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Chandleresque prose. Don't believe me? Listen., Fév 27 2004
Chandler's opening style is widely imitated. Here's a conscious tribute which goes Chandler one better by putting this voice into Hitler's Germany. Here he parodies the opening of THE BIG SLEEP, and does it deliciously. Only Barry Fantoni does Chandler as well. "Circling the courtyard was an ambulatory, with a roof supported by thick beams and wooden columns, and this was patrolled by man with a pair of evil-looking Dobermanns. There wasn't much light apart from the coachlamp by the fron door, but as far as I could see the house was white with pebbledash walls and a deep mansard roof--as big as a decent-sized hotel of the sort I couldn't afford. Somewhere in the trees behind the house a peacock was screaming for help." This paragraph is also brilliantly constructed, but what especially appeals to me is the self-effacing joke about the size of the house and the last sentence, the sort of telling detail that mirrors the sardonic attitude of the narrator toward the Nazi rich. Next paragraph: "Closer to the door I got my first good look at the doctor. Since he was at least fifty, I suppose you could say he was distinguished looking. Taller than he had seemed sitting in the back of the car, and dressed fastidiously, but with a total disregard for fashion. He wore a stiff color you could have sliced bread with, a pin-striped suit of a light-grey shade, a cream-colored waist-coat and spats; his hands were gloved in grey kid, and on his neatly cropped square grey head he wore a large grey hat with a brim that surrounded the high pleated crown like a castle moat. He looked like an old suit of armor." A typical Chandleresque paragraph with the short summation sentence at the end like a punchline. Next paragraph: "He ushered me towards the big mahogany door which swung open to reveal an ashen-faced butler who stood aside as we crossed the threshold and stepped into the wide entrance hall. It was the kind of hall that made you feel lucky just to have got through the door. Twin flights of stairs with gleaming white banisters led up to the upper floors, and on the ceiling hung a chandeleir that was bigger than a church-bell and gaudier than a stripper's ear-rings. I made a mental note to raise my fees." "Another Chandleresque paragraph with the trade mark existenialism in the last sentence. He's not political, let alone communist, but the contrast between rich and poor is never far from the narrator's mind." Next paragraph: "The butler, who was Arab, asked to take my hat. "I'll hold onto it if you don't mind," I told him, feeling its brim between my fingers. "It will help me to keep my hands off the silver."
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