Cecelia Ahern’s first novel was launched with a maximum of hype and publicity. If one believes the publicity, she is the next Shakespeare – a suggestion which does no favours for Ms Ahern. Readers’ expectations are raised to expect a profound work of literature and instead they get a nice holiday read.
The heroine of the book is Holly, a thirty year old Dublin woman whose husband died of cancer and who is trying to get on with her life as a young widow. The idea is brilliant – her husband leaves her a series of challenges to be carried out each month during the year following his death. However, the author’s writing skills do not live up to the good idea. It is clichéd and predictable with more than a suggestion of the ‘Dort’ accent and lifestyle, which revolves round trendy night clubs and bars and getting stupidly and embarrassingly drunk.
The characters are slightly drawn and are the stock figures of romance – disapproving in-laws, unsympathetic and tear-away siblings and supportive but puzzled parents – who all behave predictably. The theme of the book is, I think, meant to be how Holly comes to terms with the devastation of losing her husband - with his help. Bereavement and loss are very weighty subjects for a young inexperienced author to tackle effectively. She does not succeed in doing justice to her chosen theme and fails to convey any depth of feelings or emotion in her main character.
That said, this is an easy read with an in-built feel-good factor and is ideal for whiling away the hours on the beach.
“Atonement” by Ian McEwan
“Atonement” is the story a woman’s deep desire to atone for a mistake she committed as a 13-year old. The story begins in 1935, and Briony is a young, fanciful girl imagining stories and evading adulthood on her family’s country estate. Her misinterpretation of several sexually-charged encounters between her older sister Cecilia and beau Robbie, leads her to implicate Robbie in a crime he did not commit. Maturity and experience come to Briony with time, and she realizes the gravity of her error. Briony looks for a path in life to help her amend for her childhood mistake, becoming a nurse during the Second World War and witnessing the horrific injuries and deaths of young soldiers. Eventually she does pursue her passion for writing and composes her own novel to tell the true story of her mistake and vindicate Robbie for all time.
Anyone familiar with McEwan’s earlier novels will be surprised by the voice and pace of this novel. The novel opens with a flowery description of the Tallis family estate and the whimsical musings of young Briony. Chapters of shifting perspectives follow that set up the turning point of the novel: Briony’s identification of Robbie as her cousin’s attacker. As described in the author’s own words during the course of the novel, the writing style is “cloying” and extravagant. Fans of flowery similes and spectacular metaphors will enjoy McEwan’s imagery-laden descriptions, but even the most patient of readers will frequently wonder when the author is going to get to his point.
The aggravation of the writing style aside, the novel is a worthwhile slog. McEwan dedicates the central portion of the novel to Robbie’s experiences as a soldier in France during the war. He cleverly merges the horrors of war with Robbie’s passionate desire to return to Cecilia, her promise to wait for him pushing him to survive against difficult odds. The troops are on the retreat, and the overwhelming feeling of defeat and despair mimics the catastrophic end to Robbie’s own story in the first part of the novel.
Patience pays off with the final part of the novel. Briony finally plucks up the courage to visit Cecilia and discovers Robbie living with her sister. Despite Robbie’s violent anger towards Briony, both Briony and the reader are finally relieved to discover that Cecilia and Robbie’s relationship has survived. Briony’s mistake has not kept the lovers from each other, and the novel can end on a positive note.
Happily, this novel is no Disney movie, and the ending is not so simple. It is difficult to reconcile the behavior of Cecilia and Robbie in this final scene with the characters so lovingly detailed in the beginning of the book. Perhaps time and trials have hardened them, but no evidence in the novel lends itself to these dubious diverges in character. Briony is an old woman now, and she has written her final story, her atonement. It is difficult to discern whether the encounter with her sister is a matter of fact or whether it is fiction created within the author’s mind to assuage her conscience after so many years of guilt.
This final twist of the novel that leaves the fate of the characters to the reader’s imagination is what makes the novel so clever and worthwhile. McEwan’s thorough details and interlocking incidents result in a story that is carefully put together and complete
Anyone familiar with McEwan’s earlier novels will be surprised by the voice and pace of this novel. The novel opens with a flowery description of the Tallis family estate and the whimsical musings of young Briony. Chapters of shifting perspectives follow that set up the turning point of the novel: Briony’s identification of Robbie as her cousin’s attacker. As described in the author’s own words during the course of the novel, the writing style is “cloying” and extravagant. Fans of flowery similes and spectacular metaphors will enjoy McEwan’s imagery-laden descriptions, but even the most patient of readers will frequently wonder when the author is going to get to his point.
The aggravation of the writing style aside, the novel is a worthwhile slog. McEwan dedicates the central portion of the novel to Robbie’s experiences as a soldier in France during the war. He cleverly merges the horrors of war with Robbie’s passionate desire to return to Cecilia, her promise to wait for him pushing him to survive against difficult odds. The troops are on the retreat, and the overwhelming feeling of defeat and despair mimics the catastrophic end to Robbie’s own story in the first part of the novel.
Patience pays off with the final part of the novel. Briony finally plucks up the courage to visit Cecilia and discovers Robbie living with her sister. Despite Robbie’s violent anger towards Briony, both Briony and the reader are finally relieved to discover that Cecilia and Robbie’s relationship has survived. Briony’s mistake has not kept the lovers from each other, and the novel can end on a positive note.
Happily, this novel is no Disney movie, and the ending is not so simple. It is difficult to reconcile the behavior of Cecilia and Robbie in this final scene with the characters so lovingly detailed in the beginning of the book. Perhaps time and trials have hardened them, but no evidence in the novel lends itself to these dubious diverges in character. Briony is an old woman now, and she has written her final story, her atonement. It is difficult to discern whether the encounter with her sister is a matter of fact or whether it is fiction created within the author’s mind to assuage her conscience after so many years of guilt.
