don't know which is better, posibly because I have never read any Hammett. If he is as you say better than Chandler I am going to rectify that situation. So where to start? What would you say is the best Hammett to start with.


Most people say that Chandler is better, that he built on the earlier American school's writing, etc. etc. Personally, while I enjoyed Chandler, the I enjoyed the stylistic feel of most of Hammett's work.

For novels, I would recommend the Maltese Falcon or the Thin Man. However, I would actually look for one of his collections of earlier short stories -- "Vintage Crime/Black Lizard" printed a number of them a few years ago: "The Big Knockover" or "The Continental Op."

I hope you enjoy them; I wish I could read them again for the first time.

After those, we'll talk Rex Stout and Erle Stanley Gardner.

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[whitefork]

The Big Sleep....very fine indeed. Hammett may be a more disciplined writer, but there's something lurking around the corners of Chandler's stories that gives them a darker and nastier quality.

Check Altman's movie version of The Long Goodbye for a bit of a revisionist angle. Elliot Gould, Sterling Hayden. And a coke bottle.

Chandler wrote some fine screenplays, too, didn't he?

[chrisqqgx4]

I have to give Chandler the nod. I've tried The Maltese Falcon a few times but I just can't empathise with Sam Spade. Maybe I should give another of Hammet's a try. He must have been doing something right so maybe it's just me.

[NoZed Avenger]

Originally posted by chrisqqgx4
I have to give Chandler the nod. I've tried The Maltese Falcon a few times but I just can't empathise with Sam Spade. Maybe I should give another of Hammet's a try. He must have been doing something right so maybe it's just me.

Spade and the Continental Op are less sympathetic characters than Chandler's PI-as-Kinght/Hero, that's for sure.

Like I said -- I am in the minority regarding Hammett vs. Chandler, so you are definitely not alone.

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[Julia]

The great thing about both Chandler and Hammet is that after not reading them for just a couple of years, you can take them out and reread them, and they are as good as the first time.

Some favorite qoutes?

Chandler: (Describing a tall, black man, in an all-white, upper-class neighborhood). " He was as inconspicuous as a trantula walking across a wedding cake."

[NoZed Avenger]

Originally posted by Julia
The great thing about both Chandler and Hammet is that after not reading them for just a couple of years, you can take them out and reread them, and they are as good as the first time.

Some favorite qoutes?

Chandler: (Describing a tall, black man, in an all-white, upper-class neighborhood). " He was as inconspicuous as a trantula walking across a wedding cake."

I was trying to remember one from Hammett, but I can only remember the paraphrase (its been several years):

(The Op is reading a sign in a Tijuana bar):

"Only genuine, pre-war American whiskey served here"

I read the sign and counted the lies contained in that one sentence. I had reached five, with a promise of a sixth, when . . ."

They both had some clever, clever stuff.,