Happy 125th, Raymond Chandler, or What does Chandlerian mean to you?

As the world celebrates Raymond Chandler's 125th birthday by spouting extravagant similes, I'd like to quote an excerpt from Farewell, My Lovely, the bit that immediately follows the oft-quoted introduction to Moose Malloy, who, "Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food."

 The description continues:

 "His skin was pale and he needed a shave. He would always need a shave. He had curly black hair and heavy eyebrows that almost met over his black nose. His eyes were small and neat for a man of that size and his eyes had a shine close to tears that gray eyes often seem to have he stood like a statue, and after a long time he smiled."

Notice how the mood grows readily more somber, even as the wit remains, until, by the end,"a shine close to tears that gray eyes often seem to have" gets you right there, doesn't it?

I wrote recently that William McIlvanney's "emotional engagement with Glasgow ... is one of the few facets of any crime novelist's writing that really is in the spirit of Chandler's with Los Angeles."  How about you, readers? Which writers rise about the promiscuous and silly cover-blurb invocations of Chandler and really do capture Chandler's essence? What does Chandlerian mean to to you?

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Here's a Detectives Beyond Borders post about Chandler's influence on crime writers worldwide. Whom can you add to that list?

© Peter Rozovsky 2013