# Hammet vs. Chandler **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 7, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303 "2010-04-07T18:13:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303/21 "2010-04-19T16:14:14Z")
> [@flight](#): > > I further support the idea of moving from Hammett to Chandler. I prefer Chandler’s writing, but he is very uneven. The guy was basically a drunk who had a book forced out of him every so often. Sometimes absolute genius, sometimes not. > > That said, he wrote my absolute favorite novel, The Long Goodbye. Yes! Also, while “The Long Goodbye” isn’t my absolute favorite, it ranks up there. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303/22 "2010-04-19T17:55:01Z")
Chandler was an drunk? That is a surprise to me when you consider the disdain he seems to show towards drunks in his books…Now you’ll probably tell me that he is Mexican as well. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2010, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303/23 "2010-04-19T22:36:47Z")
Interesting thread! Both writers are graet-and they really capture the era that they wrote in (1930’s). Did the two ever meet? If so, what did they think of eachother? ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303/24 "2010-04-20T02:54:43Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > Chandler was an drunk? That is a surprise to me when you consider the disdain he seems to show towards drunks in his books…Now you’ll probably tell me that he is Mexican as well. Chandler was a lifelong drunk who essentially drank himself to death. One thing that’s clear when you’ve read enough Chandler is that the “hard-drinking private eye” routine is not a pose. Chandler wrote about drunks with the perception of a guy who has been there, and stayed there. > [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > Well, I just got back from a lovely beach vacation, and thanks to the suggestions on this thread, I started with a couple of Chandler novels. First up, “Farewell My Lovely.” > > Overall, I liked this novel a lot. But not until I reached the end! Funny, that’s precisely the opposite reaction I have to it. There is some wonderful writing in the first sections of the book. Marlowe’s meeting with Moose Malloy is vivid and darkly funny; Anne Riordan is a great character; “Old Nosey” is Nulty the flop detective are sad but funny creations; and the whole section with Marlowe in Bay City is exquisitely written. But the denouement, though well written, is slapped together and makes little sense. The Big Sleep is Chandler’s best-plotted novel, IMO. The climax with Carmen Sternwood, and the way it finally solves the mystery of Rusty Regan’s disappearance, is carried off brilliantly. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2010, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303/25 "2010-04-20T20:36:51Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > Chandler was an drunk? That is a surprise to me when you consider the disdain he seems to show towards drunks in his books…Now you’ll probably tell me that he is Mexican as well. Goodness, yes. When he was writing the screenplay for The Blue Dahlia, he got stuck and decided the only way he could finish the script was completely shitfaced. He had a doctor visit to give him glucose injections so he didn’t have to eat. I don’t recall a specific scene involving Mexicans, but anyone who wants to read his attitude toward homosexuality as protesting just a little too much has plenty to work from. ---
**Author:** ![rob\_c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbce88/32.png) [@rob\_c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rob_c)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2013, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303/26 "2013-11-16T01:29:44Z")
The opening paragraph of _Red Harvest_ by Hammett: “I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt a shoit. I didn’t think anything of what he had done to the city’s name. Later I heard men who could manage their r’s give it the same pronunciation. I still didn’t see anything in it but the meaningless sort of humor that used to make richardsnary the thieves’ word for dictionary. A few years later I went to Personville and learned better.” Nothing Chandler ever wrote came within five million light years of that opener or, for that matter, Red Harvest. Chandler conjured Marlowe as a white knight. On mean streets? That’ll never happen on planet earth. Hammett wrote men as they are. Women too. Chandler couldn’t have written a Dinah Brand to save his life. ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2013, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303/27 "2013-11-16T07:19:56Z")
> [@rob\_c](#): > > The opening paragraph of _Red Harvest_ by Hammett: > > “I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt a shoit. I didn’t think anything of what he had done to the city’s name. Later I heard men who could manage their r’s give it the same pronunciation. I still didn’t see anything in it but the meaningless sort of humor that used to make richardsnary the thieves’ word for dictionary. A few years later I went to Personville and learned better.” > > Nothing Chandler ever wrote came within five million light years of that opener or, for that matter, Red Harvest. Though the most common explanation for the nicknames “Big Poison” and “Little Poison” for 1920’s-30’s-40s baseballers Paul and Lloyd Waner is that “poison” was a corruption (eggcorn?) of “paisan”, there is the other theory (usually voiced by red-haired muckers) that it was Brooklynese for “Big Person” and “Little Person”. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2013, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303/28 "2013-11-16T14:04:13Z")
