----- Original Message ----- From: "Al Guthrie" <
allanguthrie@ukonline.co.uk> To: <
rara-avis@icomm.ca> Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003
12:30 AM Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Chandler or Hammett? -- Plus
A Glance At John Morgan Wilson
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "JIM DOHERTY" <
jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com>
> > And please understand, I'm not saying
Chandler's
> > BETTER than Hammett. I'm saying he's
more
> > influential.
>
> Within the PI sub-genre, perhaps. Hammett's
influence has spread over the
> whole of crime/detective fiction and frequently
beyond.
I have to agree with Al, here, and with Mr. T.'s earlier
statement about Ross MacDonald eventually replacing Chandler
as the major writer most easily copied (and parodied) by
other writers. After all, I could write a paragraph that read
like a bad copy or a successful parody of Chandler or
MacDonald. Something that would begin with a couple of
sentences like this:
"The rain came down like a junkie the day after a good fix,
hard and fast. I was walking into that dark alley with my
fedora pulled down low as a snake's belly, and my collar
turned up like the heat in an old woman's apartment."
No one is going to read that and say, "Wow, that's a Hammett
parody/rip-off!" They'll either say that it sounds like bad
Chandler or or worse MacDonald. Chandler (and MacDonald, both
of whom I like very much) was indeed a stylist, and is easily
recognizable as such. I think it's a mistake to dismiss
Hammett as anything other than an equally dilligent stylist.
Think of it this way: the first time Michael Jordan was
interviewed about what it was like to dunk from the top of
the key, he was asked what was the toughest thing about it.
His reply was telling: "Making it look effortless."
Speaking as the author of one unpublished novel, one
soon-to-be-published short story, a number of
yet-to-be-published shorts, and a bunch of non-fiction
pieces, I must agree with that statement, and express my open
admiration for a guy like Hammett, who worked so hard to make
it look so easy. Don't just take my word for it though: I
have it from no less an authority than Joe Gores and the two
other fellows (whose names escape me at the moment) at the
Bouchercon panel on Hammett and Chandler that Crider and I
(and I'm sure others here that I haven't yet had the pleasure
of meeting) attended back in October, in Vegas. As I recall,
Gores mentioned Hammett's work ethic and the fellow who's
done so much biographical work on Hammett
(the one who so intensely dislikes the memory of Lillian
Hellman) mentioned that he'd discussed this with Hammett's
daughter, who remembers how seriously Hammett took his work,
and how he was aware that he was writing good fiction, in a
new voice (one that was kindred of the new one being sounded
by Ernest Hemingway at the exact same time).
So I have to reiterate that I agree with Al here. Hammett
wrote great fiction that was truly inimitable (in fact, it's
easier to parody Hemingway than it is to parody Hammett, at
least for me: "I got up in the morning and put on my coat and
went down to the shop and got my shotgun and some shells and
went out into the brush looking for quail. The setter was
flushing chukka, but I wanted quail. It was cold that
morning..." Don't get me wrong, I *LOVE* Hemingway's writing.
I'm just saying that it's easier to parody than the clean,
crisp prose of Dashiell Hammett). The fact that it's more
difficult to parody/copy only makes its influence more
difficult to track, and thus, less readily apparent. It does
nothing to limit the power of said work, though.
And I doubt that Raymond Chandler would disagree with a
single thing I've said.
All the Best,
Brian
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