This final twist of the novel that leaves the fate of the characters to the reader’s imagination is what makes the novel so clever and worthwhile. McEwan’s thorough details and interlocking incidents result in a story that is carefully put together and complete
Into the Heart of Marlowe: Masculinity and Romance in Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely
Philip Marlowe, the wisecracking private detective of Raymond Chandler’s crime novel series, is presented to the reader as a seemingly straightforward, everyday "man’s man." But inside Chandler’s characterization of Marlowe lies a complex and uncertain central figure who often uses his biting one-liners to sidestep serious personal questions that might give the reader any insight into his views on women, relationships, or his mysterious past. In fact, Chandler’s constant portrayal of Marlowe as the formula "hardboiled" tough-guy at times seems contrived and overstated, almost as if it were a wall sheltering him from the society from which he appears so alienated. By looking more closely at Chandler’s descriptions of Marlowe and his interactions with other (especially female) characters in The Big Sleep (1939) and Farewell, My Lovely (1940), we can begin to piece together a more discernible idea of how his masculinity functions. The two novels pose a central question: is Marlowe a "real man," or is his exaggerated masculinity a compensation for a masked weakness?
To begin to answer this question, we must first obtaining a better understanding of just exactly who Marlowe really is. In both novels he is presented through first person narration. We are with Philip Marlowe every waking minute of the novel’s progress. We walk with him, we talk with him, and certainly we drink and smoke with him. Through this style of narration, the reader develops an instant rapport with this character and sometimes even feels as a sidekick figure, solving the mysteries with him along the way. Because of this intimate contact, we are allowed to see Marlowe at his best moments, like when he beats the police to solving every mystery, and we are also allowed to see him at his most vulnerable, such as while he is being held captive at Dr. Sonderborg's crooked sanitarium. The first-person perspective has a limitation, though: we are only ever allowed to see what Marlowe thinks about himself and other people. Gone is the omniscient narrator who can fill in all the gaps and provide us with information about the protagonist's past. This narrative voice is at once the greatest aid and the worst impediment of our getting to the heart of Marlowe’s character.
In order to better understand Marlowe, it seems best to turn to the first novel in Chandler’s crime series, The Big Sleep, and see how he is introduced by the author. (All quotations from The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely are cited from the Vintage Crime series edition published by Random House in 1992.) In typical Chandler fashion, this novel starts right in the middle of the action with no precursory introduction to the characters. However, Marlowe does provide tidbits of information about himself along the way. When asked about himself by General Sternwood in The Big Sleep, he replies: "There’s very little to tell. I’m thirty-three years old, went to college once and can still speak English if there’s any demand for it. There isn’t much in my trade" ( 10). Already, it is clear that Marlowe did not enter his trade for lack of any other ability. He has been educated, as his sharp command of language and rhetoric indicate, and while we do not know whether he completed college or what he studied, we can see that he must have some inner desire to live a less-structured, more spontaneous, and more dangerous lifestyle than the ordinary man. He repeatedly indicates that "the pay’s too small" in his chosen field and wisecracks that he is not "a collector of antiques, except unpaid bills" (TBS 71,22). Thus Marlowe’s choice of career and lifestyle was certainly not directed by wealth or glory but fueled instead by a longing to live on the edge as a private detective—truly one of the most masculine lifestyles any man could lead. In fact, Marlowe openly scorns wealth and the need for money in general. "To hell with the rich," he says, "They make me sick" (TBS 64). Thus, to male readers, Marlowe represents a kind of fantasy figure leading a certain life on the edge that breaks with the traditional proprieties of marriage and working a typical nine-to-five wage-earning job. In a sense, Marlowe is what the average man cannot be.
This hardened, tough-guy image is reinforced by his physical appearance as well as his job description. While we never see Marlowe's working on his physical condition, the fact that he is able to engage in so many chase scenes and action-packed brawls leads the reader to assume that he is in good shape. We also know that Marlowe is a man with a fairly large, well-built stature. "Tall aren’t you?" Carmen Sternwood says upon meeting him in The Big Sleep (5), and she reiterates her amazement at his height on many other occasions throughout the novel as well. In another of the few Marlowe self-descriptions, the detective gives the readers a clear picture of his manly appearance:
"Okey, Marlowe," I said between my teeth. "You’re a tough guy. Six feet of iron man. One hundred and ninety pounds stripped and with your face washed. Hard muscles and no glass jaw. You can take it (FML 170).
In The Big Sleep, Chandler touts Marlowe’s size in order to demonstrate the sheer masculinity of his body: "If you can weigh a hundred and ninety pounds and look like a fairy, I was doing my best" (51). In both these scenes, Marlowe exalts his manly attributes in response to an emasculating experience. In the first , Chandler is trying to boost his confidence after he is badly beaten by racketeers when invading their hideout. He has been whipped, but reassures the reader that he is man enough to take it and to overcome his assailants. In the second scene, Marlowe is about to engage in a bit of a charade in which he acts as an effeminate patron of an illegal pornographic bookstore. He does not want the reader to forget, however, that this is going to be a huge stretch for a tough-guy such as himself, and he reminds us that we should not in any way believe this bit of playacting—he is simply doing his job.
