Indeed, the first time we see our hero, he’s contemplating a stained-glass window that depicts a knight in dark armor, untying a naked maiden from a tree. Philip, from the Greek for “lover of horses,” suggests a mounted chevalier: a knight. That Marlowe, who was also a drunken brawler, a dangerously outspoken atheist, and a double agent for Queen Elizabeth’s shady spy service, knew the mean streets well he successfully navigated the treacherous waters of religious-political intrigue until he was killed at age 29 in a tavern scuffle with three hired thugs. He is named for the playwright Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare’s great contemporary and rival. … The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth.”Ĭhandler’s exemplar of that paradigm-the hero of half a dozen novels, beginning in 1939 with The Big Sleep-is Philip Marlowe, private investigator.

… 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. Raymond Chandler, the most thoughtful and sophisticated master of the “hard-boiled” detective fiction that emerged in the 1920s and 30s, once spelled it out: “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.

That requires diligence, perseverance, energetic commitment: virya-paramita, the fourth of the six sublime virtues that support awakening. To find the cause of corruption requires plunging into the corrupt world without being corrupted by it. On the way, there are thrills and spills: promising leads that may or may not turn out to be dead ends, official guides (gurus, cops) that may or may not prove helpful, enticing temptations (flashy meditative experiences, flashy dames) that may prove distracting or even dangerous. Something has gone wrong-a crime has been committed, suffering has poisoned the world-and it’s up to the detective or the aspirant to track down the culprit, to identify the source of suffering. The detective, like the spiritual aspirant, is a seeker of truth. In this series on The Dharma of Western Literature, we consider six classic works through the lens of the six paramitas, or sublime virtues: generosity, ethical conduct, patience, diligence, meditation, and wisdom.

The dharma bums book