Bleeding Edge , riffs on the title

[Robin Landseadel]

One of my earliest literary fixations was Raymond Chandler. In  
Chandler's L.A., the murder isn't really the heart of the matter. The  
real issue is one of local control. In other words, the distribution  
of preterite and elect, with Marlow's job more Maxwell's Demon than  
enforcer. He's hardly an enforcer at all, just another gumshoe on the  
verge of poverty. Raymond Chandler's quests leave us with maps of the  
high and low of L.A. a map of the local distribution of power.
On Sep 27, 2013, at 6:44 AM, Monte Davis wrote:

> "Detective story" isn't the first capsule description I'd use, but  
> it's not
> all that wrong-headed -- especially if you stretch it towards  
> "quest" along
> the lines of, say, Ross MacDonald's California mysteries and  
> 'Chinatown' (in
> which whodunnit is secondary to family crimes and secrets  
> reverberating for
> decades).
>
> Stencil, Oedipa, Slothrop, Lew Basnight, Doc Sportello, and Maxine  
> are out
> there explicitly seeking clues and connections. Charles & Jeremiah  
> and the
> Chums keep wondering who's *really* behind their orders. Much of  
> Vineland
> turns on who ratted on whom. All this can be framed -- and in  
> PynchCrit
> commonly has been framed -- in an alternate language of paranoia and
> alienation, but I think that TRP (1) absorbed a lot of mystery/ 
> detective
> fiction, and (2) is comfortable with -- and quite unembarrassed by  
> -- many
> of its tropes.
>
> Coincidentally, For your pulpish pleasure:
> http://boingboing.net/2013/09/26/true-crime-detective-magazines.html
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l