Chandler seemed to be facinated by the idea that pearls could
be faked both
cheaply and well. A good fake is difficult to tell from real
by anyone but an
expert. In Pearls, Henry "...got to know pearls enough to
tell them from snowballs."
It made for a good plot device in the form of were they real
or not and who knew.
In Goldfish, the question of whether they are real or not
last to the end.
Also, I think he seemed to really like the slang for pearls.
Notice how often
he has people saying "marbles" or things like "snowballs."
Maybe it seemed
more colorful then "ice" or "rocks" for diamonds.
Jeff
At 09:55 AM 1/30/99 -0500, you wrote:
> What was Chandler's thing about pearls? We know
Hammett worked in the
> advertising branch of a diamond company in San
Francisco, so diamonds
> made a logical MacGuffin for the first part of *The
Dain Curse*. What
> did Chandler find so interesting about
pearls?
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