I'd go with this assessment of the Chandler letters. Some
very dubious speculation presented as fact, and very little
(if any) new material that I could find, despite the fact
that it was presented as offering new discoveries. The
Raymond Chandler Papers is better, but then it's a finish-off
of a MacShane project - and most of the writing in it is by
Chandler, so it was always going to be good.
Incidentally there's an excellent review (well, it's more of
a detailed demolition) of the problems with the biography on
The Raymond Chandler Website:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/3224/criticism.htm
Cheers Chris
At 12:53 AM 4/13/01 -0700, you wrote:
>Raymond Chandler - A Biography by Tom
Hiney
>
>Approx one year ago I red the UK Vintage
edition
>(1998) of this book. Very "mixed" feelings about
it...
>
>First, if you do not know about Chandler's life
and
>ignore his letters, the book is a rather
good
>introduction- providing you know at least most of
his
>novels.
>It's more of the journalism vein than a real
literary
>biography, and most of the reported facts
were
>available somewhere else.
>
>Further, it does not seem that Hiney tried to
contact
>the surviving "privileged" witnesses of
Chandler's
>life (or people having really met him), so no real
new
>angle.
>The alcoholism of Chandler takes a too important
place
>in Hiney's explanation of the author's
personality
>(IMHO)
>
>Except for some in his chapter notes, there is no
real
>bibliography about what Hiney searched as
preparation.
>No Chandler's bibliography either.
>
>Annoying: some gross factual mistakes in the text-
I
>lost part of my reading notes, so I cannot give
a
>precise example- but some of it was of an
equivalent
>of confusing the "Maltese Falcon" as being
by
>Chandler.
>Also, some brief citations from Chandler's letters
or
>documents are isolated from their context and
are
>hastily presented with decisive but
arguable
>conclusions (sometimes by ignoring other
documents
>that could give another understanding of
Chandler's
>attitude or thinking!).
>
>Hiney: definitely not "the" biography...
>
>
>E.Borgers
>Hard-Boiled Mysteries
>http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384
>
>
>--- William Denton <
buff@pobox.com> wrote:
>> I picked up the Hiney/MacShane collection
of
>> Chandler's letters today--it
>> looks really good. The local monster
bookstore
>> where I first looked
>> didn't have it, but it did have Hiney's bio
of
>> Chandler that came out a
>> couple of years ago. What's the word on it? I
read
>> MacShane's, but more
>> than 10 years ago, and can't remember many
details
>> of the life, although
>> most of the high and low points stick out.
Does
>> Hiney take a different
>> tack, or have new information?
>>
>> Bill
>> --
>> William Denton : Toronto, Canada :
>> http://www.miskatonic.org/
: Caveat lector.
>>
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>
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