George V. Higgins writes "Chandler did not write about crime, or detection-as he insisted he did not. He wrote about the corruption of the human spirit, using Philip Marlowe as his disapproving angel, and he knew about it, down to the marrow." And yet, and yet. Marlowe as "angel"??
Philip Marlowe hits women. He comes across young Carmen Sternwood, naked and drugged out of her mind on ether and laudanum. He slaps her, tries to bring her out of it enough to get her dressed, but she just blinks, peering at him with empty eyes. And even though she's so far out that the stings on her face don't register in her brain, he "slapped her around a little more. She didn't mind the slaps" (pg36, Modern Library Edition, 1995). Well, I guess if she didn't mind, that's OK then. ...What was he trying to accomplish with the extra slaps?
Alright, so it's a mystery novel, he's a private detective, a hard boiled egghead, and women are either sluts or Madonnas, blahblahblah. It's not cliche because it's classic. It's pre-cliche. Chandler wrote brilliance and everyone who followed mishandled and misused it and made it a cliche. Like I said before, I can swallow that. I get Philip Marlowe right up until page 64, when he describes Carmen as "A pretty, spoiled and not very bright little girl who had gone very, very wrong, and nobody was doing anything about it. To hell with the rich. They make [him] sick."
Mmmk, Phil, you can be down and out, drinking and smoking up your meals, you can leer at every.single.woman.you.see (Carmen: pg5, 35-6, 64; Mrs. Regan: pg17, 57, 61; "the Blonde"/Agnes: pg23, 52, Unnamed "small dark woman": pg28), and you can hit girls*. But you don't get to do all that and still consider yourself better than anybody else. The one thing I can't let Philip Marlowe do is look down on Carmen Sternwood. So, he lacks respect for just about everybody, that's fine, he doesn't really demand respect in return. Like Higgins said, this isn't about crime and detection, it's about corruption--in a low-down, dirty place, there's not a whole lot of respect to be had, but Philip Marlowe doesn't get to sit on his high horse, above the ether and laudanum when he wants to and slide around on his belly when he needs to; he can either be up or down.
And I really, really wanted to like this book.
Dear The Big Sleep,
Get better.
Love,
Jillie
(*You see, it's OK, because the second time he hits her, the time when she's not drugged, just hysterical, she really doesn't mind it.
She had had her photo taken as Isis and somebody had swiped it and somebody had bumped Geiger off in front of her and she was drunker than a Legion convention, and it was suddenly a lot of nice clean fun. So she giggled. [...] She started to go hysterical. I slid off the desk and stepped up close to her and gave her a smack on the side of the face.
'Just like last night', I said. 'We're a scream together. Reilly and Sternwood, two stooges in search of a comedian.'
The giggles stopped dead, but she didn't mind the slap any more than last night. Probably all her boy friends got around to slapping her sooner or later. I could understand how they might (66).
Because she's annoying. Haha. This is called slut-shaming. And the important thing to remember is that it's OK to mistreat people if they're asking for it**by being super annoying, like Carmen. She's slap-able and taunt-able because she's silly. She giggles when she's nervous and tries to get out of trouble by acting cute.)
(**People who "ask for it" are typically women; though men can be sexually mistreated as well, it's much rarer. Things would be different for Carmen if she had only been born with boy parts. Going out with the gang, hanging with degenerates, gambling, drinking. The same actions would have very different consequences. No one would blame Carmen's silly feeble girl-brain for the trouble she gets into, for instance. She wouldn't be stupid, she would be testing the limits of parental control, vying with her father for power. She'd be asserting her stature in society; she'd be growing up.
On the flip side, not every boy who likes to party does it to assert dominance; some boys simply Like To Party. The important difference to note here, however, is that Boys Who Like To Party do not ask to be taken advantage of, drugged and stripped naked, then pictures are taken and families are blackmailed; Girls Who Like To Party ask for all these things. And more. Therefore, it is officially the girl's fault if she gets drugged and raped and photographed nude. I think Science did a study on it once. It's, like, biological or social or some junk.)
(**People who "ask for it" are typically women; though men can be sexually mistreated as well, it's much rarer. Things would be different for Carmen if she had only been born with boy parts. Going out with the gang, hanging with degenerates, gambling, drinking. The same actions would have very different consequences. No one would blame Carmen's silly feeble girl-brain for the trouble she gets into, for instance. She wouldn't be stupid, she would be testing the limits of parental control, vying with her father for power. She'd be asserting her stature in society; she'd be growing up.
On the flip side, not every boy who likes to party does it to assert dominance; some boys simply Like To Party. The important difference to note here, however, is that Boys Who Like To Party do not ask to be taken advantage of, drugged and stripped naked, then pictures are taken and families are blackmailed; Girls Who Like To Party ask for all these things. And more. Therefore, it is officially the girl's fault if she gets drugged and raped and photographed nude. I think Science did a study on it once. It's, like, biological or social or some junk.)
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