(From the archives)
Short Story Wednesday, "I'll Be Waiting" Raymond Chandler
Supposedly Chandler did not much like this story himself and regarded it as inauthentic, a story written for Saturday Evening Post
rather than one of the pulps he usually favored. It has all of the
elements of a typical pulp crime story: a house dick, a femme fatale,
the man she is waiting for, the man who is waiting for him. But a heck
of a lot of the story spends its time describing the hotel--in fact, we
know more about the hotel than we do about any of the characters.
Perhaps you need to read more of this sort of story to get it. I have
to admit though, I could draw a picture of that hotel from lobby, to
bar, to elevator, to penthouses. If I could draw, that is.
In their anthology of hardboiled fiction, editors Bill Pronzini and Jack Adrian regard the story as “a superbly atmospheric night-piece” and respond, “Chandler was a perceptive critic of others’ work, although less so of his own.” Indeed, still frequently included in anthologies, the story today is considered by many readers and critics as among his best and most polished (with a superb twist ending), and it has even been adapted for film twice, most recently in 1993 as an episode of Showtime’s Fallen Angels directed by Tom Hanks.
From the website Story of the Week, Library of Congress.
8 comments:
I've read all of Chandler's published short stories, so I know I read this one, even though I don't remember it offhand.
I read Lauren Groff's new collection, BRAWLER, this week. Good writer. By far the longest story is "What's the Time, Mr. Wolf?," and don't ask me to explain it. It starts one way, then changes into something else, you see where you think it is going, then it takes a dark turn into a very different ending.
Always like Groff's work. Especially when set in FL.
I gather Chandler felt constrained as to what and how he could write for a "slick" (-paper magazine)...pretty common among "genre" writers who might be able to write in "shorthand" in (his case) crime-fiction magazines. SEP money probably didn't hurt, but the feeling one was having to put on a metaphorical "monkey suit" might be bothersome.
As I see the LOC's intro somewhat spells out!
Oh, didn't notice it originally.
I sometimes forget that Chandler wrote some fine short stories, Patti. For some reason, I always think of his novels... At any rate, thanks for the reminder of his work.
I have the Hard-boiled anthology by Pronzini and Adrian, so I will read that story sometime soon, I hope.
Always dug Chandler short stories. It has been awhile, I’ll have to check it out.
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