I was reading an article in the AARP magazine - which, by the way, has a great interview with Bob Dylan in it - and there was a feature about "the book that influenced you."
The author Michael Connelly - whom I have not read but have heard of - said that it was the first paragraph in Chapter 13 of Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister, a murder mystery.
I am familiar with Raymond Chandler because of the films that were made of some of his books. And Humphrey Bogart always played Phillip Marlowe, the ace detective, so my curiosity was piqued!
I thought the screen writers had given Bogey all his great lines, but it turns out that Chandler's Phillip Marlowe series is full of great lines!!
I am not a real murder mystery fan, but I did enjoy this. It was a lot like watching a Bogey movie. The dialogue was great, and the story moved right along. The prose was fluid and not overblown. I felt like I was in the Los Angeles of almost 70 years ago.
I'd give it a thumbs up!
2 comments:
So what was the first paragraph of chapter 13??
I noticed that I left out something that was key - they had asked popular authors to explain what book had most influenced their writing. The first paragraph is a very evocative description of post war Los Angeles.
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