But why does Marlowe feel the need to constantly remind the reader of his masculinity? In fact, for someone who is supposedly so manly, Marlowe seems to have a pronounced fear of failing as a man. This fear is particularly evident in his relations with women characters in the two novels. In Farewell, My Lovely, when Marlowe meets Anne Riordan in his office the night after their initial encounter at Purissima Canyon, her attractiveness seems to take him aback. Riordan is not described as an especially beautiful woman, but her smart style and pretty face seem to arouse a new interest in Marlowe and he becomes discernibly edgy and unsure of himself around her: "She leaned back and took one of my cigarettes. I burned my finger with a paper match lighting it for her" (FML 88). Even Riordan notices this abrupt change in composure in the detective: "All the same, I don’t think you’re very pleased to see me," she says, noticing that all of a sudden, Marlowe’s usually cunning dialogue has degenerated into terse phrases and one-word responses. Marlowe himself also acknowledges that his self-confidence is slipping and tries to overcompensate with a masculinity boost: "I filled a pipe and reached for the packet of paper matches. I lit the pipe carefully. She watched that with approval. Pipe smokers were solid men. She was going to be disappointed in me" (88). It is worth noting that we never see Marlowe smoking a pipe in any other scene in the novel. Is he putting on a show here in order to impress Riordan, or is he trying to reaffirm his masculinity since their first encounter (when Marlowe is "sapped" by thugs) placed him in a weakened position? Everything he does in this scene seems dictated by that very idea. Even when he goes to his desk to fix himself a drink, he notices that "Miss Riordan watched me with disapproval. I was no longer a solid man" (89).
A similar situation occurs in The Big Sleep when Marlowe first meets the beautiful Mrs. Reagan, whom he also seems to find beautiful, describing her as "worth a stare" (TBS 17). Once again, Marlowe’s responses sink to the one word or "Uh-huh" conversation level. Mrs. Reagan even takes notice of this, saying "You’re not much of a gusher, are you, Mr. Marlowe?" (18). To Marlowe, she is a sultry vixen whom he must approach with some degree of caution—someone who seems to be testing his attractiveness and virility as a man. Around her, Marlowe feels the need to put on a very stoic, hardened presence.
Marlowe’s discomfort when faced with female characters seems to result from his feeling that they are all intently judging his masculinity, and it leads affects his relationships with them. He can appreciate the sexiness of femme fatale characters like the young and wealthy Carmen Sternwood and the stylish Mrs. Grayle with her "full set of curves which nobody had been able to improve on" (FML 123). He can even begin to realize, like the reader, that there is a strong "soulmate" kind of connection between he and Anne Riordan. Yet Marlowe never once acts on any of these attractions. Instead, he simply refuses to let himself have any feeling whatsoever about any of these women. Perhaps he was burned in the past by a beautiful temptress and always felt that he was not "man enough" to keep her. Or, perhaps his lifestyle is so centered around his own individual needs and desires to accommodate anyone else. Marlowe never specifically mentions that he has had a serious romantic interest in his past, though some of his statements and colorful analogies provide reason enough to wonder: "She put her head back and went off into a peal of laughter. I have only known four women in my life who could do that and still look beautiful. She was one of them" (FML 129). Who were the other three women to whom Marlowe is referring? Certainly, the reader must wonder what his feelings were for them and how, if anything happened at all, a relationship worked out. At some points, Marlowe even expresses a general disdain for romance—take, for instance, the scene on the Bay City water taxi when Marlowe notices the young couples and keeps making snide remarks about them "chewing on each other’s faces" and "taking their teeth out of each other’s necks" (243). In fact, whenever any female character attempts to engage Marlowe in intimate activity, Chandler makes it sound as if Marlowe his detective be forcibly seduced, as in this scene with Mrs. Grayle:
I squeezed her hand back. "Did he borrow from you?"
You’re a little old-fashioned aren’t you?" She looked down at the hand I was holding.
"I’m still working. And your Scotch is so good it keeps me half-sober. Not that I’d have to be drunk—"
"Yes." She drew her hand out of mine and rubbed it… "Kiss me…" (134).
Here, Marlowe’s announcing that he is still on the job and his implication that he is half-drunk makes him sound weak and challenged. He makes feeble excuses, drops his masculine guard, and eventually succumbs to Mrs. Grayle’s demands: the two share a brief intimate kiss. During the scene, Marlowe sounds much like a nervous young girl on a first date, wheedled into intimacy by an aggressive boy.
On other occasions, Marlowe alludes to soured romance and love interests that could only come through personal experience:
The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love (255).
I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin (196).
All men are the same. So are all women—after the first nine (225).
Dead men are heavier than broken hearts (TBS 42).
How does Marlowe know about the coldness of the ashes of love? Has he ever felt the weight of a broken heart? If he has, Marlowe’s tempered masculinity serves as a protective wall sheltering his heart from the judgment—or sympathy—of the reader. Perhaps, to Marlowe, romance and marriage themselves are emasculating—they detract from the duties of being a man. In The Big Sleep, Marlowe makes the comment that "I am unmarried because I don’t like policeman’s wives" (10). What this comment has to do with Marlowe specifically (who is not really a policeman) is unclear, but it can be inferred that Marlowe sees married policeman as men who are sacrificing their manhood to live with women and giving up full control over their lives. Furthermore, Marlowe’s cynical view of the couples on the water taxi in Farewell, My Lovely implies that he considers love a waste of time—he has more important things to do with his life.
Adding to this confusing take on Marlowe’s masculinity is the way in which Chandler writes Marlowe’s relationships with certain male characters in the novel. Certainly Marlowe feels more confident around men than women. Even the imposing Moose Malloy, who had "a hand I could have sat in" was no match for Marlowe’s biting sarcasm (FML 5):
"All right," I yelled. "I’ll go up with you. Just lay off carrying me. Let me walk. I’m fine. I’m all grown up. I go to the bathroom and everything. Just don’t carry me" (7).
