Three from the Hard-Boiled Master …

When I bought those volumes of short-stories by the hard-boiled masters, Hammett and Chandler, sometime in February this year, I had identified some novels by Chandler which I don’t have and haven’t read, and put them on my mental wish-list.  This used-books seller on Amazon, dealstar, has a good collection of books which no other used-books seller on Amazon has.  So, after waiting for around four months, I thought now is the time for some Chandler novels.  The prices are on the higher side, given that we are speaking of used-books, but I am lured by them books all the same; not that I have lots of money, it is that I am more of a succumb-er to book temptation … yen maadodu …

Recently, when Prof T P Ashoka, Kannada scholar and senior literary critic, visited my home, he saw my Hammett collection arranged on my shelf and “… oh, you like Hammett … he is one of my favourite writers …” That, sort of, made my day.  Anyway, to come back to Chandler … I have two of Chandler’s novels, and two collections of short stories … I wanted some more novels … some of the novels were priced very high, so I choose those which were priced the lowest among the lot.  And so, I choose The Long Goodbye, The Little Sister, and The High Window … the portal showed that two of these had good looking covers, but then the third was shown without a cover, just a bland image …

And when I finally received the books, this is how their covers looked … (this ‘perception and reality’ thing happened with another book from the same seller, but that is for the next post … )

I was happy with the covers on The Little Sister, and The High Window … The Long Goodbye cover doesn’t have style I thought … cover courtesy details on the back cover of The Little Sister, and The High Window say that – The covers of this series designed by James Tormey, incorporate material supplied by courtesy of 20^th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, and RKO Pictures … the chaps on the covers are probably stylised images of actors who played Marlowe in films produced by these movie production houses … one of them resembles Humphrey Bogart … anyway … and the other thing is that all three books were published in the 1970s … and this gave me reason for tassalli-fication saying that the price I paid for these three Chandler novels is not that high … that these are rare, almost antique editions … hai na …