IVIV Chandler

[Doug Millison]

Marlowe may have the capacity to act better than some of the other  
people in the world he inhabits in those novels, but after spending  
time with him daily over the past couple of weeks, I'm quite certain  
he's not the kind of person I'd want to go have a drink with, because  
he'd likely get drunk and pick a fight if he'd had a bad day, or  
because one or another of the explosive people in his workaday world  
might come looking for him and I'd be caught in the cross-fire.

By "brute" I mean just that, a man who welcomes physical violence and  
is willing to hurt and even kill others as necessary to accomplish his  
objectives.  Just as a personal preference, I tend to stay away from  
people like that, ever since I got to know a whole bunch of them after  
being drafted into the US Army back in that Vietnam War day.  Although  
I was lucky and didn't have to go to Vietnam, Thank God.

It may be worth the effort to compare Doc and Marlowe, on the basis of  
close reading.