A few thoughts on Chandler's burgher

[Mark Kohut]

Paul,

This a remarkably generous, articulate---in time and ideas post----which I have to reread and digest............so, picking out this one snippet is NOT a simple sniper's shot...

BUT, Paul N.:"Given the 'mass society' attitude to
popular culture (as celebrated by Pynchon and postmodernism),"...

NO, P does not do that.....he incorporates it satriically.....in fact, combined with the concept ot gravity, he uses the word 'mass' subtly, almost offhandedly as condemnation in places in ATD (and maybe GR)

Mark

--- On Sat, 8/22/09, Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com> wrote:

> From: Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com>
> Subject: Re: A few thoughts on Chandler's burgher
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Saturday, August 22, 2009, 6:11 AM
> Thanks Mark. I suppose the obvious
> definition of 'reactionary' is the
> opposite of 'progressive', which doesn't get us anywhere!
> For our purposes
> here we can give a crude working definition, one that
> corresponds to what
> Davis wrote: at a time when the political consensus
> favoured some kind of
> state intervention, and indeed embracing it in the form of
> the New Deal,
> emergent noir celebrated petit-bourgeois individualism
> (hence, I think,
> Davis' selection of the term "burgher"). Marlowe is a
> businessman selling a
> service, an exponent of private enterprise. I said it was
> significant that
> Marlowe, in the later novels, spends a lot of time refusing
> payment, one
> reason why I feel that Doc Sportello (one definition of his
> name, as has
> been described already, indicating the interface between
> service provider
> and customer) alludes to late-Marlowe rather than Marlowe
> per se (we might
> suggest that Pynchon's prologue alludes to early-Marlowe).
> 
> Davis refers to "the semi-proletarianised writer" and a
> fear of
> proletarianisation is evident in the Marlowe-text. Even
> while hating them,
> Marlowe aspires to the company of a corrupt bourgeoisie
> because it takes him
> further from the street. Consider, for example, the way
> Farewell My Lovely
> juxtaposes Jessie Florian to Velma; the former is pathetic
> and disgusts
> Marlowe, while the later is allowed to become a tragic
> figure because she
> has the resources to escape the social milieu that has
> destroyed Jessie. A
> lot has been written here about drinking in Chandler's
> novels; Marlowe can
> hold his booze, someone like Jessie Florian can't. The
> thrust of the
> narrative asks us to forget Jessie while seeking Velma.
> Jessie is
> disgusting: does Marlowe, and the reader, feel the same way
> about High
> Window's Elizabeth Bright Murdoch? All of which brings into
> play complex
> discourses of gender and class, of course.
> 
> Previously I wrote that "before a word has been written the
> figure of
> Marlowe has been organised as a vigilante"; that is to say,
> genre
> conventions allow him--indeed insist on it--to operate
> outside the law.
> Here, the law becomes an example of state intervention; it
> frequently
> hampers individual police officers who are reduced to the
> status of impotent
> bureaucrats. Their frustration is described time and again;
> we might even
> pity them. Such a construction derives from right-wing
> small-government
> discourse. An ideal (and, following Weber, non-existent)
> reader is
> positioned as one who will celebrate a hero free to cut
> corners and do his
> own thing, which doesn't mean actual readers can't and
> won't occupy
> different positions. In the event Chandler/Marlowe offers
> us a lot more and
> that is why I described the novels as "interesting".
> 
> The reference to 'mass society' criticism was designed to
> put Chandler's
> writing into some kind of context, one that included a
> range of political
> positions: Leavis was hardly a Marxist. Given the 'mass
> society' attitude to
> popular culture (as celebrated by Pynchon and
> postmodernism), a blanket
> dismissal of anything produced by the culture industry, I
> think it fair to
> describe such writing as reactionary. I don't have it to
> hand, but there's
> an essay by Adorno that describes popular music as an
> example of Fordist
> industrial production: genre fiction would be something
> similar and,
> throughout, the Marlowe novels resist this negative label.
> 
> Actually, in my original post, I think I focused on a
> detailed account--so
> far as it went--of the Chandler/Marlowe oeuvre! I was
> hardly critical of the
> novels in question, although I think some better than
> others. Specifically,
> the context for The Long Goodbye, an extraordinary novel,
> would include
> Mills' writing on the power elite; and I say extraordinary
> here because the
> writing and publication of this novel coincides with the
> witchhunt years
> (explicitly referenced in the text).
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org
> [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org]
> On Behalf
> Of Mark Kohut
> Sent: 20 August 2009 11:09
> To: Paul Nightingale; John Carvill
> Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: A few thoughts on Chandler's burgher
> 
> I, too, will question what "reactionary" means. You can
> define in general,
> but it is curious that whatever it means, you do focus on
> Chandler's
> Frankfurt School-like critique of media/advertising. This
> is major and
> anti-reactionary all by itself, yes? In these best-selling,
> therefore mass-
> (enough) audience works?
> 
> Vigilante? In one sense, but each book shows a man
> committed to finding out
> the truth and effecting justice. A vigilante usually
> carries the connotation
> of having little regard for facts.
> 
> 
>