DOCSLIB.ORG

Simple Art of Murder Free

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Simple Art of Murder Free FREE SIMPLE ART OF MURDER PDF Raymond Chandler | 377 pages | 12 Sep 1988 | Random House USA Inc | 9780394757650 | English | New York, United States The Simple Art of Murder by Raymond Chandler: | : Books A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics. Transform this Plot Summary into a Study Guide. The Simple Art of Murder is a work of crime fiction and Simple Art of Murder criticism written by Raymond Chandler, an American-British screenwriter and novelist. Chandler is credited with enormous stylistic influence on the canon of mystery fiction, and this work is considered seminal to its genre. In it, Chandler both pays homage to and criticizes detective fiction, moving deftly between its different Simple Art of Murder historical and literary registers, including realismsurrealism, historicism, mystery, and suspense. The novel is comprised of short stories focusing on different aspects of the criminal world that Chandler was intimately familiar with, particularly in Simple Art of Murder and s Los Angeles. In his opening remarks, Chandler grounds his novel with a few essential claims about fiction. Chandler then introduces a corollary to his first statement, claiming that if a work of literature is grounded in obvious falsehood, it does not even fit into the genre of the novel, since there is no real story for the novel to build on. Next, Chandler characterizes the police of his time as universally corrupt. Many of his characters expound on the archetypical policeman who takes bribes and becomes entangled in an urban web of crime. He asserts that detective stories, at first, were generally viewed as inferior kinds of fiction, until the writer Dashiell Hammett injected the genre with realism and redefined the American mystery canon. The stories in The Simple Art of Murder unfold according to a formula that Chandler describes in his essay about the criminal fiction genre. Next, the agent of the crime is nearly always someone the protagonist already knows; fittingly, the protagonist is generally a detective figure official or unofficial who has a historical connection to the criminal underworld. The detective is also generally involved in a romance with a secondary character and also has a close friend or confidant who generally perishes in their attempt to help Simple Art of Murder protagonist find the culprit. In each story, deaths usually occur in a cascade, and the detective is a lone wolf in a sea of ineffective police officers who work in parallel and often complicate the case. Next, Chandler elucidates the logic behind the police officer archetype in a murder Simple Art of Murder. Works Simple Art of Murder crime literature frequently involve rampant corruption. It follows that the victims of the murders only get justice after the independent acts of a detective figure, rather than through the justice system. The detective is also more successful than the police by virtue of their conception of the journey as a quest rather than a circular discourse. The American flavor of crime fiction is distinct from British crime fiction because of its realism, including its discussion of real violence and real systemic problems in the justice system. British crime literature, Chandler concludes, has drifted away from the realism that comprises compelling and legitimate stories. However, it represents a significant moment in the theory of an important American literary genre. Raymond Chandler. The Simple Art of Murder There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge. He was a late bloomer who started writing at age 44 after getting fired from his cushy oil company job. Not all good ones are. The writer famed for his gritty American dialogue spoke like a BBC commentator. There is plenty of that kind of social and emotional hypocrisy around today. The average—or only slightly above average—detective story does. The story is his adventure in search of a hidden truth. A tip of the fedora to the female hardboiled detective. For Simple Art of Murder, Shakespeare represented escape. Ribald, tragic, hilarious, political, Simple Art of Murder most of all, entertaining. We forget why he wrote. He often drubs his predecessors:. I love Chandler, because he always wrote from the Simple Art of Murder. Skip to content Later Bloomer. In which I revisit Chandler's classic Atlantic Monthly essay on genre writing. Share on facebook. Share on pinterest. Share on twitter. Share on linkedin. But his accent was a studied decision. Chandler was born in Chicago to Simple Art of Murder American father and Irish mother. Emotion trumps technique. I love Chandler, because he always wrote from the belly: There was a desert wind blowing that