You guys were talking about the toughness and credibility or
lack of them, in Hammett and Chandler's real worlds. While
Hammett certainly played up the mean streets angle of his
life with the Pinks (it was, after all, a great marketing
tool), how rough and tough was it really? Did he ever
actually get involved in a murder case? Even back then,
although it was probably a bit more hands-on, I'm sure
most
"real" P.I. work was about as thrilling as it is these
days.
On the other hand, for all the horn-tooting Hammett engaged
in, pumping up his Pinkerton days, surely none of it could
ever compare with the violence and sheer horror of Chandler's
days as an infantryman with the Canadian Expeditionary Force
in the trenches of WWI, which Chandler himself, perhaps
tellingly, never seemed to talk about, or try to capitalize
on. Hiney's bio goes into those days a bit. Hammett never
even left the States in his army days, as far as I
know.
But of course, none of this proves anything. Fantasy is,
indeed, the great equalizer. Chandler and Hammett made their
fictional worlds seem real, and that's what's important, not
whether Hammett ever really investigated a stolen ferris
wheel. For all the rather silly posturing and back cover
photo ops (remember those paperbacks with Ross Macdonald in a
fedora or Spillane posing with a .45?), most hard-boiled
writers are definitely not living the lives of their
heroes.
--
Kevin Burton Smith The Thrilling Detective Web Site http://www.thrillingdetective.com
Now online: Our December issue. The Thrillies. Christmas Gifts. New fiction. And Tim Broderick's ODD JOBS. -- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
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