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RARA-AVIS: Hammett or Hemingway?



It is only MY belief or theory, not the universal belief, that Hammett may
have influenced Hemingway.  I read this theory somewhere, so please do not
spread this to anybody else until I find out the source.  My bourbon made
me say it.  

But the part of the hardboiled entry in BENET'S READERS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
AMERICAN LITERATURE--"...The genre was...an attempt to apply the literary
lessons taught by such serious American novelists as Ernest Hemingway and
John Dos Passos..."-- sounded wrong to me.

Okay, the source.  William Nolan writes in HAMMETT: A LIFE AT THE EDGE
(Congdon & Weed, 1983) that "Dashiell Hammett and Ernest Hemingway have
often been linked by critics as masters of objective realilsm--but the
analysis has not always been complimentary to Hammett, nor has it always
been fair.  Several of these critics have unjustly dismissed him as a "pulp
extension" of Hemingway....
"Hemingway did not publish a book in the United States until late 1925 (_In
Our Time_, from Liverright).  By then Hammett had been writing
professionally for three years...."

Hemingway, ex-journalist, was writing in Paris in 1922 to 1923, while
Hammett, ex-private eye, was writing in San Francisco.  They were writing
the lean objective realistic prose independently that time.  But later,
when they became famous, they read each other's works.  "The Killer" by
Hemingway in 1927 MAY have influenced Hammett's fiction, while RED HARVEST
by Hammett in 1929 may have influenced TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT by Hemingway in
1937.  So they may have influenced each other later time.  But _I_ want to
believe that Hammett influenced Hemingway.   

According to Nolan, "Hemingway was a Hammett buff."  There was copies of
THE GLASS KEY, THE THIN MAN and BLOOD MONEY in Hemingway's library.

Yes, Philip Marlow keeps calling one of the Bay City cop Hemingway in
FAREWELL, MY LOVELY (Chaps. 23-24).  You have to read these chapters to
understand why.  Very interesting to know how Chandler thought of
Hemingway.

Sorry again for the long post.  
Jiro Kimura, hardboiled guy who apologizes a lot


*********************************************
Jiro Kimura
Kanazawa, JAPAN
e-mail:  jkimura@nsknet.or.jp
The Gumshoe Site  (http://www.nsknet.or.jp/~jkimura/)
*********************************************

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