On the inside, Marlowe is quite alarmed by his close meeting with Malloy, but he shields his fears with his tough-guy demeanor. By now, this kind of behavior should seem familiar to a seasoned reader of Chandler. When Marlowe feels threatened or insecure, he throws up a wall of reinforced masculinity. However, Chandler does not leave it at that. The reader must always be on guard to look out for characters like Farewell, My Lovely’s Red Norgaard, who challenges the preconceptions that readers may have established about Marlowe's masculinity. Red soon becomes one of the most complicated and complicating characters in the novel. In the first place, Marlowe does not describe Red to us as he does any other male character in the novel. Instead, he finds himself stopping to think about Red, and consequently, we get to see a side of Marlowe that we have not seen before:
"He smiled a slow tired smile. His voice was soft, dreamy, so delicate for a big man that it was startling. It made me think of another soft-voiced big man I had strangely liked" (245).
To whom is Marlowe referring with that last comment? Moose Malloy is described as having a "deep soft voice," but Marlowe never indicated having any real affection for him (5). Perhaps again, Marlowe is referring to someone from his past. Whatever the case, a "strange" liking for a male figure seems definitely out of character for the hardened Marlowe. In fact, Marlowe seems captivated by Red’s appearance, making him sound oddly mythical and even feminine at many points:
He had the eyes you never see, that you only read about. Violet eyes. Almost purple. Eyes like a girl, a lovely girl. His skin was soft as silk. Lightly reddened, but it would never tan. It was too delicate…His hair was that shade of red that glints with gold (247)…
Is Marlowe attracted to Red? He definitely finds him a fascinating figure upon which to look. Moreover, why all the feminine description? Red is a dockworker, and one would hardly think that he could ever be as effeminate in appearance as Marlowe makes him out to be. Marlowe seems genuinely moved by Red, something which is indicated by the way in which Red is able to open him up to him, exposing us to a softer side which Marlowe has kept hidden so well:
"I’m scared," I said suddenly. "I’m scared stiff…I’m afraid of death and despair," I said. "Of dark water and drowned men’s faces and skulls with empty eyesockets. I’m afraid of dying, of being nothing, of not finding a man named Brunette…"
I told him a great deal more than I intended to. It must have been his eyes (251).
No female character in the novel--not even Anne Riordan--could make Marlowe bare his soul to the reader so directly as Red is able to do. Marlowe simply seems to relate better to men. They are closer to his own understanding—he knows how they think. Only men are able to drink and smoke like Marlowe or be as independent and solitary and toughened as he is able to be. Yet Marlowe throws out all of his independence and fear of intimacy, at times sharing many intimate and even homoerotic moments with Red:
Red leaned close to me and his breath tickled my ear (255)…
Red put his lips against my ear (256).
He took hold of my hand. His was strong, hard, warm and slightly sticky (257).
Where Red is concerned, even the simplest act of speaking turns into an almost romantic activity. Tthis confusion of gender and romance is never cleared up by either the author or the character, and it leaves the reader not really ever "knowing" Marlowe.
So why is it that Chandler places this masculine wall around his main character, and then has the most unsuspecting characters tear it down? Is Marlowe really a tough-guy, or is he overcompensating for a softened heart that will not lend itself well to his lifestyle? More simply, why can we never know Marlowe? Chandler answers these questions best in his essay, The Simple Art of Murder. In this writing, the author gives us his formula for creating the perfect detective story, the most important part of which is the characterization of the detective. Just like Marlowe, Chandler’s "formula" detective is
…a complete man and a common man and an unusual man…I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things (59).
Therefore, while the reader may be concerned with the intimate details of Marlowe’s private life, wondering about his past romances and relationships, Chandler is telling us simply to take Marlowe for what he is—a man of honor. What is inside his heart does not matter. If he is honorable, we just know that it is there. Instead, Chandler has to focus on making Marlowe into the ideal man.
The story is this man’s adventure in search for a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in.
Truly, as Marlowe himself says, "It’s not that I like it the hard way. It’s that I get it that way," and because of this, he must be man enough to step up to the job (FML 195). Chandler is not redefining gender in his characterization of Marlowe. He simply presents us a different view of masculinity. He presents us with a character for whom masculinity is required and not just present. This gives Marlowe a tempered, unemotional machismo that shields us from seeing what is inside him. As the main character of a detective novel, Marlowe cannot fall in love or break down and cry—he can never let down his masculine guard in front of the reader. Therefore, masculinity can be seen as a driving force behind Chandler’s novels. They are works into which men can escape and be the hardboiled tough-guys they only dream about, and that give women an icy yet attractive man they want to get to know better.
--Cody Griggers
To begin to answer this question, we must first obtaining a better understanding of just exactly who Marlowe really is. In both novels he is presented through first person narration. We are with Philip Marlowe every waking minute of the novel’s progress. We walk with him, we talk with him, and certainly we drink and smoke with him. Through this style of narration, the reader develops an instant rapport with this character and sometimes even feels as a sidekick figure, solving the mysteries with him along the way. Because of this intimate contact, we are allowed to see Marlowe at his best moments, like when he beats the police to solving every mystery, and we are also allowed to see him at his most vulnerable, such as while he is being held captive at Dr. Sonderborg's crooked sanitarium. The first-person perspective has a limitation, though: we are only ever allowed to see what Marlowe thinks about himself and other people. Gone is the omniscient narrator who can fill in all the gaps and provide us with information about the protagonist's past. This narrative voice is at once the greatest aid and the worst impediment of our getting to the heart of Marlowe’s character.