night. Want undeniable proof that it's never too late and you're never too old? Tell me more. The Simple Art of Murder Summary & Study Guide The Simple Art of Murder is a critical essay by hard-boiled detective fiction author Raymond Chandler. These versions, which are a history of Chandler's writings, has little to do with the third version, which appeared in the Saturday Review of LiteratureApril 15,and, somewhat rewritten, served to introduce the eponymous short story collection The Simple Art of MurderHoughton Mifflin Co. The essay is considered a seminal piece of literary criticism. Although Chandler's primary topic is the art and failings of detective fiction, he touches on general literature and modern society as well. The opening statement — "Fiction Simple Art of Murder any form has always intended to be realistic" — places Chandler in a lineage with earlier American Realistsin particular Mark Twain and his critique of James Fenimore Cooper" Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses ". Chandler dissects A. Bentleyand Freeman Wills Crofts. The classic detective story "has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Chandler reserves his praise for Dashiell Hammett. Simple Art of Murder Chandler and Hammett were contemporaries and grouped as the founders of the hard- boiled school, Chandler speaks Simple Art of Murder Hammett as the "one individual Chandler concludes his essay by moving from reality in literature to reality itself, "a world in which gangsters can rule nations and almost rule cities Early in the telemovie Miss Marple says, "There is never anything simple about murder. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Book by Raymond Chandler. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced Simple Art of Murder may be challenged and removed. Dewey Decimal. Works by Raymond Chandler. Philip Marlowe. Raymond Chandler Speaking. Categories : Short story collections by Raymond Chandler Detective fiction short stories Essays about literature Works about art genres essays short story collections Works originally published in The Atlantic magazine Houghton Mifflin books. Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description matches Wikidata Articles needing additional references from November All articles needing additional references Articles with Project Gutenberg Simple Art of Murder. Namespaces Article Talk. Views Read Edit View history. Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file. Download as PDF Printable version. Suomi Edit links. First edition. Crime fictionliterary criticism. Houghton Mifflin..
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 1920S Mystery Fiction
    1920s Mystery Fiction CLASSIC AUTHORS actually writing in that time period (characters in parentheses) Anthony Abbot Margery Allingham (Inspector Campion) H.C. Bailey (Reggie Fortune) Josephine Bell (David Wintringham) Earl Derr Biggers (Charlie Chan) * Nicholas Blake (Nigel Strangeways) Anthony Boucher Leo Bruce (Sgt. Beef, Carolus Deene) John Dickson Carr (Dr. Fell and Sir Henry Merrivale) Raymond Chandler (Philip Marlowe) * Leslie Charteris (Simon Templar – "The Saint") G.K. Chesterton (Father Brown) * Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple) * J.J. Connington (Superintendent Ross, Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield) Anthony Berkeley Cox (a.k.a. A.B. Cox, Anthony Berkeley and Frances Iles) (Roger Sheringham) Freeman Wills Crofts (Irish, Inspector Joseph French) Elizabeth Daly The Detection Club Mignon Eberhart (Nebraska author – "the American Agatha Christie") * R. Austin Freeman (Dr. Thorndyke) Erle Stanley Gardner (Perry Mason) * Anthony Gilbert (Arthur Crook) Dashiell Hammett (Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, The Continental Op) * Georgette Heyer (thrillers – Superintendent Hannasyde and Inspector Hemingway) * Michael Innes (Sir John Appleby) C.H.B. Kitchin (Malcolm Warren) Ngaio Marsh (Insp. Roderick Alleyn) * A.A. Milne ("The Red House Mystery") Gladys Mitchell (Mrs. Bradley) William F. Nolan, ed. Stuart Palmer (Hildegarde Withers) Ellery Queen * Craig Rice (Jake Justus, Helen Brand, John Joseph Malone) Mary Roberts Rinehart (American) * Sax Rohmer (Fu Manchu) * Dorothy L. Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey & Harriet Vane) * Joseph T. Shaw, ed. Georges Simenon (Inspector Maigret) * Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe) * Phoebe Atwood Taylor (Asey Mayo, Leonidas Witherall) Josephine Tey (Insp. Alan Grant) * Arthur Upfield (Australian – Det. Insp. Napoleon Bonaparte) S.S. Van Dine (Philo Vance) * Edgar Wallace Patricia Wentworth (Miss Silver) Cornell Woolrich CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS with works set in 1920s-1930s Suzanne Arruda (Africa) George Baxt (NY/LA) K.K.
