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Raymond Chandler: Later Novels and Other Writings: The Lady in the Lake / The Little Sister / The Long Goodbye / Playback /Double Indemnity / Selected Essays and Letters (Library of America)
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Manufacturer: Library of America
Author: Raymond Chandler
Publisher: Library of America
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $23.10
You Save: $ 11.90 ( 34% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Library of America
Author: Raymond Chandler
Publisher: Library of America
Average Customer Rating:
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Raymond Chandler: Later Novels and Other Writings: The Lady in the Lake / The Little Sister / The Long Goodbye / Playback /Double Indemnity / Selected Essays and Letters (Library of America) Description
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9781883011086
ISBN: 1883011086
Label: Library of America
Manufacturer: Library of America
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 1088
Publication Date: 1995-10-01
Publisher: Library of America
Studio: Library of America
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9781883011086
ISBN: 1883011086
Label: Library of America
Manufacturer: Library of America
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 1088
Publication Date: 1995-10-01
Publisher: Library of America
Studio: Library of America
Editorial Review of Raymond Chandler: Later Novels and Other Writings: The Lady in the Lake / The Little Sister / The Long Goodbye / Playback /Double Indemnity / Selected Essays and Letters (Library of America)
Raymond Chandler is arguably the best American pulp novelist. His prose is so acutely visual, his characters so raw and intense that it is small wonder that all but one of his books have been made into movies. And his hero Philip Marlowe has graduated into American legend. Together with its companion volume (Stories and Early Novels), Later Novels and Other Writings forms the most complete Chandler collection in print. In addition to his later novels, this collection contains selected essays and letters, biographical information, and textual as well as explanatory notes. As an added bonus, the editor has included Chandler's screenplay to Double Indemnity, the classic Billy Wilder film adapted from James M. Cain's novel. You're able to compare the script to the finished movie and have the rare opportunity to see how one major crime novelist altered and interpreted another.
Customer Reviews of Raymond Chandler: Later Novels and Other Writings: The Lady in the Lake / The Little Sister / The Long Goodbye / Playback /Double Indemnity / Selected Essays and Letters (Library of America)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Maturity in his writing
Review: After reading his earlyworks you can see how Chandler used his previous stories and ideas to develop these incredible novels featuring his most famous detective Philip Marlowe.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Outstanding in so many ways
Review: First, let me say that there's a separate volume of Chandler's early novels. As much as I liked this volume, I actually enjoyed the earlier novels just a little bit more and suggest starting there. I started reading one story and wound up going through all of them in both volumes in the space of a few months. I also wound up reading and enjoying all the Dashiell Hammett stories, but I give Chandler a slight edge.
I won't try to list all the ways these novels are great and entertaining, but here's one thought that hasn't been mentioned in other reviews. Chandler is excellent at presenting a hero-character who has to worry about money and making a living. Indeed, Chandler makes this issue integral to the character's persona and to the plot line. Yes, the books are escapist in so many ways. Yet, in this respect at least, they are far more realistic than almost all of the fiction, and much of the non-fiction, these days.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Writing at its best - and it happens to be in detective noir
Review: C-L-A-S-S-I=C HIGH/low notes. These stories are like a deck cards, all aces...... but there are way too few left. I finished "Little Sisters" (GREAT), "Farewell, My Lovely"- is recommended in the other half (earlier edition). The hook is Marlow. In times where many take the easy/cheap way out, I ride hard with Marlow. Marlow does it with style, humor, wit, grit, and nothing less than an all american: get the job done. But in a way that is the opposite his nemesis: the monopolies of power & money. Of course they admire and hate him. But it just doesn't get any better than Chandler. Need an excuse? Then read it for the wrting alone. The best!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The best of Raymond Chandler
Review: This book, contaning Chandlers later works, is perhaps the best collection of Chandler you can find. Sure, does not contain the better-known novels - The Big Sleep and Farewell my Lovely - but it does contain The Long Goodbye, which is not only Chandler's finest, but a great novel by any measure.
Chandler lived a tough, hard-drinking life, and these later works came out of his mind with difficulty. But the quality of The Lady in the Lake and The Long Goodbye (The Little Sister is less memorable) make this collection essential.
In addition, the book contains some essays and letters, including Chandler's writing on the mystery genre, which will interest any budding suspense author.
In short, read this book! Read The Long Goodbye, then read it again. This is not just a great mystery, but it is also great literature.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Classic American, cynical detective stories.
Review: Chandler is arguably the best detective story writer out there. If you expand this genre to all mystery writers, he would still be one of the best.
Detective stories aren't as common as they once were, but if you look at the offspring of the Pulp magazine once so popular, television, they are still as popular as ever. Chandler was one author who defined what a detective story was. This book contains four novels:The Lady in the Lake, The Little Sister, The Long Goodbye, and Playback. These are wonderfully entertaining stories that contain the archetypical hard-bitten detective, Philip Marlowe. After reading these stories you will forever see Marlowe in every detective story you see or read, from Magnum to the latest TV cop. How can you not love an author who sums up Modern American Capitalism with lines like these? "We make the finest packages in the world, Mr. Marlowe. The stuff inside is mostly junk." Or an author who in the early 50's, (50 years before the current 'Queers Dress Up' shows) so presciently wrote, "The queer is the artistic arbiter of our age, chum." Or his comment on a speech by a politician, "He did not bore us with any facts."
