I've looked over a number of online sites for information on Raymond Chandler, looking to recommend one.
I found it below:
www.randomhouse.com/vintage/blacklizard/authors/chandler.html
I think if you haven't read a lot of Chandler, or have read his work but don't know about the man himself, this is the best site going. I learned a good deal from this web locale and I have read my share of biographies of the guy.
There are selections from his letters here to explore and a marvelous bit of work by contemporary mystery author Peter Straub, giving a few dozen details of the man's ecccentricitiess and his rather prickly and sometimes morose personality which was elevated with a knife-sharp wit and a no b.s. attitude toward his novel and story work, Hollywood studios, publicity, the "seriousness" or lack thereof of the detective story and his longtime desire to wrest the mystery form away from pulp writers and typewriting/sadists like Mickey Spillane and make it better than its roots through a turn of phrase or carefully-drawn characters that you wouldn't find elsewhere.
That's really what I want to get through to the uninitiated about Raymond Chandler. His writing is damn percise and funny, but in a way that doesn't distract from the mileau of the seedy, deadly and decadent world Philip Marlowe inhabits in a mid-century Los Angeles that will never die in the field of genre literature thanks to this unique and wonderful writer.
(coming next: my thoughts on Chandler's best--and least--novels. )
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