I thought of irony as I walked through customs in Jakarta in early May clutching a copy of The Bin Ladens in my hands. Steve Coll's new book traces the genealogy of this infamous Arab family pre- and post 9/11 with his usual style and thoroughness. Indonesians are of course not Arab but Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world -- and also the fourth largest country in the world, behind China, India and the U.S respectively-- both facts that would probably surprise many Americans who turn on CNN and are deluged by reports on the newest developments in the Middle East. I continued reading the book during a layover in Kuala Lumpur, capital of the Southeast Asian Muslim country of Malaysia, only to discover that the KL airport-- which I first admired on my way out of India for its glittering high end polish-- was one of the many, many construction projects handled by the Bin Laden construction conglomerate that are spread throughout the Muslim world. Signs in the airport are in four languages, including Arabic. I finished the book on the way from KL to BKK, but not before a blond-haired Western man peered at me with vague suspicion after reading the title. I doubt he would've been comforted by my next reading selection, a biography of Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iraqi Shiite cleric who has been one of the most effective and dangerous opponents of the American occupation. I imagine myself discussing the book with Homeland Security on my way back from Syria -- one-third of the Axis of Evil -- in October.
The freedom to read as much as I want has been one of the great pleasures of my extended vacation. My reading for the most part has remained steadily focused on the Middle East, with some significant diversions into SE Asia (Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand), but as of late I've taken a sharp detour back into the world of noir. I picked up Playback in a bookstore in Saigon, the only Raymond Chandler novel I had not read, and have been holding onto it for at least a month until I finally picked it up the other day and devoured it. Philip Marlowe, the protagonist in all of Chandler's novels -- which were written during the late 30s through the 50s-- is the archetypal tough-talking hard-bitten gumshoe detective. Marlowe most famously made it to the big screen courtesy of the great Humphery Bogart in The Big Sleep, but he has also been portrayed by Robert Mitchum and Elliott Gould, amongst others. The sharp dialogue is one of the principal pleasures of Chandler's writing, which walks that tightrope between art and exploitation that will forever hold a special place in my heart (See also the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Jacopetti & Prosperi, William Gibson, heavy metal, The Road Warrior). Take this exchange between Marlowe and a secretary who has arrived at his home to bring him info on his newest job, from Chapter One:
She was quite a doll. She wore a white belted raincoat, no hat, a well-cherished head of platinum hair, bootes [sic] to match the raincoat, a folding plastic umbrella, a pair of blue-grey eyes that looked at me as if I had said a dirty word. I helped her off with the raincoat. She smelled very nice. She had a pair of legs -- so far as I could determine -- that were not painful to look at. She wore night-sheer stockings. I stared at them rather intently, especially when she crossed her legs and held out a cigarette to be lighted.
'Christian Dior,' she said, reading my rather open mind. 'I never wear anything else. A light, please.'
'You're wearing a lot more today,' I said, snapping a lighter for her.
'I don't greatly care for passes this early in the morning.'
'What time would suit you, Miss Vermilyea?'
I immediately became determined to re-read Chandler's entire back catalogue, but so far my efforts have been largely frustrated by subpar bookstores and I've only managed to locate The Lady In The Lake, which I'm happy to report, is as classic as ever. The upside of this is that I picked up a couple of Dashiell Hammett's novels. He's another famous noir writer who I had yet to investigate -- he only wrote five novels, all in the 20s and 30s. His most famous novel is The Maltese Falcon, which Howard Hawks made into a classic film that also starred Bogart, this time as Sam Spade. I first picked up Hammett's The Dain Curse, starring his Detective-With-No-Name in a carnivalesque parade of noir sleaze and labyrinthe plotting, complete with homicidal cult religions, multiple murders and murderesses, an astromical body count, bombs shredding hotel rooms and amputating human limbs, and best of all a hapless heiress besotted by the curse of the title, perennially on the nod from a skinful of dope (now I know from where Richard Ashcroft excavated that phrase for The Verve song "History" -- "The bed ain't made/ But it's filled full of hope/ I've got a skinful of dope") .
I've followed up The Dain Curse with The Thin Man, which introduced the world to the husband and wife detecting duo of Nick and Nora Charles, popularized by an immensely successful string of movies beginning in the 1930s starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. Hammett's story is much darker than the films and laced with his mordant wit. I'm only 30 pages in, but already completely charmed by the sparks that fly between the couple. Nora handles Nick's grouchiness with grace and good humor and tosses it right back at him without hesitation. Sounds like marital bliss to me (Critics believe the relationship was based on Hammett's marriage to Lillian Hellman). Early on, in true old school noir style, Nick palms Nora across the face to get her out of harm's way while he bloodies Morelli, a gangster who has forced his way into their home.
Men came in and dragged us apart. It took five minutes to bring Nora to. She sat up holding her cheek and looked around the room until she saw Morelli, nippers on one wrist, standing between two detectives. Morelli's face was a mess: the coppers had worked him over a little just for the fun of it. Nora glared at me. "You dammed fool," she said, "you didn't have to knock me cold. I knew you'd take him, but I wanted to see it."
One of the coppers laughed. "Jesus," he said admiringly, "there's a woman with hair on her chest."
Noir has weathered accusations of misogyny in recent years, but I don't really see it in Chandler or Hammet. There are too many smart, strong women in these books who men like Marlowe and Nick Charles respect and admire. Certainly there are anachronistic elements. For instance, it's astonishing how much the Marlowe and Nick Charles drink, often before they've had breakfast and throughout the day.
Also on deck, bookstores permitting (Thank God I'm back in Bangkok on Monday): more Chandler and Hammett, Charles Willeford, Jim Thompson and Chester Himes. And, on the sci-fi, end I feel like it might finally be the moment to take on some Philip K. Dick. I read Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? when I was literally around 9 or 10 and didn't understand a lick of it-- hopefully I'll do better these days.
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