These books are not just riveting, fun reading, but full of thoughtful quotes like the above.
Chandler also is must-reading for his understanding of criminality, venality, human nature, Southern California, Movies, American culture and American relationship dynamics. I hate to use the word "classic" to describe stories that are just so plain fun to read, but I find it hard not to.
This volume also contains a screenplay, Double Indemnity, and a few essays and letters. The essays "The Simple Art of Murder", and "Writers in Hollywood" should be required reading for anyone interested in 20th century culture, movies, and literature. Just a few tidbits more. Chandler on English Mystery Writers - "The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers." Chandler on boredom - "There are no dull subjects, only dull minds." Chandler on critics - "The average critic never recognizes an achievement when it happens. He explains it after it has become respectable."
My only criticism is that the plots are contrived and sometimes complicated. But such criticism is like complaining that the Mona Lisa would be a fine painting if only it were of a different size.
Chandler is simply wonderful, funny, cynical, and yes, - respectable.
Review Summary: Maturity in his writing
Review: After reading his earlyworks you can see how Chandler used his previous stories and ideas to develop these incredible novels featuring his most famous detective Philip Marlowe.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Outstanding in so many ways
Review: First, let me say that there's a separate volume of Chandler's early novels. As much as I liked this volume, I actually enjoyed the earlier novels just a little bit more and suggest starting there. I started reading one story and wound up going through all of them in both volumes in the space of a few months. I also wound up reading and enjoying all the Dashiell Hammett stories, but I give Chandler a slight edge.
I won't try to list all the ways these novels are great and entertaining, but here's one thought that hasn't been mentioned in other reviews. Chandler is excellent at presenting a hero-character who has to worry about money and making a living. Indeed, Chandler makes this issue integral to the character's persona and to the plot line. Yes, the books are escapist in so many ways. Yet, in this respect at least, they are far more realistic than almost all of the fiction, and much of the non-fiction, these days.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Writing at its best - and it happens to be in detective noir
Review: C-L-A-S-S-I=C HIGH/low notes. These stories are like a deck cards, all aces...... but there are way too few left. I finished "Little Sisters" (GREAT), "Farewell, My Lovely"- is recommended in the other half (earlier edition). The hook is Marlow. In times where many take the easy/cheap way out, I ride hard with Marlow. Marlow does it with style, humor, wit, grit, and nothing less than an all american: get the job done. But in a way that is the opposite his nemesis: the monopolies of power & money. Of course they admire and hate him. But it just doesn't get any better than Chandler. Need an excuse? Then read it for the wrting alone. The best!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The best of Raymond Chandler
Review: This book, contaning Chandlers later works, is perhaps the best collection of Chandler you can find. Sure, does not contain the better-known novels - The Big Sleep and Farewell my Lovely - but it does contain The Long Goodbye, which is not only Chandler's finest, but a great novel by any measure.
Chandler lived a tough, hard-drinking life, and these later works came out of his mind with difficulty. But the quality of The Lady in the Lake and The Long Goodbye (The Little Sister is less memorable) make this collection essential.
In addition, the book contains some essays and letters, including Chandler's writing on the mystery genre, which will interest any budding suspense author.
In short, read this book! Read The Long Goodbye, then read it again. This is not just a great mystery, but it is also great literature.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Classic American, cynical detective stories.
Review: Chandler is arguably the best detective story writer out there. If you expand this genre to all mystery writers, he would still be one of the best.
Detective stories aren't as common as they once were, but if you look at the offspring of the Pulp magazine once so popular, television, they are still as popular as ever. Chandler was one author who defined what a detective story was. This book contains four novels:The Lady in the Lake, The Little Sister, The Long Goodbye, and Playback. These are wonderfully entertaining stories that contain the archetypical hard-bitten detective, Philip Marlowe. After reading these stories you will forever see Marlowe in every detective story you see or read, from Magnum to the latest TV cop. How can you not love an author who sums up Modern American Capitalism with lines like these? "We make the finest packages in the world, Mr. Marlowe. The stuff inside is mostly junk." Or an author who in the early 50's, (50 years before the current 'Queers Dress Up' shows) so presciently wrote, "The queer is the artistic arbiter of our age, chum." Or his comment on a speech by a politician, "He did not bore us with any facts."
These books are not just riveting, fun reading, but full of thoughtful quotes like the above.
Chandler also is must-reading for his understanding of criminality, venality, human nature, Southern California, Movies, American culture and American relationship dynamics. I hate to use the word "classic" to describe stories that are just so plain fun to read, but I find it hard not to.
This volume also contains a screenplay, Double Indemnity, and a few essays and letters. The essays "The Simple Art of Murder", and "Writers in Hollywood" should be required reading for anyone interested in 20th century culture, movies, and literature. Just a few tidbits more. Chandler on English Mystery Writers - "The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers." Chandler on boredom - "There are no dull subjects, only dull minds." Chandler on critics - "The average critic never recognizes an achievement when it happens. He explains it after it has become respectable."
My only criticism is that the plots are contrived and sometimes complicated. But such criticism is like complaining that the Mona Lisa would be a fine painting if only it were of a different size.
Chandler is simply wonderful, funny, cynical, and yes, - respectable.