The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler; and English Summer: A Gothic Romance

by Raymond Chandler

During a period of twenty years—from his start as a young writer for H. L. Mencken’s classic pulp magazine The Black Mask in the early 1930s, through the publication of his novels The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely , to his career as a Hollywood screenwriter in the 1940s—Raymond Chandler kept a series of private notebooks. Drawn from those journals, The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler offers an intimate view of the writer at work, revealing early ideas, descriptions, and anecdotes that would later be used in The Long Goodbye, The Blue Dahlia , and other classics. Filled with both public and private writings, The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler includes “Marlowesque” particulars such as pickpocket lingo, San Quentin jailhouse slang, a “Note on the Tommygun,” and musings on “Craps.” Here, too, are surprising, lesser known essays on Hollywood, the mystery story, British and American writing, and a wicked parody of Hemingway. This sampler—by turns whimsical, provocative, irreverent, and fascinating—also contains a list of possible story titles; “Chandlerisms;” and his short work “English A Gothic Romance,” which the writer viewed as a turning point in his career.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Mystery, Noir, Short Stories, Memoir

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in Black Mask, a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published seven novels during his lifetime (an eighth, in progress at the time of his death, was completed by Robert B. Parker). All but Playback have been made into motion pictures, some more than once. In the year before his death, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America.

Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is a founder of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers. The protagonist of his novels, Philip Marlowe, like Hammett's Sam Spade, is considered by some to be synonymous with "private detective". Both were played in films by Humphrey Bogart, whom many consider to be the quintessential Marlowe.

The Big Sleep placed second on the Crime Writers Association poll of the 100 best crime novels; Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Lady in the Lake (1943) and The Long Goodbye (1953) also made the list. The latter novel was praised in an anthology of American crime stories as "arguably the first book since Hammett's The Glass Key, published more than twenty years earlier, to qualify as a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happened to possess elements of mystery". Chandler was also a perceptive critic of detective fiction; his "The Simple Art of Murder" is the canonical essay in the field. In it he wrote: "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world."
Parker wrote that, with Marlowe, "Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious—an innocent who knows better, a Romantic who is tough enough to sustain Romanticism in a world that has seen the eternal footman hold its coat and snicker. Living at the end of the Far West, where the American dream ran out of room, no hero has ever been more congruent with his landscape. Chandler had the right hero in the right place, and engaged him in the consideration of good and evil at precisely the time when our central certainty of good no longer held."

Reviews

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really only for die-hard fans and/or those who are already interested in this type of idiosyncratic marginalia. Distinguishing a "notebook" from a "journal" or "diary" might at times come off as nit-picky, but it's an important one in this situation, as this is less a personal record than a ramshackle collection of sentence fragments, long lists of slang, a few rather unreadable writing exercises, and many excerpts of articles and essays from other writers that Chandler evidently drew inspiration from in some way (and while they might not be of the utmost interest in and of themselves, they're interesting in that Chandler found them interesting). Also included are a few more formal pieces, such as his published review of Diamonds Are Forever, a study of American vs. British English, and a previously unpublished screed outlining Hollywood's treatment of screenwriters that he ends up characterizing as "a testament of failure." The essay, certainly one of the best things about this collection, provides an illuminating, ground zero perspective on the collision of a screenwriter's creative impulses in the face of an unapologetic Hollywood machine (one choice bon mot: "integrity is a nice word, and you hear it a great deal in Hollywood, but you seldom meet the quality itself").

Also included is the short story "English Summer: A Gothic Romance," a piece Chandler was reportedly very fond of and held hopes for reworking into a full-length novel. It is, well, immediately apparent that this would have been a horrible idea. The story, interestingly, reverses Chandler's usual narrative strategy—rather than uncovering the unexpectedly poetic in squalid urban spaces, he begins with the picturesque English coast and attempts to uncover the unsavory elements lurking beneath. And while I'm sure that if Chandler had pursued this tactic in earnest he could very well have mastered it in time, but as is this is a British romance-mystery as pedestrian as it is cliché, the type, unfortunately, involving such exchanges as "'I'm afraid you're flirting with me'/ 'I'm afraid I am'"). The proceedings are livened up with the occasional Chandler witticism ("I had gone, a little to be near her, a little because asking me was a sort of insult, and I like insults, from some people"), but they come off here as painfully shoehorned, as incongruous as memorable. It's not made clear if Chandler considered this a complete work, but as is it's (at best) a dry run or even an early draft, which means, I suppose, that it's perfect for including in an informal "notebook" such as this.

[Lyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating peek behind the curtain. It's a short book, but packed with teasers, writing exercises, notes, and what-not.

[Chelsi Peace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing and hilarious. I love this man.

[Khenan Bragador · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite thin in content (small parts were covered in other chandler books), but some little gems here and there. Interesting to read.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

The private notebooks of RC - notes for his own use about writing, lists of good similes, little stories he wrote for correspondence courses.
Very interesting stuff just as a peek into the writer's mind and methods. Some of it is pretty ordinary, which in itself is fascinating when it comes from the same man who created the Marlowe novels.
It's scrappy and short, but long enough.

