IVIV Chandler

[John Carvill]

Just one more thought on the racism thing. I would say - from memory,
not from close reading - that Chandler depicts a world where casual
racism is pretty rife, with the police not caring to investigate
'shine' murders in 'Farewell, My Lovely', for instance. But he does
not depict Marlowe himself as being racist and, as I remember it, if
anything Marlowe is unusually sympathetic to black people, recognising
that they are victimised and marginalised and as such finding some
kind of common ground with them.

Climbing right out onto a lonely limb, I would even suggest that
Marlowe's sensibility and worldview is not overly dissimilar to
Pynchon's, particularly in the respect of identifying with the
preterite, and they share a mix of mournful, nostalgic, elegaic moods.
Plus of course there are significant similarities in their respective
senses of humour.

Marlowe's attitude towards homosexuals and drug users, well, that's a
very different kettle of fish.

I still don't get the 'brute' thing.

Overall, I find it impossible to believe that there aren't already
'close readings' of all this out there. Maybe if I get a chance later
I'll have a google...