Mar 26 2009
∞
“ It must be admitted that this eye for detail often failed him when he came to construct plots. When Howard Hawks, filming The Big Sleep, asked Chandler to clarify who was responsible for the death of the chauffeur Owen Taylor, the author couldn’t tell him.
—
Raymond Chandler’s novels under the magnifying glass - Telegraph
This paragraph is mistaken as the next one shows. Chandler’s eye for detail didn’t “fail.” He refused to use it that way. The point was always that looking at one case put one in a maze of conflicting criminal activities. You could never hope to sort through the whole mess.
