Chandler Kogi (Lectures on Raymond Chandler)

This book is a scholarly study of the life and works of American novelist Raymond Chandler (1888–1959).
 
Raymond Chandler is arguably the world’s most famous writer of hardboiled detective fiction. His creation, Philip Marlowe, the protagonist of his full-length novels, is widely recognized as the quintessential “hardboiled detective.” Chandler remains popular in Japan. In recent years, Haruki Murakami has translated all his novels, and Chandler continues to attract not only fans of detective fiction but also a broad readership.
 
Despite his renown as an author, no previous monograph dedicated solely to his work has been published in Japan. This book is the first attempt at a comprehensive understanding of Chandler’s literary legacy. It examines his entire body of work, including his seven novels, early poetry, short stories, and film scripts, in chronological order of publication. Each chapter begins with a critical biography of Chandler, which incorporates the latest biographical research.
 
The relative lack of Chandler scholarship may stem from his perception merely as a writer of “popular literature.” However, in recent years, critics in the United States have widely recognized that Chandler’s works are serious literature and not merely detective fiction. Since the 1980s, Chandler has been particularly acknowledged as a leading writer of “noir fiction” and “urban literature,” and research in this area has advanced significantly.
 
The arguments in this book are grounded in the rich achievements of recent Chandler scholarship. As Japan’s first monograph on Chandler, however, this book also aims to reevaluate his works as “hardboiled fiction” from a contemporary perspective. Particular attention is paid to how Chandler grappled with the “image” of Philip Marlowe, the hard-boiled detective he created.
 
Through his creation of the strong “image” of the hardboiled detective, Chandler exerted a profound influence on popular culture. However, great literature inherently possesses an aspect of “image critique.” Chandler never allowed the “image” of Philip Marlowe to become fixed. Instead, he grew as a writer by persistently challenging and unsettling that image.
 

(Written by SUWABE Koichi, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology / 2025)