Martha Fischer (sakana@stlnet.com)
Tue, 26 Oct 1999 10:27:53 -0500
while the only hammett novel i've read recently is the
Maltese Falcon, at some point i've read all of them (apart
from The Dain Curse-- that any good?), and my annoyance with
his women was a reoccurring theme. i agree with you to a
degree, vicky, apart characters like brigid being strong and
self-reliant, but at the same time, on a very basic level,
they're all just really HOT CHICKS. i don't want to
oversimplify it too much, but it always struck me that i
could imagine how hammett would describe his women before
they showed up, and they all are these dreamy ideals. perhaps
part of the reason it struck me so was that i was reading
chandler for the first time while i was discovering hammett,
and i always found his women very quirky and individual, both
in appearance and behavior. chandler's women have wonderful
flaws (physical and otherwise) that, to me, makes them
infinitely more memorable.
martha sakana@stlnet.com
<mailto:sakana@stlnet.com>
-----Original Message-----
Martha,
Effie Perrine is certainly a girl Friday (I always wondered
how much she got paid, actually), and certainly the women
(other than Nora) in The Thin Man are nothing to write home
about. But do the women in his other books really bother you
that much? I always liked the tough, self-reliant grifters he
wrote about--Dinah Brand and Brigid O'Shaughnessey and Angel
Grace Cardigan and Aaronia Haldorn.
Just curious, Vicky
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