Sidney,
Re your response to Graham's below:
> >The group of hardboiled writers that formed
around
> > Black Mask in the '20s (including Hammett,
Daly,
> Paul Cain, as well as
> > editor Joseph Shaw) clearly felt that they
were
> part of a movement, that
> > they were doing something new and
different.
>
> More likely, they just felt they were part of
a
> group of writers whose
> manuscripts were being accepted regularly.
Without
> exception, Black Mask
> writers were simply journeymen freelancers,
working
> for a couple of cents a
> word; unpretentions down-to-earth scribes with
an
> understanding of their
> market. I'd guess they'd be honestly puzzled
by
> being categorized as
> artistes in any particular literary
movement.
I certainly think they regarded themselves as professional
writers first and artists second, but it doesn't follow that
they weren't cognizant of just how different their crime
fiction was from what had gone before. Carroll John Daly may
have lacked the self-awareness to realize that what came to
be called
"hard-boiled" was truly different from more traditional crime
fiction (then again, maybe he was chock-full of
self-awareness), but writers like Hammett, Cain, Chandler,
Nebel, etc., knew exactly what they were about.
If you need proof, read the mystery reviews Hammett wrote for
publications like SATRUDAY REVIEW. He continually drew
distinctions between traditional writers and hard-boiled
writers, and was often contemptuous of the traditional form,
the form that has lately come to be referred to as the
"cozy." He was particularly virulent in his criticism of the
most successful "traditional" mystery writer of the day, S.S.
Van Dine.
For further proof, read his response when "Cap" Shaw invited
him to submit a novel-length work to BLACK MASK. He talks
about the filed being wide-open, and welcomes the chance to
do something new and different in the mystery field. He
absolutely knew what he was doing. He was leading a
revolution.
Just a few years later this would be recognized by Hammett's
most successful disciple, Raymond Chandler, who wrote about
the revolution at some length in his article "The Simple Art
of Murder."
JIM DOHERTY
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