--- Mark Sullivan <
DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net> wrote:
Anyway, your comments about the originality of Daly's
hardboiled private eye intrigues me. How original was his
creation? I know he beat Hammett to the punch. However, much
is made of Hammett's relying on his real experience, that the
Continental Agency is a fictionalized version of the
Pinkerton Agency. So was there really no real life corollary
to what Williams created?
I'm not sure I understand your argument. How does Hammett's
relying on his own experience in his writing have anything to
do with what Daly did months earlier?
Certainly, Hammett used his own real-world experience
to lend his work an air of realism and authority that CJD
never dreamed of having, but I don't see how this could be
said to have affected CJD's invention of the character.
And no, there was no real life corollary to what Williams
created. I'm assuming that you have not read
"Three Gun Terry," which, by the way, is not meant as
dig--few people ever have. But I say that because anyone who
reads it would immediately recognize how far from reality it
is. It's about as realistic, and reality-based, as, say,
Spenser flying to Idaho to invade the private mountain
hideaway of a corrupt billionaire. PI's just don't do that
stuff--mostly they photograph accident scenes. When's the
last time you say "PI involved in shooting" in the local
paper? It just doesn't happen.
For that matter, even Hammett's experience as a PI only added
color to his work--he never shot anyone as a PI that I know
of; in fact, I don't know that he ever drew a gun.
I'm not sure about the Shadow and similar characters
chronologically, but I tend to think of them as originating
in the late 20s and early 30s. Prior to Daly's "The False
Burton Combs," most pulps featured armchair detective types
and western stories, although there were some ghost stories
and the like coming out.
I really only know the pulps well where they intersect
with CJD's career, I'm afraid.
Finally, while I agree that such characters as Wyatt Earp
were greatly exaggerated for their fictional exploits, the
fact is that some of those incidents occured. The gunfight at
OK Corral didn't much look like it looks in the movies,
probably--but it did happen. Earp did kill people with a
revolver in his hand--I don't believe that Pinkerton ever
did.
In fact, what I remember Pinkerton best for is greatly
over-estimating the size of various Confederate armies,
thereby feeding the fears of Union leadership.
He probably did more than any other single
person--forgive me, fans of Robert E. Lee--to allow the
Confederates to drag the Civil War out for as long as they (I
should say we, I suppose; I live in North Carolina)
did.
G.
===== George C. Upper III UNC-Greensboro
(336) 393-0013 The city don't know that the city is
getting... a show with everything but Yul Brynner
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