I keep a mental list of my top ten favorite dead authors (yes, folks I do) that keeps evolving over time. I mean, it started understandably with H.A. Rey and A.A. Milne in the number one and two spots respectively. Today, Ernest Hemingway holds #1 with Agatha Christie at #4. Spots #3 and #4 keep rotating between Raymond Chandler and
Norbert Davis. Since I have no two lines of my own this week I will feature two sides of Davis’s gifted style. First, the humorous side that he’s famous for from 1943’s
SALLY’S IN THE ALLEY:
She was wearing white linen slacks, and a white jacket trimmed with big brass buttons, and white open-toed pumps, and a red sash around her waist. She pulled all the life out of the lobby and focused it on herself, like a little boy sucking soda through a straw.
And since I can’t do this next passage (also from
SALLY) justice with just two and April 18th being Norbert Davis’s 100th b-day here’s 2x2 and the reason he rivals Chandler in my humble opinion:
The Mojave Desert at sunset looks remarkably like a painting of a sunset on the Mojave Desert which, when you come to think of it, is really quite surprising. Except that the real article doesn’t show such good color sense as the average painting does. Yellows and purples and reds and various other violent subunits of the spectrum are splashed all over the sky, in a monumental exhibition of bad taste. They keep moving and blurring and changing around, like the color movies they show in insane asylums to keep the idiots quiet.
The
Women of Mystery will have more awe-inspiring two-fers. On the 18th, I plan to re-run an old post to celebrate Norbert’s b-day.
I keep a mental list of my top ten favorite dead authors (yes, folks I do) that keeps evolving over time. I mean, it started understandably with H.A. Rey and A.A. Milne in the number one and two spots respectively. Today, Ernest Hemingway holds #1 with Agatha Christie at #4. Spots #3 and #4 keep rotating between Raymond Chandler and Norbert Davis. Since I have no two lines of my own this week I will feature two sides of Davis’s gifted style. First, the humorous side that he’s famous for from 1943’s SALLY’S IN THE ALLEY:
13 comments:
It is posts like these that prevent me from getting through my stack of unread books on my shelf. Now all I want to do is read Norbert Davis until the cows come home. And hopefully they get lost so I have time to savor such wonderful wordplay.
Thanks for sharing.
Hope you're enjoying Maine!
David,
What gorgeous prose. I had never heard of Norbert Davis until this moment. I am looking forward to your post on his birthday.
Terrie
Cullen, THE MOUSE IN THE MOUNTAIN is available from The Rue Morgue Press and is another great offering from Norbert. If you have the BIG BOOK OF PULPS he has a couple short stories featured there.
Terrie, He's one of the greats that's slowly fading away and I'm happy to shine a little light. I wish I could do him better justice than this but maybe some of the more accomplished reviewers will highlight his b-day.
David, great post, and I can't wait to read more about Norbert Davis on his birthday!
Wow, I've never read Davis but these make me want to do so. I'm with Cullen, man stop adding books to my list! ;)
Not really.
You recommended this book before and I enjoyed it but for me Chandler has the edge in terms of lasting importance. His knight-errant still haunts the streets of L.A. because his prose is serious. Doan and Carstairs is fun but the jokey take does not hold up as well over time. I don't mean to slam him on his birthday 'cause Norbert Davis is a gifted novelist.
Crystal, There's not a whole lot of info on Davis so hence the rerun. If anyone knows of a bio I would be interested.
Charles, My TBR is just insane too.
RReynolds, I understand why Chandler is god but he's sucking all the glory out of the room for Davis, Cornell Woolrich, Steve Fisher, and Fredrick Nebel etc. I can appreciate his standing and support it but in the year we reflected on the fiftieth anniversary of Chandler's death there's hardly a peep for Norbert Davis. Take a break from THE BIG SLEEP and try OH MURDERER MINE or THE ADVENTURES OF MAX LATIN… And then send me a check for steering you straight:)
I don't think I'd ever heard of Norbert Davis, but what eloquent prose. He's certainly a master at description. Thanks for sharing these excerpts. I'll have to check him out.
Thanks for sharing these lines. I haven't heard of him before, but now I will have to be on the lookout for his stuff.
I'm another who hasn't heard of Norbert Davis, and I will be checking out his books. Thanks, David, for adding to my TBR pile.
I'm new to Norb as well, but those passages had the surprisingly sideways point of view I love in Chandler. That sense of the absurd must be present in any noir I'm going to love.
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