Juri wrote:
"I've said this here in an earlier occasion and I now repeat
it: the line coming from James M. Cain is more interesting
than the line coming from Hammett and Chandler. We wouldn't
have Jim Thompson, we wouldn't have Day Keene's and Gil
Brewer's best works etc. The other line has lots of crappy
imitators, full of empty PI bubble and overdose of similes
and supposedly funny lines."
Juri, even though I'm more of a PI guy myself, I can
certainly see how someone could feel the way you do. However,
you've set up an unfair contrast to make your point. You are
comparing the best of the Cain line with the worst of the
Hammett/Chandler would-be heirs. Cain and his more worthy
followers have also had a lot of crappy imitators, full of
gratuitous viciousness and overdoses of misogyny, bad
imitations of the surface traits without offering any of the
substance beneath. From what I hear, Thompson and Cain
themselves wrote a number of bad books late in their careers
(I've only read the good, earlier stuff by each).
Mark
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 06 Dec 2004 EST