I thought of lots of things. The glare of the red neon sign spread farther and farther across the ceiling. I sat up on the bed and put my feet on the floor and rubbed the back of my neck.Raymond Chandler, Farewell My Lovely, Chapter 34.
I got up on my feet and went over to the bowl in the corner and threw cold water on my face. After a little while I felt a little better, but only a little. I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
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4 comments:
Gritty. But "bowel" is a little distracting. Ew...
"bowel"
ARRRGGGHHH!
I fixed it. Thanks.
Anybody who wants to write a hard-boiled detective story should study Chandler *hard*. My favorite is The Big Sleep, which works both as social commentary and as a detective story. Maybe his first novel, but Chandler had a lot of writing experience by that time writing shorter stories, and it shows.
Badtux, I have a book that has four of Chandler's novels in it (Big Sleep, High Window, Long Goodbye, lady in the Laks), as well as a compendium of Dashiell Hammett's five novels.
My dad was a fan of Ross MacDonald, John D. MacDonald and Mickey Spillane. He also had a couple of the Chandler novels. S I grew up reading the hard-boiled detective novels and when I was older and first read one of English "cozy" detective novels, I thought it was a pretty weak brew.
Having said that, I've read the Maise Dobbs series written by Jacqueline Winspear and I've enjoyed them.
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