Architekturmalerei

Aufgesaugt

The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of the Dancers. The parking lot attendant had brought the car out and he was still holding the door open because Lennox’s left foot was still dangling outside, as if he had forgotten he had one. He had a young-looking face but his hair was bone white. You could tell by his eyes that he was plastered to the hairline, but otherwise he looked like any other nice young guy in a dinner jacket who had been spending too much money in a joint that exists for that purpose and for no other. - Die ersten Sätze in einem Chandlerbuch stoßen nieder wie ein Sperber auf seine Beute, man kann die Flugkunst und den Zugriff nur bewundern. Das Motiv möglichst umfassender Geldvernichtung wiederholt sich bei Sebald in der Gestalt des Cosmo Solomon, noch auffälliger aber ist die gemeinsame Freude beider Autoren an der Architekturmalerei in Worten. An der Bahnhofsarchitektur, die das Buch Austerlitz dominiert, ist Chandler allerdings wenig gelegen. In Playback erhält Marlowe den Auftrag, an der Union Station Los Angeles eine bestimmte Reisende auszumachen und zu beschatten. The lady was as easy to spot as a kangaroo in a dinner jacket, die in ihrer Art durchaus beachtenswerte Architektur des LA-Bahnhofs bleibt unbeachtet, kaum ein anderer Gebäudetyp aber wird ausgelassen.

The main hallway oft he Sternwood place was two storeys high. Over the entrance doors, which would have let in a troop of Indian elephants, there was a broad stained-glass panel showing a knight in dark armour rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didn’t have any clothes on but some very long and convenient hair. There were French doors at the back oft he hall, on the west side of the hall a free staircase, tile-paved, rose to a gallery with a wrought-iron railing and another piece of stained-glass romance. Large hard chairs with rounded red plush seats were backed into the vacant spaces oft he wall round about. They didn’t look as if anybody had ever sat in them. In the middle of the west wall there was a big empty fireplace with a brass screen in four hinged panels, and over the fire place a marble mantle with cupids at the corners. Above the mantel was a large oil portrait, and above the portrait two bullet-torn or moth-eaten cavalry penants crossed in a glass frame. The portrait was a stiffly posed job of an officer in full regimentals of about the time oft he Mexikan War.

Chandler ist, bei ganz anderem Pinselstrich und Farbauftrag, kein geringerer Architekturmaler in Worten als Sebald, erfaßt sind die verschiedenen Sparten der Architektur, Gebäude-, Landschafts-, Innenarchitektur. Wir betreten mit Marlowe die Villen und Paläste seiner reichen Auftraggeber, wir betreten die Büros der Firmenbosse: The private office was everything a private office should be. It was long and dim and quiet and air-conditioned and the windows were shut and ist grey venetian blinds half-closed to keep out the Jily glare. Grey drapes matched the grey carpeting. There was a large black and silver safe in the corner and a low row of low filing cases that exactly matched it. On the wall there was a huge tinted photograph of an elderly party with a chiselled beak and whiskers and a wing collar. Wir betreten die Wohnräume der gehobenen Mittelschicht, eingerichtet, nach den Worten Sebalds, mit gnadenlos gutem Geschmack: The carpet almost tickled the ankles. There was concert grand piano, closed down. On one corner of it stood a tall silver vase on a strip of peach-colored velvet, and a single yellow rose in the vase. There was plenty of nice soft furniture, a great many floor cushions, some with golden tassels, and some just naked. It was a nice room, if you dign’t get rough. There was a wide damask covered divan in a shadowy corner, like a casting couch. It was the kind of room where people sit with their feet in teir laps and sip absinth through lumps of sugar and talk with high affected voices and somtimes just squeak. It was a room where anything could happen except work. Wir betreten heruntergekommene Paläste, parzelliert und von fragwürdigem Volk bewohnt, heruntergekommene Mietshäuser, in denen Winkeladvokaten ihre Kanzleien und Ärzte jenseits des Hippokratischen Eids ihre Praxen haben, Privatdetektive ihr Office, Pfandleiher ihre Leihanstalt. Wir gehen durch schmutzige Treppenhäuser und benutzen defekte Fahrstühle, in den Wohnungen der Gescheiterten sieht es nicht besser aus als auf den Fluren: A large handsome cabinet radio droned to the left of the door in the corner oft he room. It was the only decent piece of furniture the place had, it looked brand new. Everything else was junk, dirty overstuffed pieces, a weeden rocker that matched the one on the porch, a square arch into the dining room with a stained table, finger marks all over the swing door to the kitchen beyond. A couple of frayed lamps with once gaudy shades that were now as gay as superannuated streetwalkers. Tand, Tand ist das Gebilde von Menschenhand, klingt es an in immer perfekten Kadenzen, wenn es um das Leben hinter Luxusmauern geht, bei den heruntergekommenen Bezirken wird die Wahrheit des Verses offenbar. Gebäude sind steinerne Umhüllungen der Menschen mit viel Spielraum. Den enganliegenden Hüllen, der Kleidung, gilt die gleiche Aufmerksamkeit: She was wearing a tobacco brown suit with a high-hecked white sweater inside. Her hair was by daylight pure auburn and on it she wore a hat with the crown the size of a whiskey glass and a brim you could have wrapped the week’s laundry in. She wore it at an angle of approximately forty five degrees, so that the edge oft he brim just missed her shoulder. Eine Kopfbedeckung noch extravaganter als der Strohhut, den Pisanello dem heiligen Georg verpaßt hatte.

