IVIV Chandler

[Robin Landseadel]

On Aug 20, 2009, at 5:39 AM, Doug Millison wrote:

> You're wrong about what I'm doing, John, and you're starting to  
> sound a bit frantic about it.  I'm certain basing I'm my remarks on  
> having read Chandlers books in the past couple of weeks.  I'm  
> certain I can find any number of critics who will read and interpret  
> Chandler any number of ways. I can argue he book left, right, and up  
> the middle, upside down and inside out, too, based on as close a  
> reading as you'll care to follow, I'm sure.
>
> And we could discuss those differing interpretations and how they  
> relate to Pynchon…but, not if you're going to point to this that or  
> the other "expert" and claim his or her authority settles a  
> literary  disagreement once and for all -- that's the childish move,  
> John.
>
>
> On Aug 20, 2009, at 12:46 AM, John Carvill wrote:
>>>
>>
>> Yeah, you 'guess'. You're not basing this on the text(s), just a
>> feeling you have . . .

This is getting a bit silly.

I'm sure that Pynchon loves Chandler's writing even while knowing full  
well that nobody's perfect. Marlowe is surely a product of his times  
even as he helps to define those times. Farewell my Lovely showed our  
detective moving through the many worlds of Los Angeles. South Central  
only just became more or less officially a ghetto. There's a little  
time spent there, much more in higher-priced establishments. Marlowe  
seems to less of a racist than anyone around him—cops talk about a  
"shine Killing," not even worth the paperwork. So chalk up one for  
Raymond Chandler, somewhat enlightened soul. On the other hand,  
there's a screed in The Little Sister where Marlowe gets all agitated  
over L.A. going to hell in a handbasket, a screed that includes  
homosexuals as prime evidence of the devolution of California. Come to  
think of it, this can also be found in early Pynchon.

I would say that one of Noir's primary attractions for Pynchon is the  
degree that the Noir genre is inherently preterite, that there's  
always a pastness to Noir and always a degree in which it is regarded  
as inferior—lower on the intellectual food chain. Seeing how often  
Pynchon uses plot elements and descriptive elements from Noir— 
particularly in his three "California" novels—it appears that the  
author is just as attracted to the inherent flaws of Noir as he is to  
its potential virtues.

And while Doc may not be sexist, surely his "couplings" with the  
various gals in Inherent Vice  are.