    [Show full text]
  • July – December 2019 British Library
    Follow us on Twitter @BL_Publishing Our trade distributor Spain and Portugal Italy Jenny Padovani Penny Padovani Titles in this catalogue can be [email protected] T +39 0575 614338 ordered direct from our distributor: [email protected] South East and North Asia Marston Book Services Publishers International New Zealand Milton Park, Abingdon Marketing David Bateman Ltd OXON, OX14 4SB T +44 1202 896210 [email protected] T +44 (0) 1235 465500 [email protected] [email protected] South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, [email protected] Greece and Cyprus Swaziland and Botswana Isabella Curtis Peter Hyde Associates UK local representatives T +30 210 7218995 [email protected] [email protected] London and South East For all other sales territories, USA and Canada Pinnacle Booksales UK point of sale and marketing Trafalgar Square Publishing [email protected] materials T +1 800 888 4741 [email protected] [email protected] Maria Vassilopoulos South West England Africa (excluding South Africa, T +44 (0)20 7412 7704 British Library Debbie Jones Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland T +44 (0)7710759720 T +44 (0)1822 617 223 and Botswana) [email protected] M +44 (0)7850 621204 Matthew Walsh [email protected] Gunnar Lie & Associates Ltd For publicity Midlands, Norfolk, Oxford, Tel: +44 (0)20 8605 1097 Cambridge and Wales E-mail: [email protected] Abbie Day Ian Tripp T +44 (0)20 7412 7266 Publishing Middle East (including Turkey T +44 (0)7970 450162 [email protected] July – December
    [Show full text]
  • Politics and the 1920S Writings of Dashiell Hammett 77
    Politics and the 1920s Writings of Dashiell Hammett 77 Politics and the 1920s Writings of Dashiell Hammett J. A. Zumoff At first glance, Dashiell Hammett appears a common figure in American letters. He is celebrated as a left-wing writer sympathetic to the American Communist Party (CP) in the 1930s amid the Great Depression and the rise of fascism in Europe. Memories of Hammett are often associated with labor and social struggles in the U.S. and Communist “front groups” in the post-war period. During the period of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communism, Hammett, notably, refused to collaborate with the House Un-American Activities Committee’s (HUAC) investigations and was briefly jailed and hounded by the government until his death in 1961. Histories of the “literary left” in the twentieth century, however, ignore Hammett.1 At first glance this seems strange, given both Hammett’s literary fame and his politics. More accurately, this points to the difficulty of turning Hammett into a member of the “literary left” based on his literary work, as opposed to his later political activity. At the same time, some writers have attempted to place Hammett’s writing within the context of the 1930s, some even going so far as to posit that his work had underlying left-wing politics. Michael Denning, for example, argues that Hammett’s “stories and characters . in a large part established the hard-boiled aesthetic of the Popular Front” in the 1930s.2 This perspective highlights the danger of seeing Hammett as a writer in the 1930s, instead of the 1920s.
    [Show full text]
  • The Contemporary Irish Detective Novel
    The Contemporary Irish Detective Novel Edited by Elizabeth Mannion General Editor: Clive Bloom Crime Files Series Editor Clive Bloom Emeritus Professor of English and American Studies Middlesex University London Since its invention in the nineteenth century, detective fi ction has never been more popular. In novels, short stories, fi lms, radio, television and now in computer games, private detectives and psychopaths, poisoners and overworked cops, tommy gun gangsters and cocaine criminals are the very stuff of modern imagination, and their creators one mainstay of popular consciousness. Crime Files is a ground-breaking series offering scholars, students and discerning readers a comprehensive set of guides to the world of crime and detective fi ction. Every aspect of crime writing, detective fi ction, gangster movie, true-crime exposé, police procedural and post-colonial investigation is explored through clear and informative texts offering comprehensive coverage and theoretical sophistication. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14927 Elizabeth Mannion Editor The Contemporary Irish Detective Novel Editor Elizabeth Mannion Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , USA Crime Files ISBN 978-1-137-53939-7 ISBN 978-1-137-53940-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53940-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016933996 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identifi ed as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or here- after developed.
