(I don't have it in me to review now. [Incentive to re-read?] Needless to say: this book was amazing. It would have been so easy to screw this up but (I don't have it in me to review now. [Incentive to re-read?] Needless to say: this book was amazing. It would have been so easy to screw this up but Lethem nailed it. He's become one of my favorite writers.)...more
Having read them, I can see why John sent me home with these two particular authors. The pulp environment in which they wrote (Chandler more so, from the look of things) probably forced their respective hands as far as quality and style went... Or did it? There is certainly some strong writing here. The characters can be a bit thing but there is a certain magic to the pacing Hammett has, the way he advanced the story. Staccato? Sometimes. But it's an effective technique. Hard-boiled, vicious, unrelenting. Entertaining....more
[D]efinitely [a] classic [piece] of American literature worthy of a second or even first tier position in the pantheon. [...] John commented on some p[D]efinitely [a] classic [piece] of American literature worthy of a second or even first tier position in the pantheon. [...] John commented on some parallels between Chandler and William Gibson (one of my perennial favorites), citing the former as a major and obvious influence on the latter. [...] I agree with John that Chandler’s influence on Gibson is apparent though I think they are going after far different goals as writers: Case is the illegitimate son of the illegitimate son of Philip Marlowe and though they’re living in the same neighborhood, headed in opposite directions on the same street.
Or maybe it makes more sense to compare Marlowe with Hammett's Sam Spade? Marlowe as the teeth-clenched pragmatist to Sam Spade's hopeless romantic? Or maybe that's just Marlowe's LA to Spade's San Francisco?
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