Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. Blog, Internet resources, online reading groups, articles and interviews, Illuminatus! info.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Raymond Chandler and RAW

I have begun listening to an audiobook of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, and I can see why Chandler influenced RAW's style; lots of wit, lots of energy, just as in the best of RAW's prose.

From an interview by Science Fiction Review, reprinted in The Illuminati Papers:

Wilson: My style derives directly from Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Raymond Chandler, H.L. Mencken, William S. Burroughs, Benjamin Tucker and Elephant Doody Comics, in approximately that order of importance. Chandler has also influenced my way of telling stories; all my fiction tends to follow the Chandler mythos of the skeptical Knight seeking Truth in a world of false fronts and manipulated deceptions. (Of course, this is also my biography, or that of any shaman.)


3 comments:

Eric Wagner said...

Bob said living in Dublin seemed like living in a James Joyce themepark and that living in L.A. seemed like living in a Raymond Chandler themepark.

fuzzbuddy said...

I've been meaning to try some Chandler. Is "The Big Sleep" a good place to start to get a feel for his style?

Eric Wagner said...

I've only read one Chandler book cover to cover: The Little Sister, the basis for the 60's film "Marlowe."