I have just finished reading my first biography type book. I used to think that perhaps biographies would not be up my street. I figured they might be boring or long winded or perhaps merely a chronological series of events dressed up in some floral language. How interesting could it be to read about some one's life and what they went through. I was not sure I would be interested to get the lowdown on how s/he suffered for her/his art, or what a nice and down to earth person s/he still is, even after all the success they have had. Well..... I am going to have to give that one a rethink! Mind you, I think the interesting-ness of the biography might very well depend on how interested you were in the person or his/her work in real life.
NB: no spoiler alert for this one - but do not read on if you do not want to know any more about the life of Raymond Chandler.
Raymond Chandler: A Biography - Tom Hiney
Initially I was concerned that reading more about Chandler's private life and getting to know the guy behind Philip Marlowe would undo the appreciation I have for his work but this is definitely not the case. In a way there are many reasons to firmly resent Chandler: he was an alcoholic (and in denial about it for most of his life), he drank himself out of a job and into a blackout several times, leaving him and his wife nearly destitute. He seemed to like women only if they needed rescuing, hated snobs and considered a lot of the modern literature around him fake, too intellectual and therefore unworthy of his good opinion. He hated cops and politicians and the FBI (not sure if that is a bad thing?). Also Chandler was restless, moved house a lot and never seemed to be able to settle down in one place for very long. Most things bored him and he acted like a spoilt child a lot of the time, especially when he was drinking. Yet, with all his obvious faults, he also comes across as a witty man who has a great sense of humor (black and self deprecating it may be) about himself and his writing. He can write the most amazingly personal and caring letters and was absolutely devoted to his wife Cissy (well, apart from the 2 times he heated on her) and their cat, Taki.
Chandler spent his first few years in the USA. It was not an easy life, especially not since his alcoholic father had run out on his mother and him. They had to move back to England so that her family could support them both and Chandler got to go to a nice school and even managed to get his uncle to pay for him to spend some time in Europe. Once he has completed his education and after several failed attempts at finding and holding down a job, he decides that his future is not in England and moves back to the States. After some less successful career choices he decides to train as an accountant and lands himself in a booming oil company to make a career for himself.
This he manages very well, in between courting Cissy and being drunk for a lot of the time. He then gets his mum over to live with him and ends up marrying Cissy. Chandler teaches himself how to write by doing a course and eventually makes his debut in the pulp magazines in the States. He even works in movies at one point as a script doctor. Life was sometimes hard for him and his wife. There were times they needed to watch the pennies and to had survive on very little but other times life was all sunshine and fluffy bunnies.
For me one of the most interesting parts of the book was the time he worked for the Pulp Magazines in the 1930's. It is great to read how he learnt to hone his skills as a writer by publishing his short stories in the pulps. The bit that I found really funny was when Chandler talks about doing a course in short story writing and learning to carry a prose scene. He says that it "was two or three years before he could get a character out of a room convincingly". The fact that something that I, as a reader do not even think twice about would take him so much time to master is kind of funny. Chandler also mentions his emphasis on atmosphere more than plot. This is something you can feel in his books. He loves to set the mood. He is not as descriptive as Dickens who takes 20 pages to describe some one's coat but Chandler does use beautiful descriptive language to set the scene and define the character. Plot wise you learn that sometimes he does not even know who did what and in one of his books a blonde all of a sudden becomes a brunette. In my opinion (and Tom Hiney's) this is just because he does not think these details are all that relevant. He is more interested in telling the reader why a character stands a certain way, thinks a certain way and acts in a certain way. His use of the I-perspective is developed in the stories published in the pulps and later carried forward into his novels. Hiney also mentions Chandler's relaxed pace of writing. This was something I had picked up on when reading his novels already but I was not sure whether it was just my opinion or an actual recognised fact. I really love Chandler's relaxed pace. It seems to suit Marlowe and the atmosphere projected in the novels - Marlowe is in no hurry and as a reader you tend to slow down your reading pace to match this relaxed attitude.
The books also takes you through all the Marlow novels one by one. It tells you about the circumstances in Chandler's life at the time of writing each one and how he approached the writing process. All this helps you to understand not only Chandler but Marlowe as well. At several points there are parallels drawn between Chandler's situation in life and those of the characters in his novels. I am sure Chandler is not the first author to work out some issues in his work. Not all his characters may speak for him but it is clear to me that several of them share Chandler's character traits or opinions.
One final thing I want to mention is that I think that it is a good thing that Hiney can see Chandler's works for what they are and relate them back to the times in which they were written. It is important to realise what the attitudes and opinions of society were when Chandler was writing his pulp stories and novels. The fact that he calls women "dames" or "chicks" is not necessarily derogatory but more the way he talks (he collected slang words and phrases), and the way society at the time saw women. Mind you, I am not saying that caveman attitudes towards women should be allowed nowadays but I am saying that looking at the times he was in, it explains why Chandler wrote the way he did.
The book is a great read (great pace, good structure, good source material, great sense of humor)and it goes through all the phases in Chandler's life. It gives us an even handed account of Chandler the man - it does not pull any punches about what a nuisance he could be when drunk but it also shows his caring side when his wife fell seriously ill. I came out feeling admiration for both the man and his achievements in life. It makes me want to go out and get all the Marlowe books and read the pulp stories as well (here's hoping Play and/or Amazon have them?!). Chandler started out as a writer of hard boiled detective stories for the pulps, grinding out stories to make some money and hone his skills. He ended up being a master at the genre and certainly deserves his place in American literary history.
Reading this book and learning about the time Chandler spent writing for the pulps has also made me curious about some of the other pulp writers that are mentioned; Dashiell Hammett and James Cain. I already knew that Robert E Howard used to write for them and HP Lovecraft but did not know that Chandler was one of the contributors to them as well. I seem have skipped from the ghost and horror stories of HP Lovecraft to the sword and sorcery stories of Robert E Howard and now skipped along to Raymond Chandler and that way back to the pulps. I love it when I come across potentially interesting authors that are new to me in this way. You stumble from one author to another and the discoveries that you make on the way are a great adventure.
PS: I did not bother with the notes and did not feel I missed out on anything. Also it would have been nice to have a list of published works in chronological order at the end instead of it all being tucked away under the index entry Chandler, Raymond.
Title: Raymond Chandler: A Biography
Author: Tom Hiney
287 pages
Vintage
ISBN nr 0-09-95351-0
Books to be read: 75
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