    [Show full text]
  • Click Here to Read the Introductions by Rex Stout. TABLES of CONTENTS
    Rex Stout Mystery Monthly (http://www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/b201.htm#A3580) Launched to cash in on the success of the paperback editions of three Nero Wolfe novels, Rex Stout’s Mystery Monthly (initially under slightly different titles) was a digest‐sized mystery magazine combining classic reprints and some original material. Stout was listed as editor‐in‐chief, and contributed an introduction to each issue, but otherwise had little involvement. Click here to read the introductions by Rex Stout. Rex Stout Mystery Quarterly http://www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/t3388.htm#A72295 http://www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/t3388.htm#A72294 Publishers: o Avon Book Company; 119 West 57th Street, New York 13, NY: Rex Stout Mystery Quarterly Editors: o Louis Greenfield ‐ Editor: Rex Stout Mystery Quarterly TABLES OF CONTENTS (Rex Stout Mystery Quarterly [#1, May 1945] ed. Louis Greenfield (Avon Book Company, 25¢, 165pp, digest ifc. ∙ Introduction ∙ Rex Stout ∙ ed 11 ∙ Death and Company [The Continental Op] ∙ Dashiell Hammett ∙ ss Black Mask Nov 1930 19 ∙ Four Suspects [Jane Marple] ∙ Agatha Christie ∙ ss Pictorial Review Jan 1930 31 ∙ The Snake ∙ John Steinbeck ∙ ss The Monterey Beacon Jun 22 1935 40 ∙ The Rousing of Mr. Bradegar ∙ H. F. Heard ∙ ss The Great Fog and Other Weird Tales, Vanguard 1944 48 ∙ In the Library ∙ W. W. Jacobs ∙ ss Harper’s Monthly Jun 1901 56 ∙ Lawyer’s Fee ∙ H. Felix Valcoe ∙ ss Detective Fiction Weekly Oct 5 1940 68 ∙ Image in the Mirror [Lord Peter Wimsey] ∙ Dorothy L. Sayers ∙ nv Hangman’s Holiday, London: Gollancz 1933 89 ∙ Smart Guy ∙ Bruno Fischer ∙ ss 102 ∙ Black Orchids [Nero Wolfe; Archie Goodwin] ∙ Rex Stout ∙ na The American Magazine Aug 1941, as “Death Wears an Orchid” Rex Stout Mystery Quarterly [#2, August 1945] ed.
    [Show full text]
  • COLIN DURIEZ Dorothy L
    A BIOGRAPHY Death, Dante, and Lord Peter Wimsey COLIN DURIEZ Dorothy L. Sayers: A chronology 1713 Great sluice burst at Denver in the Fens (inspiration for the flood in Sayers’The Nine Tailors). 1854 Birth of Henry Sayers, Tittleshall, Norfolk. Son of Revd Robert Sayers. 1879 Opening of Somerville Hall (later renamed Somerville College), Oxford. Henry Sayers obtains a degree in Divinity from Magdalen College, Oxford. 1880 Henry Sayers ordained as minister of the Church of England in Hereford. 1884 Henry Sayers becomes headmaster of the Christ Church Choir School. 1892 Henry Sayers and Helen Mary (“Nell/Nelly”) Leigh marry. 1893 Dorothy Leigh Sayers born on 13 June, in the old Choir House at 1, Brewer Street, Oxford. Christened by Henry Sayers, 15 July, over the road in Christ Church Cathedral. 1894 BA qualifications opened to women in England, but without the award of a university BA degree. 1897 Henry Sayers accepted the living of Bluntisham-cum- Earith in East Anglia as rector. 1906 Dorothy discovers Alexander Dumas’ influentialThe Three Musketeers at the age of thirteen. 1908 On approaching her sixteenth birthday, Dorothy’s parents decided to send her to boarding school. Dorothy is taken to see Shakespeare’s Henry V in London. 178 A chronology 1909 Sent to the Godolphin School in Salisbury, 17 January, as a boarder. 1910 Dorothy pressured into being confirmed as an Anglican at Salisbury Cathedral. 1911 Dorothy comes first in the country in the Cambridge Higher Local Examinations, gaining distinctions in French and Spoken German. Nearly dies from the consequences of measles; sent home to recover.
