Reading Chandler’s essays, there can be no doubt that he knew how to use a semicolon and relished using them, given their relative frequency in his nonfiction. So why is it that his fiction might contain one or two semicolons, if any at all?* The key, as I hinted at the start of this section, lies in Marlowe’s character. Marlowe rarely allows himself either the kind of reflective pause or the uncertainty that a semicolon permits.