In order to better understand Marlowe, it seems best to turn to the first novel in Chandler’s crime series, The Big Sleep, and see how he is introduced by the author. (All quotations from The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely are cited from the Vintage Crime series edition published by Random House in 1992.) In typical Chandler fashion, this novel starts right in the middle of the action with no precursory introduction to the characters. However, Marlowe does provide tidbits of information about himself along the way. When asked about himself by General Sternwood in The Big Sleep, he replies: "There’s very little to tell. I’m thirty-three years old, went to college once and can still speak English if there’s any demand for it. There isn’t much in my trade" ( 10). Already, it is clear that Marlowe did not enter his trade for lack of any other ability. He has been educated, as his sharp command of language and rhetoric indicate, and while we do not know whether he completed college or what he studied, we can see that he must have some inner desire to live a less-structured, more spontaneous, and more dangerous lifestyle than the ordinary man. He repeatedly indicates that "the pay’s too small" in his chosen field and wisecracks that he is not "a collector of antiques, except unpaid bills" (TBS 71,22). Thus Marlowe’s choice of career and lifestyle was certainly not directed by wealth or glory but fueled instead by a longing to live on the edge as a private detective—truly one of the most masculine lifestyles any man could lead. In fact, Marlowe openly scorns wealth and the need for money in general. "To hell with the rich," he says, "They make me sick" (TBS 64). Thus, to male readers, Marlowe represents a kind of fantasy figure leading a certain life on the edge that breaks with the traditional proprieties of marriage and working a typical nine-to-five wage-earning job. In a sense, Marlowe is what the average man cannot be.
This hardened, tough-guy image is reinforced by his physical appearance as well as his job description. While we never see Marlowe's working on his physical condition, the fact that he is able to engage in so many chase scenes and action-packed brawls leads the reader to assume that he is in good shape. We also know that Marlowe is a man with a fairly large, well-built stature. "Tall aren’t you?" Carmen Sternwood says upon meeting him in The Big Sleep (5), and she reiterates her amazement at his height on many other occasions throughout the novel as well. In another of the few Marlowe self-descriptions, the detective gives the readers a clear picture of his manly appearance:
"Okey, Marlowe," I said between my teeth. "You’re a tough guy. Six feet of iron man. One hundred and ninety pounds stripped and with your face washed. Hard muscles and no glass jaw. You can take it (FML 170).
In The Big Sleep, Chandler touts Marlowe’s size in order to demonstrate the sheer masculinity of his body: "If you can weigh a hundred and ninety pounds and look like a fairy, I was doing my best" (51). In both these scenes, Marlowe exalts his manly attributes in response to an emasculating experience. In the first , Chandler is trying to boost his confidence after he is badly beaten by racketeers when invading their hideout. He has been whipped, but reassures the reader that he is man enough to take it and to overcome his assailants. In the second scene, Marlowe is about to engage in a bit of a charade in which he acts as an effeminate patron of an illegal pornographic bookstore. He does not want the reader to forget, however, that this is going to be a huge stretch for a tough-guy such as himself, and he reminds us that we should not in any way believe this bit of playacting—he is simply doing his job.
But why does Marlowe feel the need to constantly remind the reader of his masculinity? In fact, for someone who is supposedly so manly, Marlowe seems to have a pronounced fear of failing as a man. This fear is particularly evident in his relations with women characters in the two novels. In Farewell, My Lovely, when Marlowe meets Anne Riordan in his office the night after their initial encounter at Purissima Canyon, her attractiveness seems to take him aback. Riordan is not described as an especially beautiful woman, but her smart style and pretty face seem to arouse a new interest in Marlowe and he becomes discernibly edgy and unsure of himself around her: "She leaned back and took one of my cigarettes. I burned my finger with a paper match lighting it for her" (FML 88). Even Riordan notices this abrupt change in composure in the detective: "All the same, I don’t think you’re very pleased to see me," she says, noticing that all of a sudden, Marlowe’s usually cunning dialogue has degenerated into terse phrases and one-word responses. Marlowe himself also acknowledges that his self-confidence is slipping and tries to overcompensate with a masculinity boost: "I filled a pipe and reached for the packet of paper matches. I lit the pipe carefully. She watched that with approval. Pipe smokers were solid men. She was going to be disappointed in me" (88). It is worth noting that we never see Marlowe smoking a pipe in any other scene in the novel. Is he putting on a show here in order to impress Riordan, or is he trying to reaffirm his masculinity since their first encounter (when Marlowe is "sapped" by thugs) placed him in a weakened position? Everything he does in this scene seems dictated by that very idea. Even when he goes to his desk to fix himself a drink, he notices that "Miss Riordan watched me with disapproval. I was no longer a solid man" (89).
A similar situation occurs in The Big Sleep when Marlowe first meets the beautiful Mrs. Reagan, whom he also seems to find beautiful, describing her as "worth a stare" (TBS 17). Once again, Marlowe’s responses sink to the one word or "Uh-huh" conversation level. Mrs. Reagan even takes notice of this, saying "You’re not much of a gusher, are you, Mr. Marlowe?" (18). To Marlowe, she is a sultry vixen whom he must approach with some degree of caution—someone who seems to be testing his attractiveness and virility as a man. Around her, Marlowe feels the need to put on a very stoic, hardened presence.
