Mark wrote:
A sleazy PI who specializes in divorce cases is hardly
Chandler's noble knight.
************** Marlowe appears to me as far less the noble
knight than he appears to some. I don't have my books with
me, but I recall the beginning of one where he is called to a
rich woman's house, gets filthy drunk, gets caught playing
tongue tag with her by her husband, and then makes plans to
meet her later on. He's a snob sometimes, too, and not very
particular about who it's aimed at, be it the common folk or
the rich. He is given to whining too. I remember being
saddened by the ending of one Marlowe novel (The Big Sleep?)
with him sniveling about his lack of money. What a miserable
way to end a novel about a supposedly noble character. I
think that these incidents were mistakes on Chandler's part,
at least as far as what he was trying to do. Maybe Chandler
was washing his sins in Marlowe's blood.
At the root of the Marlowe novels there is an undercurrent of
misanthropy stunning in its proportion, and it grows louder
and more shrill as the novels progress. I like the novels.
Chandler writes like a slumming angel (I just now made that
up). But them books has got some issues.
miker
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