ATD & Raymond Chandler (Spoilers)

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Which leads me to a second L.A. specific genre echo'ed
and emulated in AtD: the Firesign Theater. There's the
"Nick Danger: Third Eye" echos---love Emilio's toilet
scrying on 1044, a bit that also sucessfully incorporates
"Cut 'Em Off At The Past"'s ganja related motivs---but, also 
in the way The Chums of Chance start out as saps, eventually
joining the revolution in a similar fashion to "Don't Touch
That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers" and "Roller Maidens
>From Outer Space". Then there's "Cut 'Em Off At The Past"'s
time travel and "Don't Touch That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers" 
and "Roller Maidens From Outer Space" genre switching and
blurring.
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "John Carvill" <JCarvill at algsoftware.com>
> [very slight spoiler, from late in book, page 1040 onwards]
> 
> 
> Was just having a look at Wikipedia's entry on Chandler's 'Farewell, My
> Lovely', many aspects of which I see echoed in Lew Basnight,
> particularly in a passage I've just re-read beginning on p1040, with Lew
> in LA. 
> 
> I know most reviews have referred to 'pulp detective fiction' but I
> never felt this was appropriate, neither is Dashiell Hammett a very
> close fit, though there are more Hammett  resonances towards the start
> of the Book, and I think Hammett was a Pinkerton agent at one stage.
> 
> But as ATD progresses, and especially at the end, it's Chandler (who,
> like Lew, spent some time in England) I hear loud and clear in the tone,
> and also some of the specifics. Somewhere there's a mention of 'stolen
> necklaces' and then there's Lew pursuing that case where a singer has
> gone missing. A lot of this stuff seems to me to have come straight out
> of Chandler, specifically 'Farewell, My Lovely'. 
> 
> A-and, here's a quote from Chandler's 'The Little Sister', a book which
> features a main character with the wonderfully Pynchonian name Orfamay
> Quest:
> 
> "The rains are over. The hills are still green and in the valley across
> the Hollywood hills you can see snow on the high mountains. The fur
> stores are advertising their annual sales. The call houses that
> specialise in sixteen-year-old virgins are doing a land-office business.
> And in Beverley Hills the jacaranda trees are beginning to bloom."
> 
> Probably a coincidence, but Lew does go to investigate some goings on at
> 'Jacaranda Court'.
> 
> Anyway, all this stuff has been vaguely swirling in my head for a while,
> and when I was having a poke around wikipedia's Chandler pages, I found
> this note (from a user named Akb4) on the Discussion page for 'Farewell,
> My Lovely' which seems highly relevant, not just to Chandler (alone or
> as a flavour in ATD) but Pynchon too, particularly in terms of plotting:
> 
> 
> "When I see the term "hard-boiled detective story", I expect something
> realistic, perhaps overly-so, like a film shot in real time. This book
> is surrealistic; utterly bizarre. The dialog is sometimes like something
> out of a dream, vague or without key bits of elucidation, yet everyone
> understands everyone else. Everything to do with the characters of
> Riordan and Red is deus ex machina; the plot couldn't happen without the
> fact that frequently when Marlowe needs something, a person magically
> turns up and hands it to him for no reason, with no real reward. Is this
> laziness and incompetance by the writer, deliberate surrealism, or some
> combination? Marlowe himself is also more a mechanism than a character;
> he doesn't ever seem to want anything, or have any motivation, he just
> does stuff, following the trail, drinking, and getting knocked
> unconcious. Then there's the whole homosexual undercurrent, the loving
> details in the descriptions of male characters (even the villians) while
> the few female characters consist of a lying funny-talking foreigner, a
> cheating floozy who'll murder to keep secrets, an old drunk who tries to
> be sexy, a judgemental lying elderly busybody, and Riordan, who is more
> a plot mechanism (albeit wrapped with a few female cliches) than a
> character. Not that the male characters are great guys, but they are
> seen as more human, and more intimate, and have passages devoted to
> their eyes, their hands, their hair, their career issues and fears.
> Blurbs and plot summaries make this book sound like "Maltese Falcon" or
> something by Elmore Leonard; it's a lot more like JG Ballard or
> Nathanael West."
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Farewell%2C_My_Lovely
> 
> 
> Cheers
> JC
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Please note: This e-mail and its attachments contain only the opinions of the 
> sender and do not necessarily reflect the policy(s) of Armstrong Laing Plc in 
> general.
> 
> Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above 
> named only and may be confidential.  If they have come to you in error you must 
> take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone; please 
> reply to this e-mail highlighting the error and then delete it.
> 
> Security Warning: Please note that this e-mail has been created in the
> knowledge that Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communications medium. We 
> advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us.
> 
> Viruses: This e-mail and its attachments have been scanned for viruses but we 
> cannot guarantee that they are virus free.  We advise that in keeping with good 
> computing practice the recipient should ensure that they are actually virus 
> free.
> _______________________________________________________________________
> This email has been scanned for all viruses by the MessageLabs SkyScan
> service. For more information on a proactive anti-virus service working
> around the clock, around the globe, visit http://www.messagelabs.com
> ________________________________________________________________________
>