Marlowe’s discomfort when faced with female characters seems to result from his feeling that they are all intently judging his masculinity, and it leads affects his relationships with them. He can appreciate the sexiness of femme fatale characters like the young and wealthy Carmen Sternwood and the stylish Mrs. Grayle with her "full set of curves which nobody had been able to improve on" (FML 123). He can even begin to realize, like the reader, that there is a strong "soulmate" kind of connection between he and Anne Riordan. Yet Marlowe never once acts on any of these attractions. Instead, he simply refuses to let himself have any feeling whatsoever about any of these women. Perhaps he was burned in the past by a beautiful temptress and always felt that he was not "man enough" to keep her. Or, perhaps his lifestyle is so centered around his own individual needs and desires to accommodate anyone else. Marlowe never specifically mentions that he has had a serious romantic interest in his past, though some of his statements and colorful analogies provide reason enough to wonder: "She put her head back and went off into a peal of laughter. I have only known four women in my life who could do that and still look beautiful. She was one of them" (FML 129). Who were the other three women to whom Marlowe is referring? Certainly, the reader must wonder what his feelings were for them and how, if anything happened at all, a relationship worked out. At some points, Marlowe even expresses a general disdain for romance—take, for instance, the scene on the Bay City water taxi when Marlowe notices the young couples and keeps making snide remarks about them "chewing on each other’s faces" and "taking their teeth out of each other’s necks" (243). In fact, whenever any female character attempts to engage Marlowe in intimate activity, Chandler makes it sound as if Marlowe his detective be forcibly seduced, as in this scene with Mrs. Grayle:
I squeezed her hand back. "Did he borrow from you?"
You’re a little old-fashioned aren’t you?" She looked down at the hand I was holding.
"I’m still working. And your Scotch is so good it keeps me half-sober. Not that I’d have to be drunk—"
"Yes." She drew her hand out of mine and rubbed it… "Kiss me…" (134).
Here, Marlowe’s announcing that he is still on the job and his implication that he is half-drunk makes him sound weak and challenged. He makes feeble excuses, drops his masculine guard, and eventually succumbs to Mrs. Grayle’s demands: the two share a brief intimate kiss. During the scene, Marlowe sounds much like a nervous young girl on a first date, wheedled into intimacy by an aggressive boy.
On other occasions, Marlowe alludes to soured romance and love interests that could only come through personal experience:
The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love (255).
I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin (196).
All men are the same. So are all women—after the first nine (225).
Dead men are heavier than broken hearts (TBS 42).
How does Marlowe know about the coldness of the ashes of love? Has he ever felt the weight of a broken heart? If he has, Marlowe’s tempered masculinity serves as a protective wall sheltering his heart from the judgment—or sympathy—of the reader. Perhaps, to Marlowe, romance and marriage themselves are emasculating—they detract from the duties of being a man. In The Big Sleep, Marlowe makes the comment that "I am unmarried because I don’t like policeman’s wives" (10). What this comment has to do with Marlowe specifically (who is not really a policeman) is unclear, but it can be inferred that Marlowe sees married policeman as men who are sacrificing their manhood to live with women and giving up full control over their lives. Furthermore, Marlowe’s cynical view of the couples on the water taxi in Farewell, My Lovely implies that he considers love a waste of time—he has more important things to do with his life.
Adding to this confusing take on Marlowe’s masculinity is the way in which Chandler writes Marlowe’s relationships with certain male characters in the novel. Certainly Marlowe feels more confident around men than women. Even the imposing Moose Malloy, who had "a hand I could have sat in" was no match for Marlowe’s biting sarcasm (FML 5):
"All right," I yelled. "I’ll go up with you. Just lay off carrying me. Let me walk. I’m fine. I’m all grown up. I go to the bathroom and everything. Just don’t carry me" (7).
On the inside, Marlowe is quite alarmed by his close meeting with Malloy, but he shields his fears with his tough-guy demeanor. By now, this kind of behavior should seem familiar to a seasoned reader of Chandler. When Marlowe feels threatened or insecure, he throws up a wall of reinforced masculinity. However, Chandler does not leave it at that. The reader must always be on guard to look out for characters like Farewell, My Lovely’s Red Norgaard, who challenges the preconceptions that readers may have established about Marlowe's masculinity. Red soon becomes one of the most complicated and complicating characters in the novel. In the first place, Marlowe does not describe Red to us as he does any other male character in the novel. Instead, he finds himself stopping to think about Red, and consequently, we get to see a side of Marlowe that we have not seen before:
"He smiled a slow tired smile. His voice was soft, dreamy, so delicate for a big man that it was startling. It made me think of another soft-voiced big man I had strangely liked" (245).
To whom is Marlowe referring with that last comment? Moose Malloy is described as having a "deep soft voice," but Marlowe never indicated having any real affection for him (5). Perhaps again, Marlowe is referring to someone from his past. Whatever the case, a "strange" liking for a male figure seems definitely out of character for the hardened Marlowe. In fact, Marlowe seems captivated by Red’s appearance, making him sound oddly mythical and even feminine at many points:
He had the eyes you never see, that you only read about. Violet eyes. Almost purple. Eyes like a girl, a lovely girl. His skin was soft as silk. Lightly reddened, but it would never tan. It was too delicate…His hair was that shade of red that glints with gold (247)…
Is Marlowe attracted to Red? He definitely finds him a fascinating figure upon which to look. Moreover, why all the feminine description? Red is a dockworker, and one would hardly think that he could ever be as effeminate in appearance as Marlowe makes him out to be. Marlowe seems genuinely moved by Red, something which is indicated by the way in which Red is able to open him up to him, exposing us to a softer side which Marlowe has kept hidden so well:
"I’m scared," I said suddenly. "I’m scared stiff…I’m afraid of death and despair," I said. "Of dark water and drowned men’s faces and skulls with empty eyesockets. I’m afraid of dying, of being nothing, of not finding a man named Brunette…"
I told him a great deal more than I intended to. It must have been his eyes (251).
