Davis on Chandler

[Robin Landseadel]

On Aug 18, 2009, at 9:27 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> 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.

Nice try, but next time it's double security for you. Plenty of that  
"fascist within" in Marlowe:

	"I used to like this town," 1 said, just to be saying something and
	not to be thinking too hard. "A long time ago. There were trees
	along Wilshire Boulevard. Beverly Hills was a country town.
	Westwood was bare hills and lots offenng at eleven hundred
	dollars and no takers. Hollywood was a bunch of frame houses.
	on the interurban line. Los Angeles was just a big dry sunny
	place with ugly homes and no style, but goodhearted and
	peaceful. It had the climate they just yap about now. People
	used to sleep out on porches. Little groups who thought they
	were intellectual used to call it the Athens of America. It wasn't
	that, but it wasn't a neon-lighted slum either."

	We crossed La Cienega and went into the curve of the Strip.
	The Dancers was a blaze of light. The terrace was packed. The
	parking lot was like ants on a piece of overripe fruit.

	"Now we get characters like this Steelgrave owning restaurants.
	We get guys like that fat boy that bawled me out back there.
	We've got the big money, the sharp shooters, the percentage
	workers, the fast-dollar boys, the hoodlums out of New York and
	Chicago and Detroitand Cleveland. We've got the flash
	restaurants and night clubs they run, and the hotels and
	apartment houses they own, and the grifters and con men and
	female bandits that live in them. The luxury trades, the pansy
	decorators, the Lesbian dress designers, the riffraff of a big
	hard-boiled city with no more personality than a paper cup. Out
	in the fancy suburbs dear old Dad is reading the sports page in
	front of a picture window, with his shoes off, thinking he is high
	class because he has a three-car garage. Mom is in front of her
	princess dresser trying to paint the suitcases out from under her
	eyes. And Junior is clamped onto the telephone calling up a
	succession of high school girls that talk pigeon English and
	carry contraceptives in their make-up kit."
	Raymond Chandler, "The Little Sister"

It's still "safe" to be sexist, a-hedonic and homophobic in L.A.,  
circa 1949. Let's face it, Marlowe's punch-drunk, hung-over and  
downright mean. But he does get all the best lines.