Raymond Chandler on chauffeurs

?Back along the side of the house a chauffeur was washing off a Cadillac.?
? Raymond Chandler, The High Window

?There were French doors at the back of the hall, beyond them a wide sweep of emerald grass to a white garage, in front of which a slim dark young chauffeur in shiny black leggings was dusting a maroon Packard convertible.?
? Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep 
I don't know that to make of this similarity of motif, but I envision new possibilities for Chandler parodists.
***I don't think The High Window is as strong a book as The Big Sleep or The Long Goodbye and maybe not Farewell, My Lovely, either.  But I love how Chandler stops Philip Marlowe's introspection just before it veers into self-pity and instead turns it into a kind of wry celebration in this passage:

?I sat there holding the neck of the cool bottle and wondering how it would feel to be a homicide dick and find bodies lying around and not mind at all, not have to sneak out wiping doorknobs, not have to ponder how much I could tell without hurting a client and how little I could tell without too badly hurting myself. I decided I wouldn?t like it.?

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

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