    [Show full text]
  • Genre and Gender in Selected Works by Detection Club Writers Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie
    SEVENTY YEARS OF SWEARING UPON ERIC THE SKULL: GENRE AND GENDER IN SELECTED WORKS BY DETECTION CLUB WRITERS DOROTHY L. SAYERS AND AGATHA CHRISTIE A dissertation submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Monica L. Lott May 2013 Dissertation written by Monica L. Lott B.A., The University of Akron, 2003 B.S., The University of Akron, 2003 M.A., The University of Akron, 2005 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2013 Approved by Tammy Clewell Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Vera Camden Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Robert Trogdon Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Maryann DeJulio Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Clare Stacey Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Accepted by Robert Trogdon Chair, English Department Raymond A. Craig Dean, College of Arts and Sciences ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements.................................................................................... iv Introduction..................................................................................................1 Codification of the Genre.................................................................2 The Gendered Detective in Sayers and Christie ..............................9 Chapter Synopsis............................................................................11 Dorothy L. Sayers, the Great War, and Shell-shock..................................20 Sayers and World War Two in Britain ..........................................24 Shell-shock and Treatment
    [Show full text]
  • Raymond Chandler's Last Novel: Some Observations on the "Priva, Te Eye" Tradition
    RAYMOND CHANDLER'S LAST NOVEL: SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE "PRIVA, TE EYE" TRADITION HAROLD OREL At one moment in that popular "private eye" novel of 1942, The High Window, the hero refers to himself as a "cockeyed, careless, clubfooted, dissipated investigator. " Philip Marlowe knows that the odds are against him. "See me and you meet the best cops in town, " he muses. "Why despair? Why be lonely? Call Marlowe and watch the wagon come. " The frustration implicit in such name-calling of one's self is, how­ ever, a passing mood. Marlowe knows that he is not so hopeless as all that. He knows it because he knows who he is, and what he believes in. His ethics are consistent and an awesome thing to watch, because this cock­ eyed and careless investigator succeeds where the police fail, and does so because, being true to himself, he cannot then be false to any man. When he lectures a cynical Detective-Lieutenant, Jesse Breeze, his anger flares up: 'Until you guys own your own souls you don't own mine. Until you guys can be trusted every time and always, in all times and conditions, to seek the truth out and find it and let the chips fall where they may—until that time comes, I have a right to listen to my conscience, and protect my cli­ ent the best way I can. Until I'm sure you won't do him more harm than you'll do the truth good. Or until I'm hauled before somebody that can make me talk.
    [Show full text]
  • The Simple Art of Murder Raymond Chandler
    The Simple Art of Murder Raymond Chandler Fiction in any form has always intended to be realistic. Old fashioned novels which now seem stilted and artificial to the point of burlesque did not appear that way to the people who first read them. The detective story for a variety of reasons can seldom be promoted. It is usually about murder and hence lacks the element of uplift. Murder, which is a frustration of the indi vidual and hence a frustration of the race, may have, and in fact has, a good deal of sociological implication. But it has been going on too long for it to be news. If the mystery novel is at all realistic which it very seldom is) it is written in a certain spirit of detachment; otherwise nobody but a psycho path would want to write it or read it. The murder novel has also a depressing way of minding its own business, solving its own problems and answering its own questions. There is nothing left to discuss, except whether it was well enough written to be good fiction, and the people who make up the half-million sales wouldn't know that anyway. The detection of quality in writing is difficult enough even for those who make a career of the job, without paying too much attention to the matter of advance sales. The detective story (perhaps we had better call it that, since the English formula still dominates the trade) has to find its public by a slow process of distillation. That it does do this and holds on thereafter with such tenacity, is a fact- the reasons for it are a study for more patient minds than mine Nor is it any part of my thesis to maintain that it is a vital and significant form of art.
