"So few people drink them around here,…Gimlets I mean."
"A fellow taught me to like them," I said.
"He must be English."
"Why?"
"The lime juice. It's as English as boiled fish with that awful anchovy sauce that looks as if the cook had bled into it. That's how they got called limeys. The English--not the fish."
We sat in a corner of the bar at Victor's and drank gimlets. "They don't know how to make them here," he said. "What they call a gimlet is just some lime or lemon juice and gin with a dash of sugar and bitters. A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose's Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow."
“I went out to my kitchen and cooked up some Canadian bacon and scrambled eggs and coffee and toast. We ate in the breakfast nook. The house belonged to the period that always had one.”
可惜這道早餐太美式,太經典,我已為菲茨傑拉德做過了。
馬洛偶爾也會外出用餐。
“After a while I got in past the velvet rope and ate one of Rudy's "world- famous" Salisbury steaks, which is hamburger on a slab of burnt wood, ringed with browned-over mashed potato, supported by fried onion rings and one of those mixed up salads which men will eat with complete docility in restaurants, although they would probably start yelling if their wives tried to feed them one at home.”
人人都知道有個“最像海明威”的比賽,但那不過是長相,而錢德勒獨特的writing style,吸引了無數文學愛好者的模仿。瑪格麗特·阿特伍德就曾模仿錢德勒的文筆,寫過一則小文《愛上雷蒙德·錢德勒》( In Love with Raymond Chandler),以曖昧的口吻讚揚了錢德勒的細節描寫功力,貼一個油管的朗讀視頻:
I felt fine. I felt like singing the Prologue to Pagliacci. Yes, she was a nice gilrl. … She was swell. I used some more of her Scotch. ——Trouble Is My Business