Carrie,
Re your comments below:
> . . . do you
> really think there's no middle ground
between
> Hammett's thumbnail sketches
> and "bloated" story telling? Are Connelly,
Crumley,
> Lehane, and Pelecanos
> all "bloated" because their characters
generally
> receive more than a couple
> sentences worth of description/development
before
> they start shooting each
> other?
I think you're misreading Hammett if you regard his
characters as "thumbnail sketches." It's precisely because
he's able to so completely portray a character without
sacrificing his economical style that is a testament to his
skill. The others are not attempting to write in such a spare
style. Whether or not they'd be able to if they tried is a
question I can't answer, but I'm damned sure that Hammett
could've written, and write well, in a more expansive style,
if he's chosen to.
JIM DOHERTY
__________________________________________________ Do You
Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com
-- # 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/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 29 Oct 2001 EST