>But in view of his time, I think Marlowe is
what
>Chandler obviously intended him to be in this
situation: the most decent
>man in the joint.
This argument about racism is one that rumbles around
Chandler like thunder in the mountains. Another is misogyny.
But Chandler, as Jim Beaver points out, was placing a decent
man in surroundings that were far from decent. Marlowe is a
loner: he's scornful of anyone who doesn't live up to his own
standards. If he has one flaw, it is that he doesn't make
allowances for the circumstances in which people live. He
expects them to be decent no matter how terrible their living
conditions. And if he has the attitudes of his time, well,
who doesn't? he is at least prepared to acknowledge that the
times they are changing: in The Long Good-Bye he expects the
chauffeur to be uneducated because he's black; he turns out,
of course to have read TS Eliot.
Cheers Chris
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