James Rogers (jetan@ionet.net)
Mon, 27 Dec 1999 18:52:11 -0600
At 07:12 PM 12/27/99 -0500, you wrote:
>James,
>I'll grant you that Hemingway's "aim of achievement"
was higher. Which
>brings up the always intriguing and probably never
answerable question:
>Which is better a fully realized work of limited
goals or a flawed
>masterpiece? I've never been able to come up with a
consistent scale
>even for myself, much less generalizable to others. I
seem to always
>answer it on a case-by-case basis.
>
>Mark
>
Well, ol' feller, I kinda agree with
you there. In the case of Hemingway, I think the early
stories and the first novel work better than
Chandler/Hammett/Cain. Each successive book works less well
until finally I would read any of those guys before reading a
Hemingway. Probably the break is around _For Whom The Bell
Tolls_ which is pretty cornball in my opinion.
Good question, though, and I
can understand that some might answer it a different way,
both toward the highbrow and the 'lowfaluting.
James
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