Jack,
Re your comments below:
> I think that "Red Harvest," except for
the
> opening, is pretty ugly stuff in both a plot
and
> style. (OK it was made from a bunch of
novellas.
> Hammett should have hooked them together
better.)
Actually, I think Hammett concealed the seams very well,
particularly compared with the other two OP novels, BLOOD
MONEY and THE DAIN CURSE. Perhaps not quite as well-concealed
as THE GLASS KEY, but I found few seams showing. And when I
did find them it was because I was looking for them.
> The style is more Hemingway parody than
good
> Hammett. It's choppy and not
conversational.
Again, I disagree. Moreover, Hammett's style for the Op
series, which began in 1922, developed separately from
Hemingway's. If anything, I think a case could be made that
it was Hemingway who was influenced by Hammett rather than
the reverse. I was riveted by the style the first time I read
it and have been again with every re-reading.
> "The Malese Falcon" is the
> best private-eye novel ever.)
No argument there, but RED HARVEST is easily his second-best
work, and, if not THE greatest like FALCON, ONE of the
greatest private eye novels ever.
Moreover, a case could be made that it was at least as
influential, perhaps more influential than FALCON. Certainly,
the first person narration of HARVEST is far more common than
the rigorously objective third-person mode of FALCON. And the
"town-tamer" story is one of the most common plots, certainly
as common as the "fabled quest object" plot or the
"hero's lover is the killer" plot that are both generally
attributed to FALCON, in private eye fiction.
JIM DOHERTY
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