No female character in the novel--not even Anne Riordan--could make Marlowe bare his soul to the reader so directly as Red is able to do. Marlowe simply seems to relate better to men. They are closer to his own understanding—he knows how they think. Only men are able to drink and smoke like Marlowe or be as independent and solitary and toughened as he is able to be. Yet Marlowe throws out all of his independence and fear of intimacy, at times sharing many intimate and even homoerotic moments with Red:
Red leaned close to me and his breath tickled my ear (255)…
Red put his lips against my ear (256).
He took hold of my hand. His was strong, hard, warm and slightly sticky (257).
Where Red is concerned, even the simplest act of speaking turns into an almost romantic activity. Tthis confusion of gender and romance is never cleared up by either the author or the character, and it leaves the reader not really ever "knowing" Marlowe.
So why is it that Chandler places this masculine wall around his main character, and then has the most unsuspecting characters tear it down? Is Marlowe really a tough-guy, or is he overcompensating for a softened heart that will not lend itself well to his lifestyle? More simply, why can we never know Marlowe? Chandler answers these questions best in his essay, The Simple Art of Murder. In this writing, the author gives us his formula for creating the perfect detective story, the most important part of which is the characterization of the detective. Just like Marlowe, Chandler’s "formula" detective is
…a complete man and a common man and an unusual man…I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things (59).
Therefore, while the reader may be concerned with the intimate details of Marlowe’s private life, wondering about his past romances and relationships, Chandler is telling us simply to take Marlowe for what he is—a man of honor. What is inside his heart does not matter. If he is honorable, we just know that it is there. Instead, Chandler has to focus on making Marlowe into the ideal man.
The story is this man’s adventure in search for a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in.
Truly, as Marlowe himself says, "It’s not that I like it the hard way. It’s that I get it that way," and because of this, he must be man enough to step up to the job (FML 195). Chandler is not redefining gender in his characterization of Marlowe. He simply presents us a different view of masculinity. He presents us with a character for whom masculinity is required and not just present. This gives Marlowe a tempered, unemotional machismo that shields us from seeing what is inside him. As the main character of a detective novel, Marlowe cannot fall in love or break down and cry—he can never let down his masculine guard in front of the reader. Therefore, masculinity can be seen as a driving force behind Chandler’s novels. They are works into which men can escape and be the hardboiled tough-guys they only dream about, and that give women an icy yet attractive man they want to get to know better.
--Cody Griggers
"No Country for Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy
Now that Hollywood's awards season is finally over, it seems only fitting to discuss the literary merits of one of the most highly lauded adapted films-- "No Country for Old Men."
As a matter of fair warning, know the following about Cormac McCarthy's novel: Women exist mainly to show primordial attraction and inarticulate loyalty toward men; men are more at ease sawing off shotgun barrels or dressing their own bullet wounds than they are in the presence of women, children or their own emotions; any character you find yourself rooting for is likely to be murdered within a few pages; and the old sheriff who acts as the book's moral compass will complain, twice, about young people "with green hair and bones in their noses." But to be put off by McCarthy's crusty machismo would be to miss out on a taut thriller that not only holds, but also rewards, close attention.
Like several of McCarthy's previous novels, "No Country for Old Men" chronicles a series of violent deaths along the Texas-Mexico border. But this time the setting is 1980, and instead of horses and land the mayhem revolves around a leather case packed with $2 million in drug money. Llewelyn Moss, a welder hunting antelope near the Rio Grande, comes across the remains of a botched heroin deal -- shot up 4x4 trucks, Mexicans and the leather case. Moss carries the case away and becomes the object of competing manhunts. Among the hunters are Sheriff Bell, who shares a hometown with Moss and his wife, Carla Jean; Carson Wells, an ex-Special Forces officer hired by the case's original owner; and Anton Chigurh, a freelance killer who dispatches some of his victims with a pneumatic prod made for slaughtering cattle. At one point Chigurh forces Carla Jean to call a coin toss for her own life. Where it falls is in keeping with the general tilt of the plot.
For all his hard-earned reputation as a throwback, McCarthy is a thoroughly cinematic novelist, and never more so than in "No Country for Old Men." Here he sheds the bombast that weighs down some earlier works and leaves intact the precise description of movement and action for which he is justly famous. Here is Moss in a hotel room customizing a new gun:
He "unwrapped the shotgun and wedged it in an open drawer and held it and sawed the barrel off just in front of the magazine. He squared up the cut with the file and smoothed it and wiped out the muzzle of the barrel with a damp facecloth and set it aside."
Nothing extraordinary perhaps, but even Ashton Kutcher would know just what to do during filming. Later we see and hear Chigurh offing a man at the same hotel:
"Chigurh shot him three times so fast it sounded like one long gunshot and left most of the upper part of him spread across the headboard and the wall behind it. The shotgun made a strange deep chugging sound. Like someone coughing into a barrel."
But what's so special about meticulous descriptions of gunplay? What separates McCarthy from high-grade pulp? The short answer is that the violence is headed somewhere unexpected. In an adrenalized scene, an encounter between Moss and Chigurh leads to a chaotic shootout through the streets of Eagle Pass. Buckshot rattles off of balustrades and shatters windows, cars skid sideways down Main Street in clouds of rubber smoke, and Moss eventually staggers away wounded. In a run-of-the-mill thriller, the scene would be revisited, if at all, in a quick mention of police tape and bloodstained sidewalks. In "No Country for Old Men," we get the hired hand, Carson Wells, inspecting the aftermath and discovering the victim of a stray bullet:
"A darkened room. Smell of rot. He stood until his eyes were accustomed to the dimness. A parlor. A pianola or small organ against the far wall. A chifforobe. A rockingchair by the window where an old woman sat slumped."
