- Paperback: 286 pages
- Publisher: University of California Press; New Ed edition (17 April 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0520208358
- ISBN-13: 978-0520208353
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 596,917 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Review
""Raymond Chandler Speaking offers us various unpublished pieces. . . and a large number of letters written to his publishers, agents, fellow writers and various friends. . . . Chandler's many admirers will find it a good value. Young writers chiefly concerned with the novel of action and violence should not miss it, for Chandler, at his best a master of this kind of fiction, has much to say that deserves their attention."--J. B. Priestley, "New Statesman
Product Description
Tough-minded and typically idiosyncratic, here is Chandler on Chandler, the mystery novel, writing, Hollywood, TV, publishing, cats, and famous crimes. This skillfully edited selection of letters, articles, and notes also includes the short story "A Couple of Writers" and the first chapters of Chandler's last Philip Marlowe novel, "The Poodle Springs Story", left unfinished at his death. Paul Skenazy has provided a new introduction for this edition as well as a new selected bibliography.
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First Sentence
. . . I was born in Chicago,Illinois, so damned long ago that I wish I had never told anybody when. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
. . . I was born in Chicago,Illinois, so damned long ago that I wish I had never told anybody when. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The king of crime,
This review is from: Raymond Chandler Speaking (Paperback)
Raymond Chandler is one of the most influential crime writers of the twentieth century. Literate, hardboiled and transcending the traditional image of the pulp writers, he created some of the most memorable crime fiction of his era. This book collects letters and correspondence from Chandler. Although I am not normally a fan of letter collections, this book is an engrossing read, adding not only to my image of Chandler, but also to my understanding of his writings. For any fan of crime fiction, for any fan of biography, for anyone who loves these "collected letters" anthologies, in fact for anyone who enjoys a good read, this collection of revealing, witty and fascinating correspondence is an essential purchase.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The original, and still one of the best,
By
This review is from: Raymond Chandler Speaking (Paperback)
The original collections of Chandler's letters, this brings together snippets of correspondence to provide a glimpse of Chandler's thoughts on topics such as 'cats', 'the detective story' etc. Arranged into topic and not in cronological order, this is an interesting collection that concentrates more on categorising Chandler's thoughts rather than allowing Chandler's letters to speak for themselves. Also included however is Chandler's unpublished story 'A Couple of Writers', which is a real eye-opener.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.2 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews) 9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
It's been surpassed,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Raymond Chandler Speaking (Paperback)
Originally published in 1962, this collage of excerpts from Chandler's letters, essays and drafts today is a rather unsatisfactory way to begin dabbling in Chandler's non-fiction. A much better book is the Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, and I understand a new book of the man's correspondance will be published in early 2001. The problem with Raymond Chandler Speaking is that everything is sliced, diced and presented in a very artificial order. You have a sections such as "Raymond Chandler on Cats," Raymond Chandler on Detective Novels," and "Raymond Chandler on Writers." Most of the material is excerpted from letters--letters which appear in full and in chronological order in the Selected Letters of RC. In this book, just as Chandler's rhythm starts to click in, just as the writing's beginning to get interesting, the snippet ends. Editor Dorothy Gardiner has made a good first attempt at giving readers a feel for the author, but its been done much better since then. Of course, you get some good oddball selections from RC, like a short story ("A Couple of Writers"), the "Writers in Hollywood" essay and RC's contribution to Poodle Springs, a 12-page start to a novel that Robert B. Parker would later finish and publish as a post-mortem collaboration. There's enough here to warrant a Chandler completist to include in his/her collection, but if you want to read something with a little more momentum and that gives you a better sense of RC as a person, read the Selected Letters first.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Chandler: As Rich and Satisfying as Grandma's Custard,
By Joe Oliver - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Raymond Chandler Speaking (Paperback)
A "page turner" is a term I usually reserve for compelling and dramatic fiction, but in this case it is apt for "Raymond Chandler Speaking," the closest thing we have to a memoir or autobiography from the most influential mystery writer of the 20th century. Although not a particularly prolific novelist, Chandler was, nevertheless, an inveterate letter writer, and his words, penned in the haunting hours of the night and probably often in an alcoholic stupor, provide wonderful insight into this man who turned a low-brow fictional form into poetry. If you've enjoyed his novels, but not gotten around to this collection of letters and a few other writings (including the first four chapters of his last novel, "Poodle Springs"), then you're in for a treat: the colorful phrase, the scintillating simile, the terse but punchy sentence-all trademarks of his groundbreaking fiction-are found in abundance here, as Chandler waxes philosophically on Hollywood, agents, writers, publishers, and cats (the feline kind). You will find something in this small volume that you could not possibly anticipate on a topic you would think would be off turf: for me it was Chandler writing on the dysfunctional effects of television, as he saw it in 1950; with pen cynically dripping with sarcasm, he wrote: "Television is really what we have been looking for all our lives.... You turn a few knobs, a few of those mechanical adjustments at which the higher apes are so proficient, and lean back and drain your mind of all thought.... You don't have to concentrate. You don't have to react. You don't have to remember. You don't miss your brain because you don't need it." Fifty years later, a good portion of the sum of academic and professional criticism of television are mere extensions of Chandler's intuitive judgment about the medium. Chandler's matchless mind and personality could have led him to many successful careers, if he controlled his personal demons; but he chose detective fiction over business, academics, politics or social/cultural criticism. This volume of letters and writings give us insight into his complex mind with its deep secrets and doubts. Little wonder this book, first published in 1962, remains (with updated introductory material) in print and a staple for libraries and the personal collections of people who like exploring the treads of genius that launched a new literary form.
4.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting man,
By Paul Rooney "Paul Rooney" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Raymond Chandler Speaking (Paperback)
Raymond Chandler was an inveterate letter writer, he wrote hundreds and hundreds of them.
This collection has been brought together in chapters writing on various subjects. Chandler on Chandler, Chandler on the Mystery Novel, Chandler on Writing and several others. The book finishes with the first four chapters of the novel he was writing when he died in 1959 - The Poodle Springs Story. He writes to publishers, fans and friends. He can be very cantankerous when describing working in Hollywood and then very touching when writing following the death of his wife. His intelligence shines through these letters, I just wondered how much his alcoholism affected him mentally, it certainly affected him physically. This collection was first published in 1962 and my copy is a hardback from 1973 which cost me the princely sum of $3 from the Quota Club book fair, God bless them. If you like diaries and letter collections this is worth the effort. |
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