Davis on Chandler

[Mark Kohut]

Agreed on the 'societal control' by TV.....a social medium.

Marlowe busts societal control........

The P.I. is on the side of the helpless against the rich and powerful. No wonder P reads/likes/pays homage to them....

isn't one of P's social obs that P.I. shows have given way to lawn ordure shows in our lifetime?

--- On Tue, 8/18/09, kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> From: kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com>
> Subject: Re: Davis on Chandler
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 3:42 PM
> I agree with you Mark that Davis'
> interpretation (which I haven't read) sounds heavy-handed
> and designed to provoke and is an unfair characterization of
> Chandler's work.  Still, it borders on something that
> Pynchon brings up in IV (and VL).  The advent of those
> cop shows (Adam-12, CHiPs, Mod Squad, etc.)designed to show
> young good-guy cops and snitches as a sop to and co-optation
> of the youth culture.  Young TV watchers were meant to
> (and presumably did) accept the protagonists at face value,
> without questioning their proto-fascist attitudes. 
> Later shows, starting with Hill Street Blues and perfected
> by The Wire, tried harder to give a three-dimensional
> picture of both sides of the fence.  It leaves an
> unsettling question:  who's using The Wire to
> manipulate us into thinking what?
> 
> Laura
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> 
> >
> >I'm sorry, but I am going to dispute Davis'
> interpretation....it is tendentious and, I think, often a
> misreading.  And it overgeneralizes and gets things wrong.
> >
> >Marlowe---a burgher?...C,mon. How does a working class
> guy who can barely earn a living, pay his rent, get that
> label? 
> >
> >I am reading Chandler and, so far, he is VERY CAREFUL
> not to generalize about any group...see his words on
> Mexicans in The Long Goodbye......
> >Contrary to Davis' misreading, I think Chandler is
> simply saying that there are criminal elements in all kinds
> of people. For Chandler, it is
> >a kind of inherent vice....IF he had used the same
> group from book to book, Davis, anyone, would have a
> case.  [although, yes, he might not think
> >much of most women]
> >
> >What is 'fascist' paranoia? As distinguished from
> regular paranoia?
> >The cops have what i might call 'fascist'
> paranoia---believing, pre-emptively, that they know the
> guilty and in The Long Goodbye (and others)
> >that they know Marlowe is involved.
> >
> >A---And Davis last 'guilt by association' coupling of
> 'the genealogy'
> >of Black Mask is simply the worst.....like calling
> anyone a horrible rascist because they know one......it is
> condemning Hammett and Chandler because the editor of Black
> Mask might have been a KKK sympathizer......
> >like condemning Fitzgerald, Hemingway, any others, even
> Pynchon, i believe,
> >because the Saturday Evening Post had Rockwell Kent
> artwork.....
> >
> >That racist writer who supposedly founded the 'tough
> guy' noir genre HAS NOT been credited with that and has not
> survived as a writer worth reading:
> >Hammett, then Chandler created the archetypal tough guy
> noir novel.
> >
> >Hammett and Chandler first in Black Mask Magazine:
> >"originally founded as a money-making venture to help
> support the higher-brow activities of H.L. Mencken and
> George Jean Nathan, The Black Mask was a cheap periodical
> aimed at a predominantly working-class male audience."
> >
> >Marlowe has (most) cops against him more than he is
> like them. He is NOT like them 'cause he can see through the
> skrims of society and people. He is
> >by every action, anti-fascist.  
> >
> >
> >
> >--- On Tue, 8/18/09, kelber at mindspring.com
> <kelber at mindspring.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> From: kelber at mindspring.com
> <kelber at mindspring.com>
> >> Subject: Re: Davis on Chandler
> >> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> >> Date: Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 11:36 AM
> >> This is kind of an interesting take
> >> on Marlowe that I hadn't seen before.  Noir
> detectives
> >> are poised halfway between the cops and the
> underworld,
> >> owing allegiance to neither, but having the
> sensibilities of
> >> both.  With cop-like sensibilities, it's easy to
> see
> >> how a noir-detective could be pushed into the
> spewing
> >> racist-xenophobic mode.  Rorschach, in Watchmen,
> is a
> >> prime example.
> >> 
> >> Its the essence of the noir hero that he seeks
> redemption
> >> for something in his past.  In the promo video
> for IV,
> >> Doc refers to setting up drug busts for the cops,
> etc. 
> >> For someone like Doc, this would be a heavy load
> to
> >> carry.  I didn't get a sense in the book about
> how
> >> complicit he'd been with the cops in the past. 
> Can
> >> anyone enlighten me?  
> >> 
> >> Laura
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> >From: Heikki Raudaskoski <hraudask at sun3.oulu.fi>
> >> 
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >"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
> >> 
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >      
> >
> 
> 
>