“The Little Sister” by Raymond Chandler

Philip Marlowe obviously doesn’t like his new client – a nice-looking, quaint, modest young girl, an obedient daughter of a religious mother. Is it just because she disapproves of smoking and drinking? Or is there something more behind his rudeness? ESP, probably?

He accepts her $20 anyway, and even starts working on her quest – looking for her missing brother. Several times they fall out and then make peace again – several times he returns her fee. Finally he has another client – richer and more illustrous. And, apparently, far more likely to be guilty of a few unpleasant things, even if she is not a murderer. Why then? Philip Marlowe can be a rude, arrogant, gloomy boozer, but he won’t help anyone he considers a villain – he has his ethics when it comes to his work.

Peculiar ethics, I must add. Time after time he gets himself into a mess – and time after time he manages to crawl out of it without losing not just his head, but even his license. And at the end, when it’s time for explanations, we can see that he had his perfect reasons to be rude to an apparently nice girl – and good to an apparently naughty one. It’s unbelievable how low can some people fall while still maintaining that innocent look…

He doesn’t seem to respect the police much: supressing evidence is his daily routine. He doesn’t mind telling people a few things about them – things that might just happen to be slanderous, but somehow he knows they won’t sue him (what if he can prove it?) He doesn’t bother to be a nice guy – but he will never hurt an innocent person, and by some magic he seems to always know who that innocent person is, even if it’s the most unlikely one of all.

Raymond Chandler writes books that are very good for the occasions when you feel like you need to supress some of your extra optimism. The world in his books looks like a dirty hole; good people hardly exist. I know that he considered suicide many times through his life – upon reading some of his books I easily believe that. But the plot is always excellent and the final explanations of the true roles everyone has played are the kind you’d least expect. Good becomes evil and evil becomes good just on the last few pages: until then you are skilfully kept in the dark.

Another unexpected thing is that his book don’t have a depressing effect on me, despite all the doom and gloom of them. I think I’ll even re-read “The Little Sister” more than once yet – there’s an entertaining element in it for sure. What I don’t understand is why nearly every detective story writer thinks that his or her main protagonist just has to drink and smoke so much – is booze supposed to stimulate the brain? Hardly so. Philip Marlowe smokes and drinks a lot – no wonder he looks old at 38. Okay, maybe not exactly old, but definitely not young.

But for the lonely wolf that he is it’s probably just the right lifestyle…