‘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.’ Philip Marlowe had it lucky: I haven’t even got a hat.
This month, Radio Four will air four plays of Raymond Chandler’s novels. Adapted by script writers Stephen Wyatt and Robin Brooks and starring Toby Stephens as Chandler’s infamous detective, the Classic Chandler season begins at 2:30 this Saturday with The Big Sleep. Make it your business to listen.
Somewhere between the fish course and the appreciation of Islamophobia, dinner party guests discuss how Chandler revolutionised the detective novel. I disagree. Chandler did not revolutionise Private Dick Fiction: the plots of The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely are no more hardboiled than Dorothy L. Sayers’ more macabre efforts (Strong Poison comes to mind), although Chandler’s moral conclusions are much more ambiguous.
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Chandler owes his longevity to the originality of his style, and to his dialogue in particular.
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