Raymond Chandler's Letters

2 April 10:  Some quotes below from 'Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler' edited by Frank McShane. Chandler at his best ('Farewell, My Lovely', 'The Long Goodbye') commented on life with clarity, compassion, wit, a cold eye and a steady intellect. He complained, like Thurber, of being dismissed because the books he wrote were in a genre that was not taken seriously, that was looked down upon. His books are eloquent, emotional, intelligent and angry. They show respect for the reader. And they are funny, too.

"I am just the right kind of writer for Hollywood. If I were any worse they would not have called for me. If I were any better I would not have gone."

"Marlow's struggle is the struggle of all fundamentally honest men to make a decent living in a corrupt society... The bitter fact is that outside of 2 or 3 technical professions... there is absolutely no way for a man of this age to acquire a decent affluence in life without in some degree corrupting himself, without accepting the cold, hard fact that success is always and everywhere a racket."

"I don't remember so well as I did. I have to make notes and lists. Sometimes quite familiar names slip off the edge of memory and hang out of sight, then pop back up grinning."

"I am well aware that magazine editors, like the Roman god Janus, must of necessity have two faces... that is part of his job, as it is also part of my job as a businessman not to let him do it too well."

"I shall never be able to change my temperament now. The most I can hope for is to outfox it occasionally."