Mark,
Re your comments below:
> We all know that Hammett used a lot of slang,
very
> influential slang
> within the genre (even when misunderstood, as
with
> "gunsel"). Could
> this have been a conscious attempt to play up
his
> bona fides as a real
> private eye? Did contemporary readers know of
his
> Pinkerton past? Did
> Shaw and others point this out in editorial
comments
> or authors' intros?
According to William F. Nolan, he did. In fact, he played up
the authentic backgrounds of several of his writers
(Gardner's having been a criminal lawyer; Nels Jorgensen
having been a NJ state trooper; George Harmon Coxe having
been a journalist; etc).
> If so, couldn't Hammet's extensive use of
obscure
> criminal argot have
> been an overt and self-conscious sign of
the
> supposed authenticity of
> his stories?
Just because it was authentic doesn't mean it had to've been
self-conscious. I think it's more likely to've been his
natural use of the language that the environment in which he
traveled made him familiar with.
JIM DOHERTY
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