Raymond Chandler and Bogart as Marlowe

Today I feel compelled to note the 122 anniversary of the birth of my favorite author, Raymond Chandler. The main reason being that I am currently re-reading what I think is the true Great American Novel, Chandler’s masterpiece, The Long Goodbye.

Chandler, as some of you may know, was the creator of arguably the second most famous fictional private detective in the world, Philip Marlowe. [Sherlock Holmes is undoubtedly Number 1] Marlowe is a tough, down-at-heels private eye, who in spite of the cynicism he tries to project is at heart an idealist and an optimist. Over the narrative course of five novels he continually gets involved in the messy lives of the people he meets even when he doesn’t really need to.

In The Long Goodbye, Marlowe meets a guy named Terry Lennox:

The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers. The parking lot attendant had brought the car out and he was still holding the door open because Terry Lennox’s left foot was still dangling outside, as if he had forgotten he had one. He had a young-looking face but his hair was bone white. You could tell by his eyes that he was plastered to the hairline, but otherwise he looked like any other nice young guy in a dinner jacket who had been spending too much money in a joint that exists for that purpose and for no other.

When Lennox is abandoned by the girl he’s with just because he’s just run out of dough, Marlowe takes him home and sobers him up. Marlowe knows better than to get involved with drunks, but he does it anyway.

Marlowe says, “Terry Lennox made me plenty of trouble. But after all that’s my line of work.” Well, maybe. Usually a private eye gets paid for helping people. Lennox has no money, and in fact, Marlowe rarely makes a dime off any of the people he helps. So, it’s more than just Marlowe’s “line of work.” More like his mission.

“I’m supposed to be tough but there was something about the guy that got me,” Marlowe ruminates after his first encounter with Terry Lennox. Later, he tells Lennox,

I’m a private dick. You’re a problem that I don’t have to solve. But the problem is there. Call it a hunch. If you want to be extra polite, call it a sense of character. Maybe that girl didn’t walk out on you at The Dancers just because you were drunk. Maybe she had a feeling too.

Tricycle Magazine did an article once on Marlowe as a Bodhisattva. I wish I could find it. If you’re a subscriber, you can log in a read it. I think It’s called “Zen Master Marlowe.” There might be an earlier one, from the ‘90’s also. I remember they described him as the “true American Bodhisattva.”

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