“When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance,
it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character,
emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of
control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has
over the ball.”
Raymond Chandler
“He had the gift of tongue; he was a poet. Metaphors flowered for him in language utterly suited to the exotic people and places he was describing with Flaubertian meticulousness. Chandler didn’t moralize, satirize, deplore, or lament; he saw, selected, and said, in language that lives….He proved finally to have the three S’s that, joined in a writer, mean literature: the power to see, to sense, and to say.”
Lawrence Clark Powell on Raymond Chandler
Any writer seriously compared to Flaubert has a lot of gas in his style tank. The Big Sleep is one of four novels Chandler wrote in a short burst of creativity that elevated him to mythic status as a mystery writer. When my reading group met to ponder it over wine, whiskey, and pizza, we were filled with admiration for its snappy dialogue, smoldering similes, dead-on descriptions, and ability to evoke atmosphere with a deft turn of phrase. Here are a few techniques we especially admired in The Big Sleep (also see Blue-clock Socks):
He uses jarring, but oddly apt, images: “His thin clawlike hands were folded loosely on the rug, purple-nailed. A few locks of dry white hair clung to his scalp, like wild flowers fighting for life on a bare rock.” “All this time the soft giggling went on from the bed, that sound that made me think of rats behind a wainscoting in an old house.”
He uses external settings to reflect emotional states: “Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form itself on the edge of consciousness.”
He amasses details to build atmosphere: “There was a winking yellow light at the intersection. I turned the car and slid down a slope with a high bluff on one side, interurban tracks to the right, a low straggle of lights far off beyond the tracks, and then very far off a glitter of pier lights and a haze in the sky over a city.”
His dialogue does double duty, revealing character and advancing action: Marlowe: “You’ve got enough shady friends to know different.” Vivian: “They’re all soft compared to you.” Marlowe: “Thanks, lady. You’re no English muffin yourself.” Vivian: “Let’s get out of this rotten little town.”
Perfect control over the movement of a story: Like a great pitcher, Raymond Chandler had it, plus the three S’s: “the power to see, to sense, and to say.” Let’s power up our “intensity of artistic performance” as we craft our own unique, arresting styles — and write on!
