There’s been much talk about how this is a new type of game because LA Noire uses some pretty special technology but that doesn’t interest me. This is a game for fans of Raymond Chandler. Rockstar Games have already published this ebook in the US full of new stories about the city but they also have said that the game is full of Chandler references. And how could it not be? If you’re going to create a game – or a movie for that matter – set in 1940s LA you cannot escape Chandler. In novels like The Little Sister and The High Window he exposed the dark side of a city that he knew so well. LA was supposed to be a city of glitz and glamour, of starlets and heroes, but that was only one side of it. It was also a place of murder, blackmail and corruption.

I will be picking my copy of LA Noire up tomorrow and will try to post as many Chandler references as I can spot. But if you’re a fan of the game and want to know about the city and the period it features, don’t forget to check out Raymond Chandler’s novels. Start with The Big Sleep and Farwell, My Lovely and then The Little Sister. These are the standard that LA Noire has to live up to.

A few weeks ago Annette Green blogged about how the agency model ran the risk of undermining the legitimate digital publishing market because it could result in ebooks costing more than the physical edition and she used several examples of ebooks costing more than physical books (Stephen Fry’s memoir for one) to make her point. On the surface of it this seems like a clear cut case against the agency model however the recent launch of the Beatles albums on iTunes may show that the model still has something to offer.

It’s risky to draw too close a comparison of the book and music worlds but I think, in this case, it’s worth while. The Beatles Red album is available on iTunes for £17.99 which is ten pounds more expensive than the CD is available for on Amazon but this pricing difference has not stopped customers downloading the more expensive version. In fact, despite the digital editions being more costly, the Beatles have notched up something like 2 million track downloads and, at the time of writing, they have six albums in the top one hundred in the UK iTunes store. The higher price is not stopping sales at all.

The music you get in a CD is a higher quality to that of a download but downloads are a more convenient way of buying music. The Kindle story and iBooks store are as easy and as instant as iTunes and this is why the agency model my work in the end. There may be many more people who own iPods than ereading devices but the ebook market is only going to grow and grow with more and more devices being bought over time. Convenience of purchase helps off-set a higher priced product in the music world and may do in the ebook world as well so though a physical book may be cheaper, the convenience of a more expensive digital download may breath life into sales. Publishers are gambling that this will happen and, if it does, the agency model will be here to stay.

James Joyce

Today is the 16th of June, Bloomsday, the day that James Joyce chose to set his great novel Ulysses and also the day that he met his wife, Nora Barnacle, for the first time. It’s worth celebrating if you’re a Joycian.

I’ve been going through some of my notes today. I have a vague recollection that Ray mentioned James Joyce in one of his letters but I can’t find it. He read Eliot whose poetry makes an appearance in The Long Goodbye and he probably read Ulysses too. It is the sort of book that would have amused him. But he had complicated views on what he saw as literature, often arguing in his letters that the literary establishment (in America at least) had a very narrow view on what constituted a literary novel so its perfectly possible that Ulysses did not appeal.

Still, Bloomsday is worth celebrating and I will be doing so with a Gorganzola sanwich, as Leopold Bloom did in the novel.

It goes to show, though, that it’s worth pursuing each thread as far as you can. And, even though this one led nowhere, it did help me find out more accurate information about Cissy and her father.

There’s just one thing, Walter…you are a little weak about one thing. Will you promise me not to drink any whiskey? (‘Pearl…’)

And Gage and Ray are both alike in that they don’t suffer from hangovers, despite lots of drinking:

‘A guy that can sleep it off like you is a real champ Walter.’ (‘Pearls…)

When I was a young man in the RAF I would get so plastered that I had to crawl to bed on my hands and knees and at 7.30 the next morning I would be as blithe as a sparrow and howling for my breakfast. It is not in some ways the most desirable gift. (Letter, 1955)

Secondly the camp narrator has a very unusual experience with the Henry:

At five o’clock that afternoon I awoke from a slumber and found that I was lying on my bed in my apartment in the Chateau Moraine, on Franklin Avenue near Ivar Street, in Hollywood. I turned my head, which ached, and saw that Henry Eichelberger was lying beside me in his undershirt and trousers. I then perceived that I also was lightly attired. (‘Pearls…’)

This is a story that has been picked over many times for evidence of Chandler’s repressed homosexuality and reading it it is not hard to see why it has been latched upon. It does seem strange that two grown men, no matter how drunk, would disrobe to share a bed together. And, whether you have an interest in Chandler’s sexuality or not, this homo-erotic moment makes the story stand out.

Thirdly, there is the way that Walter and Henry’s language jostle against each other. Gage has an English locution, Henry is all American and there is something inherently comic about the image of these two similarly sized men bantering with each other in the way that they do. Chandler doesn’t play this trick in any other story.

But I wonder if some of this is Chandler playing a game. Cissy and Chandler were both brought up in an age where the ability to hold a conversation was valued considerably and where the art of wit and punning were essential.  We know that Cissy was particularly good at witty language because Chandler said she provided some of his best lines in his work. Now if we consider that Cissy’s name as a young woman had been Pearl (her maiden name was Pearl Hurlburt) I can’t help but wonder if the alcohol and the drinking and the title allude to some sort of private joke between Ray and Cissy. He loved this sort of thing – he loved Shakespeare and the games he played with language – so it would not be out of character but I haven’t been able to pin down the various elements. Perhaps because the title is just a coincidence. Or perhaps because, like their life together, the references are so private Cissy was the only one who could decode it.

I have to say that I am a bit bogged down in Chandler’s war experiences. Not being a military historian, I have found it difficult to decode some of the abbreviations in the records of his war service. Still, it seems to me, that there the past biographies haven’t really told the story of Chandler’s war experiences fully so I hope that mine will set that straight.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is – I am still working on Raymond and I will get back to updating this blog very soon.

Best to you all

Tom