Happy birthday, Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler turns 124 127 years old today, so I thought I'd bring back some old posts about his influence on crime writers beyond his own American (and English) borders.

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Four years ago the Los Angeles Times asked writers what they would give Chandler as a birthday gift, but I'd like to discuss taking rather than giving, namely what other writers have taken from Philip Marlowe's great creator.
Two years ago, in a post called "Chandler in South Africa," I noted Roger Smith's graceful extended tribute to Chandler in his novel Mixed Blood.

Last year I discovered Claudio Nizzi, Massimo Bonfatti, and their loving, amused, and amusing tribute to Chandler (and just about every other crime, movie, and pop-culture trend) in their Leo Pulp comics.

Matt Rees, Welsh-born and Jerusalem-based author of mysteries set in the Palestinian territories, told Detectives Beyond Borders that: "My primary interests in specifically detective writers are Chandler and Hammett." Moreover, he said the social chaos of the territories reminded him of the worlds those two authors portrayed so well: "In the lawlessness and the corruption of the police force – which is often involved with the gangs – I see many parallels with the San Francisco and Los Angeles of Hammett and Chandler."

In Ireland, Declan Hughes invoked Chandler in discussing his own country's Celtic Tiger economic explosion and concurrent boom in crime and crime fiction: "The hardboiled novel always depended on boomtowns where money was to be made and corners to be cut: twenties San Francisco for Hammett, forties LA for Chandler.”

Also in Ireland, your humble blogkeeper noted the debt to Chandleresque plotting and wisecracking in Declan Burke's first novel, Eightball Boogie. Colin Watson's delightfully opinionated social history of English crime writing, Snobbery With Violence, cites Chandler, who "never produced a dull line," for his observations about crime writing and English writers.

An afterword to Juan de Recacoechea's Bolivian crime novel American Visa noted the author's references to Chandler, Hammett, Chester Himes, and movies based on their work. I've also detected more than superficial signs of Chandler's influence in novels by Australia's Peter Corris and noted the traces of Chandler some have found in the work of Algeria's Yasmina Khadra. Finally, Chandler is one of many crime writers upon whom Australia's Garry Disher muses in his wildly self-referential and wildly funny story "My Brother Jack."

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And now it's your turn. What other crime writers from outside the United States have felt Chandler's influence? How has the influence shown itself?

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Late-breaking Chandler tribute: I've just read the following in William Campbell Gault's Murder in the Raw (also published as Ring Around Rosa):

"Well, what had I brought to this trade? Three years in the O.S.S. and my memories of a cop father. Along with a nodding acquaintanceship with maybe fifty lads in the Department. That didn’t make me any Philip Marlowe."

 © Peter Rozovsky 2008, 2012

Who do you like?

Jon Cleary's Scobie Malone has to be among the most likable crime fiction protagonists ever set to paper, and Cleary uses the likability to considerable effect in The High Commissioner, building dramatic tension out of the sympathy Malone develops for the man he has been sent to arrest.

Today's question is simple: Who are your favorite likable protagonists? I don't mean admirable, brave, or morally upright. I mean the sorts about whom you might say, "Oh, him. Nice guy." or "She's all right!" How does likability help (or hurt) a crime-fiction protagonist?

(Oddly enough, the one other likable crime-fiction protagonist who comes immediately to mind is also Australian: Peter Corris' Cliff Hardy. Comment welcome, especially from Australians.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2011

Sports, crime, Neil Young, and everything

This blog has an eclectic group of sports fans-cum-readers: an Irish New York Yankees fan who lives in Australia, for one, and an ice hockey fan in New Zealand.

So, with a nod to the hard-working Craig Sisterson, here is a picture of your humble blogkeeper with the Stanley Cup.

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And here's the evidence of Neil Young's influence on crime writing.

That's two crime novels with titles taken from Neil Young songs. What other rock and roll songs have lent their titles to crime novels?

(YHBK with Hilary Davidson, author of The Damage Done)

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Speaking of sports, the protagonist of Peter Temple's An Iron Rose finds himself the de facto guardian of a aspiring teenage golfer. If memory serves, Peter Corris, the godfather of Australian crime writing, wrote a story in which a young aspiring tennis player figures.

Temple especially gets some nice drama out of this: The young man in question has dropped out of school, in part to work on his golf game, and the protagonist wants him to go back. And there you have it: suspense and generational conflict in one neat, subplot-size package.

Any other stories in which an aspiring athlete plays a role?

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Plots without guns

Five stories into The Big Score, a collection by Australia's godfather of crime fiction, Peter Corris, I'm struck by the low number of killings.

One story involves a con, one a counter-con and another vandalism against trees, believe it or not. All work because of the amiable but tough P.I. protagonist, Cliff Hardy, and the deft, sympathetic pictures of the con artists and victims -- with a wink for the plucky souls who come out on top, which ever side of the law they're on.

