carrie said:
>Perhaps one could read the influence of Hemingway and
Chandler
>as twin traditions - sometimes converging, sometimes
opposed -
>behind the contemporary crime novel. Hammett's lack
of senti-
>mentality (relative to Chandler) perhaps aligns him
more closely
>with Hemingway?
i don't know about that. if we're separating the boys
according to sentimentality, i'd put hemingway by himself in
the sentimental chair and let chandler share the cold fish
couch with hammett.
i didn't find a whole lot more sentiment in _the big sleep_
than i did in _the maltese falcon_ or _red harvest_. but look
at _the sun also rises_. jake tries to hide his feelings but
he's hurting bad over brett. and what about mike? his drunken
scene involves his romantic feelings for brett. and look how
purely mawkish robert cohn gets. more? how about frederick
and catherine in _a farewell to arms_? how about robert
jordan and his "rabbit" in
_for whom the bell tolls_?
off on a tangent:
in all of hemingway's works, he deals with one theme, and one
theme only: the pursuit of heroism. and unlike his critics
would lead you to believe, this is not the macho man stuff
like you'll see in the _we were soldiers_ movie. hemingway's
brand is the kinda heroism where you're just trying to pull
together enough pieces of a scarred life to get by for
another day. and he is very good at portraying this. a
thousand different flavors. the cold anger of the woman in
"hills like white elephants", the emotional displacement in
"cat in the rain", the bitter nostalgia in "the snows of
kilimanjaro", or the healing effect of nature for nick
adams.
miker
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