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Wednesday April 20, 2005

Raymond Chandler's Killer in the rain

I recently bought a book by Raymond Chandler called Killer in the Rain. It is basically the short stories he had published in the 'pulp' magazines before he wrote his books. It is interesting to read these stories as a lot of them are shorter versions of some of his published books.

I found the story "Mandarin's Jade" interesting and another in the book as it is his only stories I know of where he names the chapters instead of just numbering them. I think this might have come from naming the episodes in the pulp magazine instead of just chapter one, two etc.

There is an excellent introduction by Philip Durham who explains why he thinks it is worth reading these stories which could be seen simply as the baby brothers of the novels that appeared later. Philip writes that this practice of reusing material is not unknown by authors - he did however not like doing it hence his desire for these short stories not to be reprinted, after the appearance of the 'final versions'. The introduction also looks at key parts of Chandler's novels and shows how clever he was in " combining and enlarging plots, maintaining a thematic consistancy, blowing up scenes ans adapteing fusing and adding characters". The development of Marlowe in the novels is also charted through these short stories.

If you like his novels go and buy this book you will enjoy it.

( Apr 20 2005, 04:00:37 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

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