SOURCE: "The Technique," in Down These Mean Streets a Man Must Go: Raymond Chandler's Knight, The University of North Carolina Press, 1963, pp. 106-29.

In the following essay, Durham analyzes Chandler's narrative technique, noting his lively prose, elegant expression, and belief that style was more important than plot

In England early in 1954 Ralph Partridge, in The New Statesman and Nation, wrote that although there was a "jarring note of sentimentality" in The Long Goodbye, the "crusading" Marlowe was, nevertheless, a "remarkable creation"—"the perpetually crucified redeemer of all our modern sins." Almost alone among the reviewers, Partridge commented on Chandler's writing technique: "Mr. Chandler's style by now can be regarded as fixed . . . [his] language has lost none of its impetus, the rhythm of his prose is superb, and the intensity of feeling he packs into his pages makes every other thriller-writer look utterly silly and superficial." With the publication...