Book Reviews, Analysis & Possible Spoilers

I enjoy reading Raymond Chandler for his witticisms and the way he puts words together. For example:

P45 “A long-limbed languorous type of showgirl blond lay at her ease in one of the chairs, with her feet raised on a padded rest and a tall misted glass at her elbow, near a silver ice bucket and a Scotch bottle. She looked at us lazily as we came over the grass. From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. Form ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.”

P98 “The ringing bell had a sinister sound, for no reason of itself, but because of the ears to which it rang”

P103 “He looked up, surprised. The girls at the pinball machine looked at me, surprised. I went over and looked at myself in the mirror behind the counter. I looked surprised.”

P116 “I looked at Spanger. He was leaning forward so far he was almost about out of his chair. He looked as if he was going to jump. I couldn’t think of any reason why he should jump, so I thought he must be excited. I looked back at Breeze. He was about as excited as a hole in the wall.”

P140 “The man at the window turned around and showed me that he was going on fifty and had soft ash gray hair and plenty of it, and a heavy handsome face with nothing unusual about it except a short puckered scar on his left cheek that had almost the effect of a deep dimple. I remembered the dimple. I would have forgotten the man.

P258 “I said roughly:  “Her not giving you much salary is a characteristic touch and your owing her more than you can ever repay is more truth than poetry. It would take the Yankee outfield with two bats each to give her what she has coming from you. However, that is unimportant now.”