Karin Montin wrote:
I can't say that I noticed the contempt miker speaks
of.
************** I guess it's how you read it. Here are a few
comments Archer made about Jamieson:
"He looked like money about three generations removed from
source."
"...his face was puffy and apologetic."
"...he wore a layer of fat like easily penetratable
armor."
"He let me feel his large amorphous hand."
"...he got up quickly, almost knocking over his double
malted."
These quotes came from the first four paragraphs of the
novel. So I gather that Peter is spoiled, spending money he
did not make. He's also a fat, clumsy wimp. It continues in
this vein ad nauseum. Shifting to the next character, the
bank manager McMinn, he notes:
"McMinn seemed to take a dim but lofty pleasure in mentioning
this, as if money conferred spiritual grace..."
His first encounter with Harry Hendricks:
"An air of desperate failure hung about him like a personal
odor."
Mrs. Fablon:
"She smiled at her own elaborate wit."
He won't even be polite and take a drink with Jamieson's
alcoholic father, remarking that it was too early in the day
for him to drink.
The lifeguard at the club:
"He reminded me of the dumb blondes who had cluttered up the
California landscape when I was a kid."
This kind of snobbery and righteous indignation runs like a
river of sewage through the book.
Mario has wisely noted that an author is in dangerous waters
imitating Chandler. I see the bad in Chandler multiplied
tenfold in Macdonald, and I see none of what was good about
Chandler in Macdonald.
Speaking of Mario, he mentioned the black money theme.
What does that phrase mean? I'm not acquainted with
it.
miker
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