Books. Been immersing myself in
Books.
Been immersing myself in Noir recently. Since finishing The Lord of the Rings, I fancied something easy but rewarding to read. Settled on some Chandler - last year I read through the trilogy printed in Penguin Classics (The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely and The Long Goodbye), and I recently picked up The High Window from a second-hand bookshop. Breezed through it in a few days - I was down in London fast approaching the end of the book when I realised I may need something to take its place, or risk a dull train-journey back to Sheffield. I was with Jan at the time, mentioned the Chandler to him, and he became animated - turns out Chandler is one of his favourites, but for hard-boiled hard-men he prefers James Ellroy.
We trudged around to the Hoxton Book Depository and started grazing - far too many books that I wanted to read; filter, focus, cut them down to a shortlist of one. The winner was, on a platform of novelty, cheapness and length-of-read, another trilogy, Ellroy’s Dudley Smith Trio, consisting of The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential and White Jazz. £7 for a reduced-price new copy.
At first I was thrown by the differences from Chandler - harder-boiled, harder-men, set some 10 years later but written generations apart, and it showed. The language was also dense, overwrought for the most part, taking far too much glee in using 1950s Californisms and jive-talk. But I stuck with it long enough to get into the groove, and get myself hooked.
So I was really pissed off when today I set off for London again and realised just when it was too late to return home that I’d forgotten to put the book in my bag. I’d just reached Wolverine, the third part of The Big Nowhere, things were hotting up, plots were twisting, and I was dying to get things resolved, or at least as resolved as they were ever going to get. Kicking myself doubly for not spotting my error when I was in the vicinity of the Oxfam bookshop, I headed into Waterstones to try and find a full-price alternative to last me for my journey there and back. (I hate reading two books at once, although its something I do far too often - I very rarely manage to keep the momentum to read both books with the enthusiasm that they deserve).
Browsing through the Chandlers I noticed that Penguin Classics had released another trilogy - I was very tempted despite noticing that the book I had just finished, The High Window, was in there sandwiched between another two. But then my eye shifted up a shelf to a couple of Truman Capote books. I’d read some Capote a long time ago - In Cold Blood and another book of short stories whose name escapes me. On the shelf were In Cold Blood and Music for Chameleons - I skimmed the back of the second and noticed that “at the centre… is Hancarved Coffins, a ‘nonfiction novel’ based on the brutal crimes of a real-life murderer”. More in the vein of In Cold Blood. More noir, but in the wonderfully minimalist prose of Capote. That clinched it - I bought the book.
So my second disappointment of the day came when, on the train, I started reading the book and gradually it dawned on me that this was the book of short stories I had read before, and no doubt have at home somewhere. I seem to be making something of a habit of double-purchases lately (when filing away my Chandlers I noticed another copy of Farewell My Lovely). Not the end of the world, and I guess it’s a book which could certainly stand up to a re-read, but it wasn’t exactly what I’d intended, and I put off delving into it and got on with other things.
Now I’ve started re-reading it, I’m kind of glad I did. Hancarved Coffins is wonderful. Capote’s writing is of such incredible quality that it’s worth reading whatever the subject matter - the choice of words, the clarity of meaning is enough. In fact, going through Captote’s preface, I remember that this piece of writing-about-writing is the one thing which springs unbidden to my mind whenever I start trying to put finger to keyboard:
To begin with, I think most writers, even the best, overwrite. I prefer to underwrite. Simple, clear as a country creek. But I felt my writing was becoming too dense, that I was taking three pages to arrive at effects I ought to be able to achieve in a single paragraph.
Of course, I never manage to adhere to Truman’s maxim - in fact, I too delight in overwriting - but I do at least keep it in my mind constantly as an admonishment.
And then - oh joy - Capote on Chandler:
TC: …A thriller.
JAKE: Fiction? (I nodded; he grinned) You really read that junk?
TC: Graham Greene was a first-class writer. Until the Vatican grabbed him. After that, he never wrote anything as good as Brighton Rock. I like Agatha Christie, love her. And Raymond Chandler is a great stylist, a poet. Even if his plots are a mess.
Wow! This is becoming such a familiar feeling - the “I thought it was just me.” I love Chandler’s work particularly for the one-liners. The plots… they keep my interest, but they do always seem a bit sloppy, far too many unbelieveable or unlinked elements. But I had assumed that was my stupidity - I was missing something crucial - if I really knew how to read then it would all fall into place, one glorious masterplan revealed. Nice to have somebody as respect-worthy as Capote back me up on this one.
Now I am so looking forward to getting home so that I can find out who the Wolverine is or, more to the point, why?