Raymond Chandler and MGTOW

[RumpoleParticipant 1000]

I found this quotation by crime novelist Raymond Chandler. It describes many of the men whose writings I have followed on this site the past few months.

“down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.

“He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him.

“The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.”

[OldBillParticipant]

Ahhh… Philip Marlowe… One of my favorite fictional creations right up there with the Continental Op, Sanders, Samuel Pickwick, Horace Rumpole, and very few others.

Chandler began writing very late in life, his mid-40s if I’m not mistaken. To me that gave his work a certain heft and acknowledgement of reality.

Great quote, Rumpole. Am I correct in remembering that it’s from an essay Chandler wrote explaining his Marlowe short stories and novels rather than from one of those pieces of fiction.

Do not date. Do not impregnate. Do not co-habitate. Above all, do not marry. Reclaim and never again surrender your personal sovereignty.

[Author]

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