Wells snaps a couple of photographs of the corpse and, when he catches up with the convalescing Moss, presents them to him. The 10 pages of dialogue that follow are as pitch-perfect and riveting as any that have been put on paper. The scene ends this way: "When he was gone Moss turned up the photographs lying on the bed. Like a player checking his hole cards."
"There's no such thing as life without bloodshed," McCarthy said 13 years ago in a rare interview. And like his character Moss, McCarthy can't help peeking. The constant question underlying his fiction is how we are to live on in the face of this knowledge. At the end of "No Country for Old Men," in the last of his ruminations that punctuate the book, Sheriff Bell poses a version of this question as he ponders the unknown mason of an old water trough:
"That country had not had a time of peace of any length at all that I knew of ... But this man had set down with a hammer and chisel and carved out a stone water trough to last ten thousand years. Why was that?"
Bell's answer surely echoes McCarthy's own project as a writer:
"And I have to say that the only thing I can think is that there was some sort of promise in his heart. And I dont have no intentions of carving a stone water trough. But I would like to be able to make that kind of promise."
As a matter of fair warning, know the following about Cormac McCarthy's novel: Women exist mainly to show primordial attraction and inarticulate loyalty toward men; men are more at ease sawing off shotgun barrels or dressing their own bullet wounds than they are in the presence of women, children or their own emotions; any character you find yourself rooting for is likely to be murdered within a few pages; and the old sheriff who acts as the book's moral compass will complain, twice, about young people "with green hair and bones in their noses." But to be put off by McCarthy's crusty machismo would be to miss out on a taut thriller that not only holds, but also rewards, close attention.
Like several of McCarthy's previous novels, "No Country for Old Men" chronicles a series of violent deaths along the Texas-Mexico border. But this time the setting is 1980, and instead of horses and land the mayhem revolves around a leather case packed with $2 million in drug money. Llewelyn Moss, a welder hunting antelope near the Rio Grande, comes across the remains of a botched heroin deal -- shot up 4x4 trucks, Mexicans and the leather case. Moss carries the case away and becomes the object of competing manhunts. Among the hunters are Sheriff Bell, who shares a hometown with Moss and his wife, Carla Jean; Carson Wells, an ex-Special Forces officer hired by the case's original owner; and Anton Chigurh, a freelance killer who dispatches some of his victims with a pneumatic prod made for slaughtering cattle. At one point Chigurh forces Carla Jean to call a coin toss for her own life. Where it falls is in keeping with the general tilt of the plot.
For all his hard-earned reputation as a throwback, McCarthy is a thoroughly cinematic novelist, and never more so than in "No Country for Old Men." Here he sheds the bombast that weighs down some earlier works and leaves intact the precise description of movement and action for which he is justly famous. Here is Moss in a hotel room customizing a new gun:
He "unwrapped the shotgun and wedged it in an open drawer and held it and sawed the barrel off just in front of the magazine. He squared up the cut with the file and smoothed it and wiped out the muzzle of the barrel with a damp facecloth and set it aside."
Nothing extraordinary perhaps, but even Ashton Kutcher would know just what to do during filming. Later we see and hear Chigurh offing a man at the same hotel:
"Chigurh shot him three times so fast it sounded like one long gunshot and left most of the upper part of him spread across the headboard and the wall behind it. The shotgun made a strange deep chugging sound. Like someone coughing into a barrel."
But what's so special about meticulous descriptions of gunplay? What separates McCarthy from high-grade pulp? The short answer is that the violence is headed somewhere unexpected. In an adrenalized scene, an encounter between Moss and Chigurh leads to a chaotic shootout through the streets of Eagle Pass. Buckshot rattles off of balustrades and shatters windows, cars skid sideways down Main Street in clouds of rubber smoke, and Moss eventually staggers away wounded. In a run-of-the-mill thriller, the scene would be revisited, if at all, in a quick mention of police tape and bloodstained sidewalks. In "No Country for Old Men," we get the hired hand, Carson Wells, inspecting the aftermath and discovering the victim of a stray bullet:
"A darkened room. Smell of rot. He stood until his eyes were accustomed to the dimness. A parlor. A pianola or small organ against the far wall. A chifforobe. A rockingchair by the window where an old woman sat slumped."
Wells snaps a couple of photographs of the corpse and, when he catches up with the convalescing Moss, presents them to him. The 10 pages of dialogue that follow are as pitch-perfect and riveting as any that have been put on paper. The scene ends this way: "When he was gone Moss turned up the photographs lying on the bed. Like a player checking his hole cards."
"There's no such thing as life without bloodshed," McCarthy said 13 years ago in a rare interview. And like his character Moss, McCarthy can't help peeking. The constant question underlying his fiction is how we are to live on in the face of this knowledge. At the end of "No Country for Old Men," in the last of his ruminations that punctuate the book, Sheriff Bell poses a version of this question as he ponders the unknown mason of an old water trough:
"That country had not had a time of peace of any length at all that I knew of ... But this man had set down with a hammer and chisel and carved out a stone water trough to last ten thousand years. Why was that?"
Bell's answer surely echoes McCarthy's own project as a writer:
"And I have to say that the only thing I can think is that there was some sort of promise in his heart. And I dont have no intentions of carving a stone water trough. But I would like to be able to make that kind of promise."
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