February 3, 2021

Yikes. This is an afternoon blog post. I hope I'm not losing my early-morning rhythm. Going to be another BLog (Book Log) day, but first... 

A friend of mine has been talking to me about her desire to lose weight and how she feels skeptical of the body positivity and body neutrality movements. Her point is that even if you feel okay about your body, as a fat person society will still treat you worse. My friend wants to make sure she has the same advantageous in dating and in the job market that thin people do. 

I was always the biggest kid in my class growing up. Tallest and heaviest. I found a journal article from first grade where I worry about being fat. And while my height and weight evened out in high school and college relative to my peers -- I'm now a solid medium -- some of that old fear still looms. I don't think there's anything wrong with fat aesthetically, but I do worry about becoming fat and then not being able to succeed in any area in my life. My outlook for success feels precarious enough as it is. 

It's like life is this big wheel. Some people are running along the top of the wheel with relative ease. Other people are under the wheel, getting crushed by life. And if you fall under the wheel, it's very hard to get back on top. I'm constantly afraid of slipping. 

Anyway, it felt nice to have that conversation with my friend. It's an outlook that I don't think I had expressed to anyone before. Afterwards, I felt some release. 

Okay, BLog time. **SPOILERS**

Chandler, Raymond - THE BIG SLEEP

1939

Read: 01/2021

        Private detective Philip Marlowe takes a blackmail case. An old wealthy general has two wild young daughters and someone has some incriminating pictures of the youngest. In addition, the husband of the elder daughter has gone missing, and the old man was fond of him and would like to know what happened. The case takes Marlowe to a rare bookstore that really sells smut, and when he follows the owner home to his mansion, Marlowe hears a gunshot. He runs in to find the man shot dead behind a camera and the youngest daughter posing nude and in shock. Let's see, what else. The family's driver is found dead in a car under water near the docks. Eddie Mars runs a gambling room where the older daughter regularly gambles all night. He's got a guy who kills people, including the new boyfriend of the woman who used to go out with the now dead smut-shop owner. There's a rumor that Eddie's wife ran away with the older daughter's husband. But Marlowe finds her hidden out -- the killer guy keeping an eye on her. She helps Marlowe escape, and later, the youngest daughter tries to kill him down by the oil sump. Turns out, the younger daughter killed her brother-in-law when he declined to sleep with her. The older sister found out and went to Eddie Mars to get rid of the body. Eddie had been blackmailing the older daughter ever since, but had to wait until the old man died to really get money out of her. At the end, Marlowe turns it all over to the police. 

        This is the second time I've read this book and the plot is still a bit confusing. (Like I don't remember why the driver died.) The best part of Chandler is his language and turns of phrase. This line stuck out: "Shake up your business and pour it out. I don't have all day." Marlowe slaps a lot more women than I remembered. Also, he takes a trolley, which is nice. Los Angeles used to have the most trolleys in the world. Reading about Marlowe also always makes me want to drink -- either coffee or cocktails. 

        Marlowe is great as a crime/action protagonist because he's so often under-equipped. He rarely has his gun on him, and he gets manhandled a lot. (Although, he does manage to take guns away from a lot of other people, especially in this book.) He's smart and persuasive, and that gets him out of most things. But at the end of the day he's not on some big macho ego trip. He's just doing his job. 

Rating: ★★★