Yes, we are talking about Raymond Chandler.
No I am not going to talk about any of his works. Not yet. One day, when I am ready to talk about how Chandler's work has influenced my life, I will speak at length about his novels. May be I will write about what a great literary critic he was as well as being a great novelist.
But that is all for some other day. Today I speak on the Radio 4 treatment of Raymond Chandler, the remake of his novels into brand new radio dramas.
BBC Radio 4 has begun airing a brand new dramatization of several of Chandler's novels, all centering around his iconic creation: the hard boiled detective Phillip Marlowe. Toby Stephens is starring as Marlowe, a good reason as any to give these new versions a try. These will mostly take the form of the Radio 4 Afternoon Play.
However, what I want to talk about today are two biographical portrayal of Raymond Chandler that Radio 4 is airing as part of promoting their new radio plays. One takes the form of biographical portrayal in the form of interviews of people who are fans of Chandler's work. The other is a narrative dramatization, a work of imagination which seeks to portray a certain period of Chandler's life. More on that later.
In the half hour program called A Coat, a Hat and a Gun, Harriet Gilbert presents a radio documentary about the life and works of Chandler, as the kick-off event of the beginning of the Raymond Chandler season on BBC Radio 4. I love the fact that he gets a whole season on BBC radio as does Agatha Christie. In light of his essay The Simple Art of Murder, the fans would appreciate the restoration of balance in the arena of the crime drama.
Gilbert begins with the history of the life of the author, his early life and influences. He was born in Chicago to an Irish Protestant mother and an American father. His mother later moved back to Ireland and then England without his father. He went to Dulwich College where he learned the English public school code of honor and the somewhat idealized version of integrity from his teachers. No wonder Marlowe's moral stance is so absolute: he has been the result of a Puritan education!
One of the facts that is quite fascinating about Chandler is the sheer English nature of his being. This is a man who went on to create an American world that would remain seared in our memory through the various film noirs remakes of his novels. And yet he never stopped being the quintessential Englishman. Another very interesting fact is that P G Wodehouse also went to Dulwich College and also later moved to Southern California.
We have a very detailed look into the early literary life and career of the author: of all the various jpobs he had held. Civil Servant, accountant, fruit picker and a soldier in World War I. He fell in love with Cissy Pascal and became an oil executive in 1932.
However, at the age of forty five, he gave up everything and became the virtuoso writer of the pulp fiction private eye genre. He sensed that American literarture lacked cadence: you could read it, but not hear it. The verbal aspect of the literary work was missing. He worked very hard to fill that gap. His detective novels starring Phillip Marlowe are one of the most unique: funny and cynical and wolrd weary but not jaded: there is always room for doomed romance.
Apart from interesting tidbits of his life, we learn about the construction of the American myth of the hero against the corrupt world. The gray moral landscape being shattered by the advent of the man who must go down the mean streets of the city and yet himself is untainted corruption.
If you are interested in the life and literary works of Raymond Chandler, as you should be, you should check out this program. It is a fascinating half hour of reconstruction of a life that has been lived to the fullest. He has had his ups and downs of life but most importantly he has created one of the greatest and most interesting detectives ever to have entered our consciousness.
A Coat, a Hat and a Gun is available as a podcast from BBC Radio 4.
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