Victoria Esposito-Shea (vmes@northnet.org)
Mon, 25 Oct 1999 08:18:42 -0400
Feminists hate Hammett?
:
: Oh, come on. In the real world, being a feminist and
liking Hammet
: are not mutually exclusive. Let's leave the conspiracy
theories for
: the self-obsessed, artificial, closed world of academia
and the
: paranoid alternative universe of talk radio call-in
shows.
:
: As a feminist myself, I see relatively little in
Hammett's work that
: really bothers me (especially given the time it was
written), and
: much that actually seems sympathetic to women (again,
especially
: given the time). Now Hammett's life is another story,
but then, this
: ain't People Magazine.
Kev, you took the words right out of my mouth. Mario, I'd add
to this that I don't see Hammett as incompatible with
postmodernism either--in fact, quite the contrary. If you
take a peek at the intro to The Continental Op
(Steven Marcus, isn't it?), that's a pretty straightforward
postmodern/Marxist analysis which is obviously very kind to
Hammett. This is not to say he has to be read that way, but
it's certainly possible. There is a real depth to
Hammett--cf. also the intro to Nightmare Town, where Nolan
reads the stories & novels as trying to make sense of the
classic lone wolf's, and by extension Hammett's own, place
& utility in society. Again, you don't have to read it
that way, but there's certainly plenty of opportunity.
Now *Spillane*, his two-dimensional crap pisses me off on a
feminist level because (to borrow a phrase) there's no there
there. You agree with him or you're scum--end of story. No
further depth or meaning.
BTW, is anyone else finding Nightmare Town surprisingly. . .
baroque? I swear some of these sentences go on for
miles.
Vicky
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