Wet weather, as well as helping the garden, provides a wonderful excuse for settling somewhere dry and comfortable, and reading. This month I indulged in a couple of works about great writers who are no longer with us, and one by another very successful author who is still at it.
As my current "major work" in progress is a crime/thriller, the appearance of "The Lost Detective: Becoming Dashiell Hammett" at the returns desk was just too tempting, and I just had to borrow it.
Whether you are intending to write crime stories or not, this is a worthwhile read - his well known contemporary, Raymond Chandler, described Hammett as "the ace performer".
Nathan Ward takes us deeply into the life of this great writer, and the swirling, chaotic life of the United States during the first four decades of the twentieth century - he shows us a man with deep flaws, incredible determination and persistance in the face of dreadful setbacks, and amazing story-telling abilities.
He also takes us into the murky world of US politics at a time when organized labour movements were engaged in frequent, often violent, conflict with employers. Hammett's brief experiences as an operative with the Pinkerton Agency are a real eye-opener, and left him deeply disillusioned with many aspects of society, authority, and politics. It gave me, as an Australian, a deeper understanding of the reasons behind the way many crime-writers have portrayed authority figures in the US.
Another slim volume - "No Time to Spare" by Ursula K Le Guin - is a collection of excerpts from her blog, and was published shortly before her death. Not much I can say about it other than it is really worth a read.
She was a great writer, her blogging - taken up late in life, with a certain degree of reluctance - is fascinating, and whether you are an aspiring writer, or simply a lover of her work, this is worth a look. It even gave this Non-Cat Person some new and interesting insights into the life and thought processes of cats. To my children and step-children - this is not a request for a kitten, ok?
For those who are aspiring writers, including those who may turn their nose up at his work, can I also recommend Stephen King's memoir - On Writing? I enjoyed some of his earlier works, have not read many of his later ones, but this book - another slim volume - is excellent, for many reasons. The first part is mostly memoir, and even if you feel you do not need or wish to know the story of his life, persist - it meshes deeply with the "how to write" part. If you skip the first half, you will end up wanting to double back, so take the time up front.
One part of King's book gave me great satisfaction; I have often told people that a novella he wrote early on, using the pseudonym "Richard Bachman" and called "The Long Walk"was his best piece - I was tickled to find him declaring that he too regarded it as his finest work.
Showing posts with label Raymond Chandler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Raymond Chandler. Show all posts
Thursday, 25 October 2018
Tuesday, 5 June 2018
The Long Goodbye - or How Things Stay the Same
Raymond Chandler's novel The Long Goodbye - published in 1953 and set in the previous few years, contains substantial amounts of social criticism - something writers are warned against doing by publishers and creative writing advisors.
Yet Chandler has woven it into the story deftly, in mostly small doses, as part of conversations and descriptions that fit neatly in with the action and the characters.
One passage that caught my eye in particular was a monologue from the extremely wealthy Mr Potter to the hero, Philip Marlowe, set out below......
"There's a peculiar thing about money" he went on "In large quantities it tends to have a life of its own, even a conscience of its own. The power of money becomes very difficult to control. Man has always been a venal animal. The growth of populations, the huge cost of wars, the incessant pressure of confiscatory taxation - all these things make him more and more venal. The average man is tired and scared, and a tired, scared man can't afford ideals. He has to buy food for his family. In our time we have seen a shocking decline in both public and private morals. You can't expect quality from people whose lives are a subjection to a lack of quality. You can't have quality with mass production. You don't want it because it lasts too long. So you substitute styling, which is a commercial swindle intended to produce artificial obsolescence. Mass production couldn't sell its goods next year unless it made what it sold this year look unfashionable a year from now. We have the whitest kitchens and the most shining bathrooms in the world. But in the lovely white kitchen the average American housewife can't produce a meal fit to eat, and the lovely shining bathroom is mostly a receptacle for deodorants, laxatives, sleeping pills, and the products of that confidence racket called the cosmetic industry. We make the finest packages in the world, Mr Marlowe. The stuff inside is mostly junk."
As Chandler wrote and published this novel that included many critiques of American society, especially of the wealthy parts of that society, Ayn Rand was busy compiling her longest and most controversial work, Atlas Shrugged - a work that in so many ways opposed what Chandler was saying about the root causes of societal problems of the day; problems that were with us long before he wrote, and that continue to plague us today.
In Mr Potter, Chandler has managed to introduce us to a man who, while not the real villain of the book, still imposes his own warped agenda on the other characters, and is Randian in his ability to set out many of the problems of society while not quite coming to grips with the real causes of what he has perceived, nor with his own part in the forming of those problems.
Being a child of the times during which this book was published, I was surprised by the extent of the cynicism and world-weariness of so many of the characters in this novel. After all, was not this the beginning of the new golden age of peace and modernity that had been ushered in by the great victory against fascism?
It seemed to me, as the Fifties folded into the Sixties, that it was a golden time, despite the dark threats the cold war from time to time imposed upon my awareness. But if it was so golden, why did Philip Marlowe resonate so strongly with so many readers? And why does it feel as if nothing much has changed?
Yet Chandler has woven it into the story deftly, in mostly small doses, as part of conversations and descriptions that fit neatly in with the action and the characters.
One passage that caught my eye in particular was a monologue from the extremely wealthy Mr Potter to the hero, Philip Marlowe, set out below......
"There's a peculiar thing about money" he went on "In large quantities it tends to have a life of its own, even a conscience of its own. The power of money becomes very difficult to control. Man has always been a venal animal. The growth of populations, the huge cost of wars, the incessant pressure of confiscatory taxation - all these things make him more and more venal. The average man is tired and scared, and a tired, scared man can't afford ideals. He has to buy food for his family. In our time we have seen a shocking decline in both public and private morals. You can't expect quality from people whose lives are a subjection to a lack of quality. You can't have quality with mass production. You don't want it because it lasts too long. So you substitute styling, which is a commercial swindle intended to produce artificial obsolescence. Mass production couldn't sell its goods next year unless it made what it sold this year look unfashionable a year from now. We have the whitest kitchens and the most shining bathrooms in the world. But in the lovely white kitchen the average American housewife can't produce a meal fit to eat, and the lovely shining bathroom is mostly a receptacle for deodorants, laxatives, sleeping pills, and the products of that confidence racket called the cosmetic industry. We make the finest packages in the world, Mr Marlowe. The stuff inside is mostly junk."
As Chandler wrote and published this novel that included many critiques of American society, especially of the wealthy parts of that society, Ayn Rand was busy compiling her longest and most controversial work, Atlas Shrugged - a work that in so many ways opposed what Chandler was saying about the root causes of societal problems of the day; problems that were with us long before he wrote, and that continue to plague us today.
In Mr Potter, Chandler has managed to introduce us to a man who, while not the real villain of the book, still imposes his own warped agenda on the other characters, and is Randian in his ability to set out many of the problems of society while not quite coming to grips with the real causes of what he has perceived, nor with his own part in the forming of those problems.
Being a child of the times during which this book was published, I was surprised by the extent of the cynicism and world-weariness of so many of the characters in this novel. After all, was not this the beginning of the new golden age of peace and modernity that had been ushered in by the great victory against fascism?
It seemed to me, as the Fifties folded into the Sixties, that it was a golden time, despite the dark threats the cold war from time to time imposed upon my awareness. But if it was so golden, why did Philip Marlowe resonate so strongly with so many readers? And why does it feel as if nothing much has changed?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)