The High Window and The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler

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The High Window and The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler, along with Dashiell Hammett, invented what is now known as modern detective literature. Chandler excelled in the art, creating "wise-cracking" cynical "private *censored*s," such as Philip Marlowe. Marlowe and Sam Spade are what shall forever be the standard Private eye with razor sharp wit, keen intellect, and the blatant disregard for authority. Philip Marlowe is the smooth talking yet sentimental private eye. Marlowe's sentimental side is what turned him into a real person, and not a "colorless narrator" as Sam Spade was often criticized as being by numerous critics. (Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, 25-26)

Raymond Chandler, was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 23, 1888, but spend his boyhood and young adulthood in England, where he attended Dulwich college. Later on Chandler worked as a free-lance journalist for The Westminster Gazette and The Speculator. During WWI, he fought in France with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and later transferred to the Royal Flying Corps. In 1919, he returned to the United States and settled in California. Soon after, he became a prestigious oil-company director, but due to the depression and his drinking problem he soon lost his job. Not until he was 45 did Chandler start to write fiction. This is somewhat odd because he is often claimed as being the "father" of the hard-boiled genre. Chandler published his first stories in the pulp magazine, The Black Mask. Chandler's first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. Chandler published one collection of stories, and only seven novels in his lifetime. In the remaining year, of his life he was elected President of the Myste...

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... a mass-marketed mainstream societal look. In both books, Chandler also suggests the only way to become true again is to leave, though, in some cases, not even that helps. In The Lady in the Lake, a woman runs away to the wilderness to escape her ignominious life, but her problems follow, it was too late. I have always had a love for the quick wit and sleuthing of detective novels; though I never did like the Hardy Boys.

Bibliography:

WORKS CITED

1. Chandler, Raymond. The High Window.

New York, Vintage Crime, 1942.

2. Chandler, Raymond. The Lady in the Lake.

New York, Vintage Crime, 1943.

3. MacShane, Frank. The Life of Raymond Chandler.

New York, EP Dutton & Co, 1976.

4. MacShane, Frank. Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler.

New York, Columbia Univ. Press, 1981.

5. Marling, William. Raymond Chandler.

Boston, Twayne, 1986.

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