>Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 23:17:04 -0600
(CST)
>From:
billha@ionet.net
>Subject: RARA-AVIS: RE: Review of Chandler
Papers
Bill Hagen wrote:
>I wasn't particularly upset by Temple's statement
that "Hammett's
>equipment was
>second-rate. His prose was only slightly less wooden
than that of most
>pulp-magazine writers, and there is something naive
about his world view."
>
>Just happened to be reading Red Harvest and chuckled
over the following:
>
> "The girls square chin was tilted up. Her big red
mouth was brutal
> around
>the words it shaped, and the lines crossing its ends
were deep, hard.
> "The gambler looked as unpleasant as she. His pretty
face was yellow and
>tough as oak. When he talked his lips were
paper-thin."
>
>So I'm seeing two sets of lines while balloons with
words (cartoonlike)
>come out
>between; and then I'm looking at a guy who's an
unhealthy yellow, but also
>like
>the rough trunk of an oak that is regularly processed
into paper.... The
>stuff
>doesn't scan, except as one of those surreal cartoons
from the 30s.
>
>Wooden--but Temple is only talking about his style,
not whole novels. The
>energy, the main characters, the plot drive all keep
one going. I
>wouldn't have
>even thought, much less done, a number on those
lines, if the subject hadn't
>been raised.
>
>Course style is nice tool to have, as Chandler
observed of Gardner. It helps
>one slide through some improbabilities in plot
management. I always notice
>Hammett's management more than Chandler's, because
there's less flash in the
>words.
Not limited to Hammett specifically, but as a result of my
having read so much of the 30s/40s mystery canon in one fell
swoop, a query on what -- to me -- appeared to be
particularly "wooden" usage:
Characters are (virtually) always referred to as having
"lighted a cigarette".
I, far too long an addict, always comes up short when I
encounter that: I, instinctively, want to substitute what I
would say: That I (or he/she) would light, or had "lit" a
cigarette.... Perhaps it's only a result of my having spent
the majority of my "English" classes reading, rather than
diagramming -- but the older version just grates on
me....
Of course, no sooner did I write that, than I went and
:looked it up" on the American Heritage dictionary I have
loaded -- and found (to my considerable chagrin) this:
---------------------------------------------------
USAGE NOTE: Lighted and lit are equally acceptable as past
tense and past participle of light. Both forms are well
established as adjectives also: a lighted (or lit)
cigarette.
---------------------------------------------------
I don't care what *they* say. It's *wrong*, I tell you.
Wrong! Wrong!
[This doesn't bother me so much in contemporary mystery
fiction, in that, in these politically correct times, even
hard-boiled sleuths don't smoke. They're not even allowed to
keep a bottle on the desk drawer, either; just a Palm Pilot
to schedule their stake-outs on... <g> ]
Bill Bowers | <
Bill@Outworlds.net>
"Right now the Hard-Boiled Hero looks like a candidate for a
Spousal Abuse Seminar." --Fred Zackel, Rara-Avis
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