The intensely personal moral code of the early PI is a direct
result of
the lies and bullshit they discovered through their military
careers.
Paul Fussell writes about the disillusionment the doughboys
brought home
from the battlefield. All of that was heightened by what they
saw back in
their hometowns and in the nation's capitol. All the lies and
bullshit
taught them they could only trust themselves. Which is once
again the
first law of the battlefield.
I contend there's no difference between Marlowe and, say,
Richard Barre's
Wil Hardesty. Both are veterans and both are burdened by
those
experiences and both came back to America and needed to
refashion their
lives. That the refashioning made them hard-boiled. . . well,
that's why
we like them.
Frederick Zackel
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