James Rogers (jetan@ionet.net)
Tue, 26 Oct 1999 12:49:27 -0500
At 10:27 AM 10/26/99 -0500, you wrote:
i don't want to oversimplify it too much, but it
always
>struck me that i could imagine how hammett would
describe his women before
>they showed up, and they all are these dreamy ideals.
perhaps part of the
>reason it struck me so was that i was reading
chandler for the first time
>while i was discovering hammett, and i always found
his women very quirky
>and individual, both in appearance and behavior.
chandler's women have
>wonderful flaws (physical and otherwise) that, to me,
makes them infinitely
>more memorable.
>
>
That
is interesting, because Chandler's women are the ones that
strike me as wish fufillment stuff. Dinah, from Hammett's
_Red Harvest_, stuck me as rather complicated - particularly
in her relationship with the
"lunger" who lived with her. She's somewhat likeable, for a
whore and a blackmailer, but far from admirable. And, while
she has a certain "sex appeal", I seem to recall that the Op
said she was not particularly good-looking.
By
contrast, Chandler's women always seem to be either Saint or
Devil, which matches the common male adolescent mode of
perception.
Chandler
was the author who originally started me reading this stuff,
but as I got older I came to the opinion that Hammett was a
far more subtle writer.
James
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