Raymond Chandler's novel The Long Goodbye - published in 1953 and set in the previous few years, contains substantial amounts of social criticism - something writers are warned against doing by publishers and creative writing advisors.
Yet Chandler has woven it into the story deftly, in mostly small doses, as part of conversations and descriptions that fit neatly in with the action and the characters.
One passage that caught my eye in particular was a monologue from the extremely wealthy Mr Potter to the hero, Philip Marlowe, set out below......
"There's a peculiar thing about money" he went on "In large quantities it tends to have a life of its own, even a conscience of its own. The power of money becomes very difficult to control. Man has always been a venal animal. The growth of populations, the huge cost of wars, the incessant pressure of confiscatory taxation - all these things make him more and more venal. The average man is tired and scared, and a tired, scared man can't afford ideals. He has to buy food for his family. In our time we have seen a shocking decline in both public and private morals. You can't expect quality from people whose lives are a subjection to a lack of quality. You can't have quality with mass production. You don't want it because it lasts too long. So you substitute styling, which is a commercial swindle intended to produce artificial obsolescence. Mass production couldn't sell its goods next year unless it made what it sold this year look unfashionable a year from now. We have the whitest kitchens and the most shining bathrooms in the world. But in the lovely white kitchen the average American housewife can't produce a meal fit to eat, and the lovely shining bathroom is mostly a receptacle for deodorants, laxatives, sleeping pills, and the products of that confidence racket called the cosmetic industry. We make the finest packages in the world, Mr Marlowe. The stuff inside is mostly junk."
As Chandler wrote and published this novel that included many critiques of American society, especially of the wealthy parts of that society, Ayn Rand was busy compiling her longest and most controversial work, Atlas Shrugged - a work that in so many ways opposed what Chandler was saying about the root causes of societal problems of the day; problems that were with us long before he wrote, and that continue to plague us today.
In Mr Potter, Chandler has managed to introduce us to a man who, while not the real villain of the book, still imposes his own warped agenda on the other characters, and is Randian in his ability to set out many of the problems of society while not quite coming to grips with the real causes of what he has perceived, nor with his own part in the forming of those problems.
Being a child of the times during which this book was published, I was surprised by the extent of the cynicism and world-weariness of so many of the characters in this novel. After all, was not this the beginning of the new golden age of peace and modernity that had been ushered in by the great victory against fascism?
It seemed to me, as the Fifties folded into the Sixties, that it was a golden time, despite the dark threats the cold war from time to time imposed upon my awareness. But if it was so golden, why did Philip Marlowe resonate so strongly with so many readers? And why does it feel as if nothing much has changed?
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