Auch hydrotechnische Anlagen bleiben nicht unberücksichtigt: For a moment the water was a confused boiling, then the depth cleared again. Something moved in them that was not a board. It rose slowly, with an infinitely careless languor, a long twisted something rolled lazyly in the water as it rose. It broke surface casually, lightly without haste, a wave of dark blond hair straightened out in the water. In der Mehrzahl der Gemordeten findet Marlowe aber auf festem Boden. Er betritt ein Haus, und zwei Zeilen weiter wissen er und der Leser, jemand, der eben noch gelebt hat, lebt nun nicht mehr. Es folgen zwei Seiten penibel wahrgenommener Innenarchitektur bis zur endgültigen Auffindung des Opfers: He went up the two back steps and slid a knife blade neatly into the crack oft he door and lifted the hook. That put him in the screen porch. It was full of cans and some of the cans were full of flies. He stepped back an lunged at the lock with his leg parallel to the floor. Something cracked idly and the door gave a few inches. He heaved it open and picked a piece of jagged cast metal off the linoleum and laid it politely on the woodstone drainbord, beside about nine empty gin bottles. Flies buzzed against the closed windows oft he kitchen. The place reeked. He stood in the middle oft he floor, giving it a careful eye. Then he walked softly throug the swing door without touching it except low down with his foot. The living room was much as he remembered it. The radio was off. He went swifly into the bedroom, Mrs Florian lay diagonally across the bed. The corner post oft he bed was smeared darkly with something the flies liked. Die Leichen, die Marlowe findet, sind bereits zu einem Element der Innenausstattung geworden.

Die Bilder Pisanellos haben vor Jahren schon den Wunsch erweckt, alles aufgeben zu können außer dem Schauen. Ja, wenn sich alles Geschehende ins Betrachtbare verlöre. Bei Chandler erleben wir keine ruhende Architektur keine ruhenden Dinge, es sind die Bilder, die vorwärtsdrängen, Chandlers Prosa ihren besonderen Drive verleihen, mehr Drive als das Hin und Her der Dialoge. Immer wieder hat man den Eindruck, als würde die fortdauernde Handlung sich unmittelbar aus der laufenden Architekturbeschreibung erschließen, als sei es eine Wohltat, wenn die Handlung nahezu versiegen würde, aufgesaugt von den Dingen und Bauten, als sei jedes weitere Geschehen zu viel.