Hardy has a certain admiration for the smaller-time criminals whose world he shares: "It takes all kinds," Hardy muses about one imprisoned client, "and he was far from the worst."

I also enjoy the occasional slang and colorful turn of phrase, as I do with much Australian crime writing. Here's a character complaining about the boredom of life post-work: "As I said, this retirement stuff's got whiskers." That's a nice way of saying "It's getting old."

And here's Corris/Hardy poking fun at Americans who don't get the wordplay: "Being American, irony and puns aren't Hank's strong suit. I suppressed a laugh."

Now, your question: Name crime stories that don't involve murder.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Reviews in the news

Matilda links to this review of novels by Andrea Camilleri, Peter Corris and Ian Rankin. Among the comments that caught my eye:

"Corris employs great skill in choosing the physical settings for [Cliff] Hardy’s adventures, especially those around inner Sydney suburbs such as Glebe, where Hardy lives, and Newtown, where he has an office."

This tallies with Corris' oft-remarked pioneering use of Australian settings.

"World literature is much richer for the input of Italian Andrea Camilleri (translated by Stephen Sarterelli), Australian Peter Corris and Scot Ian Rankin. Indeed, their contributions are so diverse that confining them to a genre seems arbitrary."

"Rounding the Mark differs in tone from the earlier Montalbano novels, and it seems likely that Camilleri has modified the character so that he resembles more closely the television Montalbano played so superbly by Luca Zingaretti."

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

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The father of Australian crime fiction ...

Peter Corris, according to the Australian Crime Fiction Database, "is credited with reviving the fully-fledged Australian crime novel with local settings and reference points and with a series character firmly rooted in Australian culture -- Cliff Hardy." He has also been called the father of Australian crime fiction.

If Corris is the father of Australian crime fiction because of his emphasis on local settings, then Fergus Hume deserves to be called the grandfather for the same reason. Here's Hume from a preface to The Mystery of a Hansom Cab: "Having completed the book, I tried to get it published, but every one to whom I offered it refused even to look at the manuscript on the ground that no Colonial could write anything worth reading."

And here is just one of several similar references from the body of this 1886 novel: "But it is impossible that the body can remain long without being identified by someone, as though Melbourne is a large city, yet it is neither Paris nor London, where a man can disappear in a crowd and never be heard of again."

Seldom can there have been a crime novel more conscious of its setting.

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

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Peter Corris' settings

I've discussed setting from time to time, and I've also speculated with some readers of this blog about what sets Australian crime fiction apart. After reading Peter Temple, Garry Disher, David Owen and Shane Maloney, I found myself associating Australian crime writing with humor, of course, but also with a low-key approach and a lack of self-pity on the part of first-person narrators.

The humor part is less true of Peter Corris' The Dying Trade, the first of thirty (to date) Cliff Hardy novels by "the father of Australian crime fiction," though the novel does contain a witty observation or two. As for what makes it distinctively Australian, how about Hardy's observations on Australian cities? He clearly prefers Sydney to Melbourne or Adelaide, though he is a good enough sport to acknowledge that an Adelaide restaurant he visits on an investigation serves fine food for a third the price he'd pay in Sydney.

I have at least one more Cliff Hardy novel lined up to read. Perhaps I'll learn about the characteristics, stereotypes and rivalries of Australia's cities -- another joy of "international" crime fiction.

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Almost all crime fiction gets compared to Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Yasmina Khadra, about whom I posted most recently, for example, occasionally resembles Chandler in his wisecracking amid grim circumstances. The Dying Trade, on the other hand, resembles Chandler in some of its plot points: family secrets, rivalries, the horror of shady mental hospitals. One especially nice touch is the fondness with which Corris portrays an old couple of whom the male half once ran an orphanage. This may remind readers of the affinity between Chandler's Philip Marlowe and old General Sternwood in The Big Sleep.

© Peter Rozovsky 2006

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Peter Corris

I'm always impressed when a writer puts a fresh spin on a well-worn convention. Doing so probably takes more skill than the desperate and self-conscious attempts at originality that some newer writers seem to make.

I've just started The Dying Trade, the first Cliff Hardy novel by Peter Corris, the "father of Australian crime fiction." Hardy, a down-on-the-heels private investigator, gets a call from a rich client just when he needs the money most. I'm guessing you've heard that all before.

At least two things make this opening stand out, though. One is what I'm coming to regard as a characteristically Australian lack of self-pity and irony on the part of the first-person narrator. The other is some fine writing on Corris' part. Here's Hardy after the fateful phone call:

I leaned back in my chair and dropped the receiver onto the handset. I traced a dollar sign with my little finger in the dust beside the dial.

That is a graceful, creative, humorous, maybe even beautiful way of making a familiar point.

© Peter Rozovsky 2006

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