A couple of late thoughts, after going back through Ride the
Pink Horse.
First, one of the things that dates Hughes, even at her
hardest boiled (Ride...
& In A Lonely Place), is a tendency to have characters
summarize thoughts, particularly memories. Sailor (in
Ride...) thinks back on his mother's church habits, but,
somewhat unrealistically, we're to follow his memory all
while he does something else in the present. Or with the
present more (er) Present, one has little talks with oneself:
"He couldn't let her know his disappointment. They hadn't
played it that way. They hadn't been soft lovers; they'd been
aware of worldly needs...He knew better but he demanded....A
fellow had to have money, you couldn't get a girl..." (Dix in
In a Lonely Place). Such "inside talking" slows everything
down and loosens the tension or drama that creates the rhythm
of smart talk and action associated with hard-boiled fiction.
In some ways, this tendency can be seen in much of the
fiction of the time--so one makes adjustments (or not).
The second thing I noticed may also be a period feature: the
moral fork in the road, the opportunity to take a different
direction that is seriously considered, objectively offered.
The opportunity to cooperate with the police in Ride..., the
opportunity to make a clean breast of it and seek help in In
a Lonely Place. [Both novels had endings changed by Hollywood
writers, in part because the alternatives were there.] In
Ride the Pink Horse, the pull toward something "better" or
"good" is even dramatized in the religious side of the
Festival, the piety of the lower classes (who remind the
protagonist of his own origins). This book reminded me
somewhat of Graham Greene's fiction, especially the
hard-edged (perhaps not boiled) Brighton Rock. Perhaps the
best line in Ride... comes from Sailor's moral awareness:
he's in church, but he reminds himself, "He hadn't come here
to pray; he'd come with a gun to keep his eye on a rat [who
is praying]."
A large generalization: most of the personal questioning in
recent hard-boiled seems to have more to do with ends and
means, a pragmatic weighing of consequences. Internally,
traditional conflicts with conscience have been replaced by
psychological struggle with traumatic memories. Does this
seem so?
Bill Hagen
billha@ionet.net
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