I got this in an email from Borders. since I can't figure out
how to link to it, and since it's pretty short, I'm sending
the whole thing. He makes some interesting points, though I'm
not sure why he's so critical and dismissive of series
fiction.
Interview The Undisputed Master: Jonathan Lethem on Raymond
Chandler Conducted by Trudy Wyss
Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) didn't publish his first novel
until he was 51. He only published seven in his lifetime (all
Philip Marlowe mysteries), along with many short stories, but
he remains in the estimation of many the standard by which
all mystery writers are judged. This month, Vintage is
releasing new paperback editions of Chandler's classic
fiction. We asked Jonathan Lethem, author of the esteemed
Motherless Brooklyn-and a huge Chandler fan-to talk about the
man many believe to be the greatest mystery writer who ever
lived.
I'm impressed that you're willing to talk to me not about
your own books, but Raymond Chandler's. What draws you to
Chandler?
Jonathan Lethem: If it was easy to say what obsesses me about
Chandler it probably wouldn't be the case, because it's the
complexity in a writer that keeps you going back and finding
new layers. Thinking about it in advance of doing this
interview, I've never had to articulate why Chandler is so
stirring for me. But having written Gun, with Occasional
Music and then Motherless Brooklyn, which are both very
affectionately indebted to Chandler, I find that people will
sometimes credit me for turning a twist on the hardboiled
voice or updating it in some way. And, of course, I'm always
flattered. But I also feel that there's something unfair
about that. Chandler himself is so sophisticated and
self-aware that he anticipates all of the satirical potential
in the hardboiled detective. The Chandler detective is one
who's self-aware to just a degree where he can see the
absurdity of his own actions, and particularly of the urge to
rescue other people. That's something Chandler was very
tormented about: What does it mean to try to be a hero? To be
a white knight in a kind of crumbling world?
And he's just also such a beautiful writer. The secret of
Chandler is that he's really very romantic. Behind all that
ennui there's this enormous yearning that causes him to
reach, in this very precarious way, for all sorts of
beautiful phrases and unlikely poetic comparisons. And then
he's always making fun of himself for doing it at the same
time. That's why writers obsess over Chandler-because he's
found a way to have his lyricism and make fun of it at the
same time. I also think there's a degree of self-loathing in
Chandler that's really interesting. He was drawn to other
artists who were attracted to the same material, like
Hitchcock. After he and Hitchcock worked together on adapting
Patricia Highsmith's novel into Strangers on a Train, if you
read Chandler's letters he's denouncing Highsmith for her
failure to do a good job with this material and he hates
Hitchcock. It's like he has to thrust this material as far
away from him as he can because his own attraction to it is
so uncomfortable for him.
He wanted to be thought of as more literary.
JL: Oh, of course he did, but he also made it impossible. He
did lots of self-defeating things, the most obvious one being
writing about a series detective and never breaking out of
that format. As high as his ambitions were, at some level he
was also very afraid of trying another kind of novel. So with
a book as great as The Long Goodbye, any reader who's
unprejudiced can just see that that's one of the great
American novels. He put all that ambition, feeling, literary
skill, and also yearning to be literary into this book, and
it's a great novel. But the fact is it also has his
detective, Marlowe, as the protagonist. That format was
freeing for him. Somehow it unlocked his ambition and it
unlocked his writing voice, but it was also a kind of prison
he created for himself because he never got to write outside
of that box.
What do you think about the films that were made from
Chandler mysteries?
JL: There are two that I think are among the greatest
American films, and they're at either end of the attempt to
film Chandler. The first is Howard Hawks's version of The Big
Sleep. And the second is Robert Altman's version of The Long
Goodbye with Elliott Gould. In each case the filmmaker used
Chandler as a platform to then go into his own obsessions. I
can't recall now what Chandler's impression of the Hawks film
was. If I'm remembering correctly, all he had to say was some
sort of snide comment about Lauren Bacall's performance.
Which is very typical of Chandler. Again, it's that
self-loathing that arises around people who are celebrating
the crime genre. And I doubt he would have been able to
appreciate what Altman did with his hero, because it's a very
irreverent, hippie-ish version of Marlowe. But those are
wonderful movies. I don't think there are any other
adaptations that really touch the greatness of the books.
But, you know, that's hard to do.
- Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and
wicked - Jane Austen
_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 19 Jul 2002 EDT