The High Window

[moon_custafer]

Finished reading The High Window; Chandler continues to win at writing supporting characters. I think my favourite is the old elevator operator in the run-down office building.

The ending of this one is the nearest thing I've seen to a victory for Marlowe - most of the guilty who haven't been killed off by each other are still walking free, but at least he's rescued the innocent party from the whole mess. Also, I think he manages to avoid getting beaten up. Yay team Marlowe!

Comments

[crankydon.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Ah yes, the Divine Chandler; who, as it is truly written on the cover blurb, writes like a slumming angel. All his stuff is chock full of fantastic supporting and walk-on characters. My favourite is the drunken rooming house manager in The Little Sister. That novel has an even better version of the mousy, possibly homicidal maniac, young woman like the secretary in The High WIndow. I wonder if all of the old-guy-on-the-sidelines-who-sees-all, like the evevator operator, are avatars for Chandler himself.

Marlowe doesn't get cracked on the head!? But that's his signature situation! The only PI who had better trips back and forth from unconsciousness was a radio character called Richard Rogue of Rogue's Gallery who had to get knocked out every episode in order to talk to his unconscious: who was an acerbic, Mxyzptlk-like character called Eugor. Eugor would always make fun of Rogue for getting knocked out and also for not putting together several clues that had been in view up to this point in the story.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

Eugor would always make fun of Rogue for getting knocked out and also for not putting together several clues that had been in view up to this point in the story.

Interesting detecting technique, though I doubt he could have had a long career without suffering cumulative brain damage. Then again, most fictional detectives of the time seem to have had the ability to take frequent head injuries without any long-term effects. Unlike the police detective in The Dead Sit Round in a Ring, a novel I must go back and finish, who got hit on the ear during a scuffle midway through and looked as though she was probably going to have permanent tintinitus as a result.

[crankydon.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Unless, of course, Eugor was the brain damage.

Yes, the constant bops on the head with no lasting effects are part of the alternate biology in action-hero land. I've seen a fair number of people make fun of all the shoulder wounds (actually one of the worst places to get a bullet as far as long term effects go) but not about the rubber brains.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

The law of action-movie biology seems to be that heroes and villains can take far *more* damage than normal humans, while supporting characters can take far *less* (i.e. any minor guy who gets shot dies instantly without even a scream; a senior who trips and falls expires within a few minutes rather than going into a long slow decline which finally leads to their death three years later, etc.) At least Victorian novels tend to feature realistic chronic ill health.