If I can put in my newcomer's two-cents, a few years ago I
reread all of Hammet's novels, and RED HARVEST does not stand
up. It's cliched and terribly dated. On the other hand I was
totally surprised by THE THIN MAN. If you read it carefully,
and try to forget the movie, it's a pretty damn good novel
with much to say. The three in the middle hold up just fine,
and THIN MAN deserves a reassessment, Robert Parker to the
contrary.
Of course, I must repeat, none of us hit the bullseye every
time. There are a few of my own early stories I could not
reprint largely because the plot doen't really hold water.
And I'm not too happy about some of the early style, nor do I
think some of my novels are quite up to snuff.
Dennis-Michael
----- Original Message ----- From: "Bludis Jack" <
buildsnburns@yahoo.com> To: <
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Wednesday, May 04,
2005 5:32 AM Subject: RARA-AVIS: Another Heresy -- The Black
Mask and other pulp fiction
> Something that many of us at Rara_Avis miss
is
> that not all of Chandler and Hammett was
great.
> It's a comment rarely made here. Many of us
seem
> to have the opinion that just because C or
H
> wrote it, it must be good. Some of it is
just
> crap where we are treated ti the development
of
> the hardboiled genre.
>
> Many of their Black Mask stories were just
"shoot
> 'em ups." with little character develoment
and
> hardly any story line. For me, even *Red
> Harvest,* a combination of six novellas with
each
> judged individually, is just a shoot 'em
up.
>
> It was the demand of the pulp fiction crime
story
> of the day. Others who wrote this stuff
are
> forgotten beccause they never went on to
write
> great novels as Chandler and Harris did.
>
> Jack Bludis
>
> http://www.jackbludis.com
-- updated
> "Shadow of the Dahlia" now at BN.com
> "Shadow" has been nominated for a Shamus
>
>
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