I just took the time to read, "A Man Must Do What He Must:
Hammett's Pragmatism," by Josef Hoffmann.
The piece is in ThrillingDetective.com and I suppose it is fair to note that the translation is by by Johanna da Rocha Abreu, a woman I have never met.
The piece covers Hammett's thought processes as well as those of his characters the Continental Op, Ned Beaumont, Sam Spade, and the process of the deductive reasoning that brings Hammett and his characters to conclusions.
The article is translated from the German so it has an intricacy of style that we, or at least I, don't see much in what I read. (But, of course, if it's too intricate I can't grasp it even if it's fiction, like some of Henry James, but I am confessing to my own limitations.)
The article begins by discussing Hammett's Marxism and calls attention to Hammett's pragmatism. I expected an explanation of Hammett's Marxism based on his logic, but I didn't see where that was explained.
It is an interesting piece I thought.
The whole thing is at:
http://www.thrillingdetective.com/non_fiction/e011.html
Jack Bludis
Read, read, read. Write, write, write.
If you're not a writer: read, read, read, and read some more.
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