I've just reread The Abominable Man (Maj Sjö·¡¬l and Per Wahlö¶©¬
one in their series about inspector Martin Beck. He is
referred to every single time as Martin Beck. No inspector,
no Martin, no Beck.
It is a good translation (by Thomas Teal), but it struck me
as a rather un-English aspect of the style. "English" writers
don't do that, I thought.
(French writers do, not necessarily in novels, but in
newspapers, reports, etc.). But now I know there's a certain
class of Hemingway followers and precursors who favour this
rather wooden device.
Maybe it's to establish distance. Or maybe it's to hammer the
protag's name home. Or maybe in Hemingway's case, it's to
sound foreign. (I have to admit here I'm not a fan. I've read
a short story or two and a few parodies, but could never get
through a novel.)
Anyway I really enjoyed the book. Good solid police work and
serious cogitation keep things moving to the end. Different
police officers with radically different personalities and
styles are well drawn. Virtually every page has a scathing
criticism of some aspect of Swedish society (this was first
published in 1971).
Karin At 14:42 24/5/02 -0400, Robison Michael R CNIN <
Robison_M@crane.navy.mil wrote:
>mark coggins said:
>The difference between FALCON and KEY is that Hammett
took this objective
>business one step further and rather than saying
Spade did this or Spade did
>that, he always says Ned Beaumont did this or Ned
Beaumont did that. Always
>repeating both names makes the character seem even
more distanced from the
>reader, I think.
>
>***************************************************
>
>hammett stole the technique of always using the full
name
>from hemingway's _for whom the bell tolls_, where
robert
>jordan is always robert jordan, and never robert,
god
>forbid bob, and don't even think about
bobby.
>
>the impressive thing about hammett stealing this
technique
>from hemingway is that the glass key came out in
1931, and
>the spanish civil war, upon which _for whom the bell
tolls_
>is based, didn't start until 1937. thats amazing,
isn't
>it? how did he do that?
>
>miker
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