As in all etymology, Occam’s Razor applies. Paisan? For two people from Oklahoma with names that aren’t even vaguely Italian? And the Brooklynese explanation is pure speculation. Most likely, they got their nicknames because they were poison to opposing pitchers. Paul was “Big Poison” because he was the big brother. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2013, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303/29 "2013-11-16T14:15:35Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > Chandler was an drunk? If _you_ were married to Monica… yeah, I know… weak ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2013, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303/30 "2013-11-16T14:17:55Z")
Were drinking problems common with writers of this genre? IOW, were they self referencing, or did they just write their characters that way? real question ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2013, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303/31 "2013-11-16T14:47:28Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > Were drinking problems common with writers of this genre? IOW, were they self referencing, or did they just write their characters that way? > > real question Good lord, yes. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, John O’Hara, Faulkner, Hammett, Chandler, etc were all raging drunks in some form or fashion. Novelists and alcohol are intimate friends. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2013, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303/32 "2013-11-16T16:47:03Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Good lord, yes. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, John O’Hara, Faulkner, Hammett, Chandler, etc were all raging drunks in some form or fashion. > > Novelists and alcohol are intimate friends. It was even worse than that. For a generation or more the conviction took hold that you couldn’t be a “real” writer if you didn’t conquer the bottle the way Papa Hemingway conquered bears and wives. (These were all men, who also held that no woman could be a “real” writer. That didn’t keep good writers like Dorothy Parker from drowning her talents in alcohol as well.) It didn’t help that, simultaneously, the conviction grew that you couldn’t do “real” jazz unless you were on heroin. The unaltered soul had no rhythm. The plague didn’t break until the 60s writers matured, maybe shocked into some sense by Hemingway’s suicide in 1961. But it remained true that when I entered science fiction in the late 60s, the place to find the writers at any convention was in the bar. I’m late to this thread, and people have nailed it about Hammett and Chandler. Just a couple of additional comments. The focus of Hammett on stripped-down dialogue married to taut plots and Chandler on fantastic style is the reason that Hammett’s books make terrific movies and Chandler’s very poor ones. What about _The Big Sleep_, you ask? The movie version is structured in three parts. The opener is the best adaptation of Chandler ever: gaudy, playful, stylized, and verbal. The middle section sags as it descends into the cliches of gangsterdom. The final section is moronic, with Bogart playing the sap, doing stupid things, and getting beaten up. Every virtue of the opening is leeched out. Those never properly returned in any film. Ever since, people have made the private eye a mash-up of the best parts of the two very distinct visions. These Frankensteins never quite come alive. That’s why the originals live on and most people couldn’t name five of the hundreds of imitators. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2013, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303/33 "2013-11-16T17:17:58Z")
All well said, **'Xap**. From a sci-fi standpoint, Chandler is Fantasy and Hammett is hard sci-fi 😉 Hammett is the predecessor to Elmore Leonard; Chandler - hmm, who writes like Chandler these days? Michael Connelly? James Ellroy probably, now that I think about it… (…and: have you read Tevis’ The Hustler, as I linked to in this thread? It really is efficient at what it does…) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2013, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303/34 "2013-11-16T17:31:47Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > From a sci-fi standpoint, Chandler is Fantasy and Hammett is hard sci-fi 😉 Hammett is the predecessor to Elmore Leonard; Chandler - hmm I’m tempted to say Rex Stout had Archie Goodwin play around with the formula. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2013, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303/35 "2013-11-16T18:06:38Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > (…and: have you read Tevis’ The Hustler, as I linked to in this thread? It really is efficient at what it does…) No, though I have read much of Tevis’ science fiction. > [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I’m tempted to say Rex Stout had Archie Goodwin play around with the formula. Archie was intended as a commentary on the private eye, but Wolfe was squarely in the tradition of the eccentric amateur. Together they make for an interesting variation, but Archie isn’t sufficient of a focus to be an influence on later writers in the same way that writers copy Holmes more than Watson. About the only writer to make the Archie character the lead was Erle Stanley Gardner, in his secondary series about Bertha Cool and Donald Lam, written under the name A. A. Fair. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hammet-vs-chandler/535303.md?page=1)