    [Show full text]
  • Raymond Chandler: Breaking the Norms of the Detective Genre
    Balazs Biro Raymond Chandler: Breaking the Norms of the Detective Genre My theory was that readers just thought that they cared about nothing but the action; that really although they didn’t know it, they cared very little about the action. The thing they really cared about, and that I care about, was the creation of emotion through dialogue and description.1 Raymond Chandler is revered as one of the most influential crime writers in American literature. His novels about private eye Philip Marlowe, the idealistic and lonely defender of Los Angeles of the 1930s and 1940s, broke the norms of the conventional detective and mystery story. Previous detective stories were constructed to follow the classic pattern established by Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with the application of a heroic puzzle-solving detective like Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin2 or Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.3 Peter J. Rabinowitz, for instance, claims that “the de- tective story is a highly conventionalised genre, with specific rules which have been accepted by readers, critics and writers alike.”4 Chandler how- ever, approached his stories on another level by creating a realistic portrait of a corrupted city with perverted ideals that subsequently influenced the way the entire genre was used. He introduced a style and themes that clearly violated the norms and conventions of the genre of detective fiction and also exposed less savoury aspects of society. These concerns take Chandler out of the precise confines of the cerebral puzzle of, for example the pedantic Hercule Poirot.5 By sharply questioning people’s normative perception of the society around them, Chandler violates the rules of the detective novel on a grand scale.
    [Show full text]
  • The New Wild West: the Urban Mysteries of Dashiell Hammett And
    THE NEW WILD WEST: THE URBAN MYSTERIES DF DASHIELL HAMMETT AND RAYMDND CHANDLER by Pau l Ske noly BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY o BOISE. IDAHO o Boise State University Western Writen Series Number 54 7Ae llew Wil4 WeJt: 7Ae 1,(,.6I1n I1t¥Jte"ieJ cf /:)IIJltiell IIlIfttfttett IIn4 f<1I¥ftt cn4 Cltlln41e,. By Paul Skenazy University of California Santa Cruz EWton: WayIW Ot.attenoa Jamft H. Marui~ CoYer o.:.igD and tuUllfatioQ by Amy SJuno. Copyrirbt 19B! Boise State University. Boise. Idaho Copyright 198! by the Boile St a~ University Western Writen Series ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Library of Congress Card No. 8!·710'" Int<:mational Standard Book No. 0· 88430· 028· " Printed in the United Slates of America by J &. D Printing Mer idian, Idaho 7Ae l1ew Wi" We~t : 7Ae 1/1-6f111 /1I~~tel'ie~ pi ~fI~kie" 1If1/11/11ett fllld RfI~/IIP/1d CAfllldlel' 7lre llew tVil4 tVe.6t : 7lre 1(,-6411 JJt~.6t e";e.6 III ~4.6lrie" 11411llllett 4114 «4~1Il111l4 C1r41l41el' Puzzles and suspense have always been a part of storytelling. and some loyal critics of detective fiction like to say that every story has a mystery in it somewhere. They trace the roots of the detective form back to Oedipus and to the Bible. But the detective story as a genre is a product of the nineteenth century; it developed alongside the new police forces and detective agencies in the new industrial cities suc h as Paris and London, which required organized forms of municipal control and law enforcement and which used scientific methods of detection.
    [Show full text]
  • Raymond Chandler and His Ambiguous Relationships to Women: a Search for Hidden Meanings Within His Crime Novels
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE Lyuba Pervushina provided by Jagiellonian Univeristy Repository Minsk State Linguistics University Richard R. E. Kania Jacksonville State University of Alabama Raymond Chandler and His Ambiguous Relationships to Women: A Search for Hidden Meanings within His Crime Novels Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) is recognized today as one of the greats of American crime fiction. In the “hard-boiled” pattern of Dashiell Hammett, he is often described as a realistic writer of the American scene in the 1940s. And a dark vision it is, filled with betrayal and dishonesty, wherein even the protagonist is not a hero. A Chandler detective may have more integrity than the other characters in the story, but not that much more. His clients have hidden agendas and devious motives, especially the women. None are pure, some even are diabolical and evil. Chandler began writing crime fiction in his mid-forties, but had been writ­ ing poetry and essays since his college days in England (MacShane 1976: 23). He modeled his first crime stories on those of Dashiell Hammett, whose writing he admired, and sought to have them published in Black Mask, a very suc­ cessful “pulp” magazine where Hammett also published some of his fiction (MacShane 1976: 48-49). His first published short story was “Blackmailers Don’t Shoot,” which he later described as “pure pastiche” (MacShane 1976: 51). In 1939, after five years of writing short stories for various pulps, he produced his first novel, The Big Sleep (MacShane 1976: 61; Freeman 2007: 174-175,177).
    [Show full text]