----- Original Message ----- From: Bludis Jack
> It's an excellent take and one I would like to
believe, but I guess we will never know short of
> Jim writing a scholarly article on it, which he is
clearly able to try.
For what it's worth, I addressed this in the final chapter of
my dissertation. I agree with Jim's take (though I do
disagree with his assessment regarding what was "generally
thought"). Here's an excerpt, which I do think shows that Jim
is correct. Page references are mostly to the Library of
America editions. I hope the formatting does not get
garbled.
~Marc
Raymond
Chandler, in his final years, did attempt one more Philip
Marlowe novel. He only completed the first four chapters of
the manuscript that he called The Poodle Springs Story. In
these short chapters, we discover that Philip Marlowe and
Linda Loring have been married for twenty-five days. Having
just returned from their honeymoon (which took them to Hawaii
and Mexico), the newlyweds are moving into their newly rented
home in Poodle Springs. Marlowe no longer seems like a
detective in the mold of The Maltese Falcon's Sam Spade, but
instead more resembles The Thin Man's Nick Charles. Loring,
in a role similar to that of The Thin Man's Nora Charles,
even makes mention of a dog, a poodle named Inky (instead of,
one supposes, Asta). Marlowe seems to sense the danger that
this new life poses to his identity as a knight-errant
detective, for he tells Loring that he will continue working.
If he takes Loring's money, Marlowe says, he risks becoming
"Mr. Loring" (Poodle !
Springs 257). After alternatively trading barbs and
innuendoes with Loring, he heads into town to search for an
appropriate location to open a new office and check in with
the local police. Neither task goes particularly well.
Finally, a local gangster named Manny Lipshultz wants to have
a word with Marlowe. After Marlowe declines Lipshultz's
offered conference, Lipshultz sends his hired muscle to
"persuade" Marlowe. Marlowe deals with Lipshultz's thugs in
an amusing scene. Marlowe returns home and briefs Loring on
the events of his day. And that is all Chandler wrote before
he died in February of 1959.
The premise
for The Poodle Springs Story went against Chandler's stated
philosophy for the well-written detective story. Chandler
wrote in "The Simple Art of Murder" that the hard-boiled
detective "is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a
detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among
common people. [. . .] He is a lonely man [. . .]" (992).
This exhortation would forbid Marlowe from marrying at all,
but especially from marrying into wealth. Five years after
writing "The Simple Art of Murder," Chandler wrote "Casual
Notes on the Mystery Novel," in which he says,
Love interest nearly always weakens a mystery
because it introduces a type of suspense that is antagonistic
to the detective's struggle to solve the problem. It stacks
the cards, and in nine cases out of ten, it eliminates at
least two useful suspects. The only effective love interest
is that which creates a personal hazard for the detective-but
which, at the same time, you instinctively feel to be a mere
episode. A really good detective never gets married.
(70)
Chandler may
have intended Marlowe's marriage to be a "mere episode." In
fact, Chandler convinced his friend Ian Fleming that
Marlowe's marriage was a good idea by explaining that he
planned to have Marlowe drink himself to death because he
could no longer work (Hiney 269). In an October 1958 letter
to Roger Machell (Hamish Hamilton's director), Chandler
wrote,
My next book is to be laid in Palm Springs with
Marlowe having a rather tough time getting along with his
wife's ideas of how to live. He loves her and they are
beautifully matched in bed, but there is trouble looming.
(Selected Letters 478) This looming trouble is present in
early pages of the manuscript of The Poodle Springs Story.
Marlowe's very character clashes with his wife's from the
start. Marlowe tells her,
I want to make you happy. But I don't know how.
I'm not holding enough cards. I'm a poor man married to a
rich wife. I don't know how to behave. I'm only sure of one
thing-shabby office or not, that's where I became what I am.
That's where I will be what I will be. (Poodle Springs 257)
Loring asks him, "Darling, does it have to be this way? It
seems so unnecessary." Marlowe replies, "For me there isn't
any other way" (Poodle Springs 258). When Marlowe goes to
town, he immediately notices that he is treated differently.
He tells Sergeant Whitestone, "I'm not backed by any two
hundred million, Sergeant. I'm on my own and I'm a relatively
poor man" (Poodle Springs 261). Whitestone finds this
distinction amusing-and meaningless.
Marlowe, as a
married man, had lost his way, becoming an errant
knight-errant. Chandler's last published letter was to
Maurice Guinness, the man who had apparently convinced
Chandler to allow Marlowe to marry. Dated just five weeks
before his death, this letter indicates that Chandler set
aside The Poodle Springs Story after realizing that it could
not work. In effect, Chandler withdrew Marlowe from the fray
in the middle of surrender. Chandler's letter to Guinness
makes a better final statement of Marlowe's legacy than
either the closing chapter of Playback or The Poodle Springs
Story:
I think I may have misunderstood your desire that
Marlowe should get married. I think I may have picked the
wrong girl. But as a matter of fact, a fellow of Marlowe's
type shouldn't get married, because he is a lonely man, a
poor man, a dangerous man, and yet a sympathetic man, and
somehow none of this goes with marriage. I think he will
always have a fairly shabby office, a lonely house, a number
of affairs, but no permanent connection. [. . .] It seems to
me that this is his destiny-possibly not the best destiny in
the world, but it belongs to him. No one will ever beat him,
because by his nature he is unbeatable. No one will ever make
him rich, because he is destined to be poor. [. . .] I see
him in a lonely street, in lonely rooms, puzzled but never
quite defeated. (Selected Letters 482)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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