I haven't yet read the accompanying story 'English Summer'. Maybe next July back in the old country.

[Edwin Battistella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost all of Chandler’s notebook were destroyed at his death. This included some of the material from the two black loose-leaf notebooks that escaped including lists of similes (a face like a collapsed lung), Chandlerisms (She threw her arms around my neck and nicked my ear with the gunsight), slang, and drafts of sketches of scenes and characters.

[Brett Lambert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book. A collection of musings and sketches from renowned crime literature author Raymond Chandler. Includes listings of various slangs, essays on Hollywood, James Bond, and more. Also includes a short story, “English Summer: A Gothic Romance.”

[Susanne (Pages of Crime) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

Some interesting notes in amongst general thoughts and snippets that Chandler collected.

[Jill McGillicuddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of humor, history and good notes for those dreaming of writing for a career.

[Tài · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awww thanks Mr Chandler, you did all my homework even before I was born

[Andy Oerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth it for completists to read English Summer.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

English Summer was in one of his other books --the Collected Stories. Only for die hard Chandler fans. Not a lot of meat on this bone of a book

[Mike Macdonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

During a period of twenty years that stretched from his beginnings as a pulp writer for The Black Mask, through his writing of the novels The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely, to the Hollywood years of the 1940s, Raymond Chandler kept a series of private notebooks. Filled with both public and private writings, these pages give us an intimate view of the writer at work and contain early ideas, descriptions, and anecdotes later used in such classics as The Long Goodbye and The Blue Dahlia. Read Chandler on such classic "Marlowesque" topics as pickpocket lingo, San Quentin jailhouse slang, a "Note on the Tommygun," and "Craps," as well as surprising, lesser–known essays on Hollywood, the mystery story, British and American writing, and a wicked parody of Hemingway. Also included are lists of possible story titles, "Chandlerisms," and his short story "English Summer: A Gothic Romance," which Chandler considered a turning point in his career.



At times whimsical, provocative, and irreverent, but always revealing, The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler is a fascinating sampler for his new readers and an irresistible treat for his dedicated fans.

[Gabriel · Rating 1 out of 5]

More or less useless, depending on how bizarrely obsessive-compulsive one is about conspicuous consumption. Contains very little that MacShane's or Hiney's volume of Chandler's letters doesn't, apart from an execrable story not published elsewhere with reason. Most of this material could easily be jettisoned and replaced by Chandler's published essays (some of which are printed here, and are the best parts of the book), and, without the story, be something like a Ray Chandler Reader. Such a volume, not the one here, might actually be of some use to the casual reader or the not-so-casual reader. This one is only of use as a doorstop. To be avoided.

[Gabriel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't bother with "English Summer," after what I read of it in the notebooks. Either the title is a misnomer, or this is an extremely rigorous selection of entries. The "notebooks" referred to only make up about fifty pages, and a large chunk of that is taken up by pieces that were published, in one form or another. Probably better off reading Chandler's letters, in the MacShane edition. Not that anyone not fanatical about Chandler should read even those. Nothing terribly profound, but Chandler does usually seem more intelligent in his letters than here.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alas, though the title is compelling, there's a lot less here than meets the eye. The forward talks about the extensive notebooks that Chandler kept, then tells us how he destroyed them all. What remains are a few odds and ends, such as some story ideas, odd bits such as collections of San Quentin slang, some items found in a Los Angeles store, and the like. Interesting mostly for its curio effects. I did like the list of possible novel titles, but as a whole, there's just not much here. Glad I got it cheap at a library sale.

[James Cambias · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating collection of notes, clippings, and short pieces by Raymond Chandler. He even has a couple of pages of "Chandleresque" similes -- yep, he wrote 'em down to use later. There's also a complete story, "English Summer" which is illustrated by Edward Gorey, no less!

It's an entertaining book, with useful advice from a master, and fun glimpses of Chandler's own wry personality and writing habits.

[Ava · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not all that interesting, for the most part, but there are some great lists of slang terms, and this line, which is worth the price of the book:

"If you don't leave, I'll get someone who will."

Other than that, the only story in the book is "English Summer, a Gothic Romance," which nobody should read, and nobody should have written.

[Ioanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth reading for the "Twelve Notes on the Mystery Story" alone, relevant to non-mystery story writing also. For example: "The solution must seem inevitable once revealed." (from note 10.) Good stuff.

[Leonard Pierce]

Pretty slight, but still a must-have for geekanerd Chandler completists like meself.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Should really be titled "Some random bits of paper we found lying around Raymond Chandler's house". A fair number of items are clippings or quotes from other writers that he happened to save. The 2 or 3 good bits are all available in other collections. 3 stars mainly because it has "Twelve Notes on the Mystery Story" and "English Summer" in it, though I have both elsewhere. It was momentarily interesting to see his handwriting, and how it could be both beautiful and completely illegible. Not worth the bother unless your OCD compels you to own everything with Chandler's name on it.