- Raymond Chandler replies to a Jewish woman Archived Message
- Raymond Chandler replies to a Jewish woman - scrabb June 10, 2019, 9:18 pm
- Re: Raymond Chandler replies to a Jewish woman - AlanG June 11, 2019, 5:21 pm
Posted by scrabb
on June 10, 2019, 9:18 pm
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In January 1946 Chandler replied to a Jewish woman who had written to him about his novel The High Window, which had just been issued as a cheap paperback. The novel features a Jewish coin-collector called Morningstar. We don't have the woman's letter, but we can infer that she was objecting to a Jewish person being cast as a criminal. Chandler replies: You say why don't I introduce a character as a "thin-blooded Roman Catholic or a rugged Episcopalian"? Simply, my dear, because religion has nothing to do with it. [....] The Jew is a type and I like types. He is of course many types, some recognisable a block away, some only on more intimate study, some hardly at all. I know there are Jewish people whom even Jews cannot pick out. I have had two secretaries who told me that, being both Jewish girls. There is a tone of voice, there is a certain eye, there is colouring. It is not, dear lady, a matter of noses. You are kind enough not to accuse me of anti-semitism. I am grateful for that since I am horribly tired of the whole subject. And at the same time I am terribly sorry for those tormented minds which cannot leave it alone, which worry it and keep it sore. A writer on the Saturday Review of Literature lately said that what the Jews demand is not the right to have geniuses, but the right to have scoundrels. I agree. And I demand the right to call a character named Weinstein a thief without being accused of calling all Jews thieves. Let me in all kindness say one final word. You yourself are not the type, but if among your friends there is an impulse to go on an anti-semitic witch hunt, let them look for their enemies not among those who calla Jew a Jew, who put Jewish characters in their books because there are many Jews in their lives and all interesting and all different and some noble and some rather nasty -- like other people -- but let them look for their enemies among the brutes (whom they can easily recognise) and among the snobs who do not speak of Jews at all. You are safe and more than safe with outspoken people like me. |
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