I was shocked to find that I'm older than Philip Marlowe.
of course the attraction of Chandler for me is neither the plot nor sex and violence. i enjoy the plot as some sort of sociological case study. but what truly draws me to Chandler is the sense of sadness that is tender, social isolation of the nihilist detective.
it seems to me the text suggests the detective has no great interest in correcting social vices or society as a whole. he's not a revolutionary in any possible ways. he doesn't care about such big affairs. he has his own sense of pride and honor, of property and belonging, of his own space and individuality. and that's very personal and almost asocial. so, i'd say his attitude to society is indifference. we can still say that the text talks about some belief in justice, but that's rather a toy to play with, which the detective takes advantage of purely as a practical tool to get away from the trouble he finds himself in in working for clients who prefer not to talk to the police-law.
my reading is that his existence itself is a kind of protest, but it doesn't represent anything other than clients' interests. if clients' interests coincide with those of justice, he may be an image of justice, transcendental or equivalent, but that's only a coincidence. he's not a hero that embodies justice or some higher ideas-entities and works for the greatest number of people for the greatest amount of happiness. his business is much humble and even trivial. he protests by conducting a certain life in a certain way but by no explicit or expressive deed.
the trick is that all Marlowe stories are narrated by the detective himself, unlike conventional detective stories where the narrator is either a witness-bystander or a third-person omnipotent narrator. so it's tough to distinguish detective-narrator, detective-actor, and chandler, as it's quite difficult to distinguish marcel from proust.
and here's one funny passage: ""Well, you do get up," she said, wrinkling her nose at the faded red settee, the two odd semi-easy chairs, the net curtains that needed laundering and the boy's size library table with the venerable magazines on it to give the place a professional touch. "I was beginning to think perhaps you worked in bed, like Marcel Proust."/ "Who's he?" I put a cigarette in my mouth and stared at her. She looked a little pale and strained, but she looked like a girl who could function under a strain./ "A French writer, a connoisseur in degenerates. You wouldn't know him."/ "Tut, tut," I said. "Come into my boudoir.""
and i certainly learned to drink whiskey and other hard liquors from Chandler.
