Davis on Chandler

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

"Marlowe, the avenging burgher, totters precariously on the
precipice of fascist paranoia. Each successive Chandler novel
focuses on a new target of Marlowe's dislike: Blacks, Asians,
gays, 'greasers', and, always, women. In this regard it is
useful to recall the genealogy of the hardboiled detective hero:
the special 1923 issue of The Black Mask on the Ku Klux Klan
that introduced Carroll John Daly's nativist detective 'Race
Williams' as the prototype of tough guy crusaders against
(foreign-born) corruption." Mike Davis, _City of Quartz_.
Pimlico 1998. P. 91 n42.


Nothing as refreshing as a swig of good old self-righteous type
leftist [or elsewhere, rightist] sensitivity every now and then.


Heikki