On rereading Chandler's stories in The Simple Art of Murder,
I notice
that Marlowe (Dalmas) is mostly following hunches and often
doesn't know
how to take care of himself. The beatings he takes and the
traps he
walks into wouldn't happen nearly as often to a professional,
who would
simply not stick his nose in certain places without
preparation and some
backup. Is this dangerous tendency to improvise part of
Marlowe's
magical charm as a character?
Something else also struck me: Walter Mosley did not make
Easy Rawlins a
real detective but a street-savvy guy who gets into scrapes
and is
forced to investigate. This gives Mosley a lot of flexibility
and
Rawlins plenty of opportunities to get into trouble without
appearing to
be inept - he is only an ordinary guy, not a pro. With the
obvious
differences, Rawlins is closer in character to Marlowe than
to any other
"investigator" I can think of; and Mosley's plots, like
Chandler's, are
not neat and perfect, since Rawlins follows his intuition,
not
procedure.
Just some rambling thoughts.
Regards,
mt
#
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to
majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.