Chandler & The Cassidy Case

[Robin Landseadel]

On Dec 5, 2009, at 6:03 AM, John Carvill wrote:

> If you aren't already aware of this, it should be of particular
> interest to you - oil, politics, scandal, murder, and The High Window:
>
> http://home.comcast.net/~mossrobert/html/criticism/cassidy.htm

Excellent article, here's a pertinent passage:
	The police force served more often to protect major racketeers

	from upstart competitors than to eradicate crime. Cops routinely

	trampled on constitutional rights--arresting without warrants,

	framing reform leaders, brutalizing prisoners, and protecting

	vice interests. An observer--like Chandler--who had lived in the

	city for several decades would have witnessed a continual

	parade of anti-vice campaigns and reform tickets, each of which

	made a lot of noise and each of which accomplished next to

	nothing. Little wonder then that both Chandler and White

	concluded that it was the system as a whole that was corrupt

	and that there was little an individual--no matter how honest--

	could do to change it.

	These conclusions can be seen in the way Chandler portrays

	 the police in his novels. Commentators have often remarked

	that Chandler filled his stories with cops who are brutal and

	dishonest, but that is not exactly the case. Very few of

	Chandler's policemen are seriously corrupt. Most are tough,

	hard-working family men trying their best to do an honest job

	despite the corruption of the system.

	And that, ultimately, is what Chandler's novels are about: not

	crime, not sex, not murder, but rather the struggles of a lone

	individual with a sense of honor and propriety trying to function

	in a world hostile to honesty. Chandler was not a reformer. He

	was, by nature, quite conservative. He never advocated a

	program for social change. If his letters are any indication,

	Chandler had little interest in politics and did not heavily

	research real-life corruption. His crime stories, rather,

	functioned more as a metaphor for his bitter view of modern life

	as a whole.



Note as well that the website offers more essays on Raymond Chandler:



http://home.comcast.net/~mossrobert/html/criticism.htm