RE: RARA-AVIS: Mike Hammer's strength and heroism

From: jens0229@netscape.net
Date: 18 May 2004


>In a 1952 letter, Chandler said, "Mickey Spillane is just about on the same
>level of phoniness [as James Hadley Chase, author of 1939's NO ORCHIDS FOR
>MISS BLANDISH], and as far as I'm concerned just as unreadable. I did
>honestly try to read one just to see what made them click, but I couldn't
>make it. Pulp writing at its worst was never as bad as this stuff. [. . .]
>This Spillane stuff, so far as I can see, is nothing but a mixture of
>violence and outright pornography. [. . .] I can't see anything else in it.
>This sort of thing makes the home boys with their libraries of elegant
>erotica seem rather nice people."
>
>In a 1958 letter, he said, "Spillane is perhaps an extreme example of the
>sadistic writer, but I may be wrong. I can't read him"

Now I enjoyed NO ORCHIDS when I read it a few years ago. However, I have never been a fan of Spillane but Chandler's description above makes the Mike Hammer books sound better than I remember.

Jensen

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