The Long Goodbye, Chapter 49

[Robin Landseadel]

On Oct 16, 2009, at 8:56 AM, Charles Albert wrote:

> Robin: Chandler turns that around by blowing a hole through T.S.  
> Eliot's pretensions.
>
>
> I don't see how this follows......Earlier in the novel Marlowe  
> offers Amos a tip, or, if he'd prefer, a book of T. S. Eliot's poems  
> which Amos declines because he already possesses the works. It seems  
> unlikely that Chandler would discount the intellectual capacity he  
> has established for the chauffeur simply to take a swipe at Eliot.  
> If anything, an enthusiasm for Eliot, sufficient to motivate an  
> analysis of Prufrock, appears consistent with Marlowe's other higher  
> level affinities, specifically chess. I take Marlowe's comment about  
> Eliot and women as evidence of his intimacy and fondness for him,  
> and even as an expression of a kind of kinship. Marlowe offers  
> several "insights" on the nature of women - his digression on  
> blondes is a riot worthy of Nabokov - but he is continually tripped  
> up by his inability to accurately discern their motivations, a  
> shortcoming he shares with Prufrock.
>
>
>
> love,
> cfa

Good obs—doubtless you're more conversant in T.S. Eliot than I am. At  
the same time one can easily see a myopic perspective on the literary  
game in the character of Roger Wade. There's  multiple perspectives on  
social class and intellect throughout "The Long Goodbye." In any case,  
I was looking for a way to wrap up my observations of the  
correspondences between CoL49 and The Long Goodbye. I see your point  
concerning Marlowe's kinship with Prufrock. Marlowe warning Amos to  
not say "nonetheless" in front of a millionaire displays an expression  
of kinship with Amos as well.

The coldness of the sex scenes in Inherent Vice has been noted  
elsewhere. When Amos drops off Mrs. Loring at Marlowe's doorstep it  
leads directly to an equally cold exchange of bodily fluids, much like  
other loveless matings to be found in Chandler's novels.

What really got me looking at these passages was thinking of the  
leitmotiv of T.S. Eliot and the use of a wastecan for a maildrop in  
"Goodbye" resonating with "W.A.S.T.E." in CoL 49. The American Waste  
Doctrine—a bit of legalese that applies in particular to property  
development—appears to connect the Pynchon and Stearns families in a  
legal dispute:

	Section 49. Who May Commit Waste
	Waste can only be committed by a person rightfully in
	possession of the property. Under the early common law only
	tenants of legal estates as distinguished from tenants of
	conventional estates, were liable for waste.28 But the common
	law was changed by the statute of Marlbridge (52 Hen. Ill, c.
	23), which provides that "fermers, during their terms, shall not
	make waste, sale, nor exile of house, woods, and men, nor of
	anything belonging to the tenements that they have to a ferm,
	without special license had by writing of covenant, making
	mention that they may do it; which thing, if they do, and thereof
	be convict, they shall yield full damage and shall be punished
	by amerciament grievously." And by the statute of Gloucester (6
	Edw. I, c. 5), it was enacted that "a man from henceforth shall
	have a writ of waste in the chancery against him that holdeth by
	 law of England, or otherwise for term of life or term of years, or
	a woman in dower. And he which shall be attainted of waste,
	shall lose the thing that he has wasted, and moreover, shall
	recompense thrice so much as the waste shall be taxed at." In
	the United States these statutes are either considered a part of
	the common law, so far as applicable to the different
	conditions,29 or they have been expressly enacted in a
	modified form. . .

http://chestofbooks.com/society/law/Popular-Law-4/Section-49-Who-May-Commit-Waste.html

The "S" in T.S. Eliot stands for "Stearns."