Magnus somno

by Posted on

I some­how nev­er got to read­ing any of Ray­mond Chan­dler when I was younger. I sup­pose it’s too much pulp for High School Eng­lish. I sup­pose this is not real­ly great lit­er­a­ture, but I’ll say this for Chan­dler: the guy had a way with words.

> I went upstairs again and sat in my chair think­ing about Har­ry Jones and his sto­ry. It seemed a lit­tle too pat. It had the aus­tere sim­plic­i­ty of fic­tion rather than the tan­gled woof of fact.

Inven­tive in his use of lan­guage, direct and lacon­ic, Chan­dler impressed me with his abil­i­ty to hold a con­sis­tant tone with­out ever get­ting drea­ry. He wrote well. I’m glad I took the leap.

Published by splicer

One Reply to “Magnus somno”

  1. Love detec­tive noir sto­ries.
    Love detec­tive noir sto­ries. If you see it around, check out Berlin Noir, by Phillip Kerr. Imag­ine Philip Mar­lowe in pre-WWII Berlin, deal­ing with life dur­ing the rise of the Nazi par­ty — spi­ral­ing infla­tion, a suf­fer­ing mid­dle class, a haute upper class and an oppres­sive, cor­rupt police force to reck­on with.