Perhaps the impression that Hammett has been less influential
is due to a fact: Hammett's style is today the standard style
for good writing --what Jacques Barzun calls
"simple & direct" in his handbook of rhetoric. In
contrast, Chandleresque is now a retro language.
Here, off the top of my head, are some prominent Hammett
heirs: Joe Gores, Richard Stark, Donald Westake and Lawrence
Block (their hardboiled and noir work), Elmore Leonard (the
only writer who combines Twain, Hemingway and Hammett in his
style), Jason Starr, Michael Connelly (his Chandlerisms are
few, feel forced, and are only a veneer to his simple &
direct core), Bill Crider, Harold Adams, Michael Collins
(Hammett & Macdonald, not at all Chandleresque).
I think that Chandler was at some point (the sixties,
probably) replaced by Ross Macdonald as a model for PI
writers. There are still Chandler imitators, but mid- and
late Macdonald makes for a much more imitable model for those
who want to appeal to the modern reader. The risk in
imitating Chandler is that the wisecracking and the similes
become purely comical --they were not that in Chandler, whose
stories are serious dynamite. Robert B. Parker's Spenser
series is a sad example of this type of ineffectual
pastiche.
Best, and please excuse the length of this.
MrT
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