Five years ago, my answer would’ve been Chandler, without question. I’d just finished reading all of his novels, and even the weakest of them were linguistic treats. And who wouldn’t love Philip Marlowe? At the time, I’d read The Maltese Falcon back in high school and had tried and failed to get into Red Harvest, so Hammett was an afterthought obviously not to my taste.
Recently, though, I got curious about The Thin Man, so picked up a copy of the Library of America’s complete Hammett collection. And the Thin Man was a lot of fun – stronger than the movie, even, which is usually not surprising, but that movie’s awfully popular. And in short order, I read Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, and The Maltese Falcon, and I’m about to start The Glass Key.
I don’t know what I was thinking. Hammett is great.
But…I think I’m still a Chandler fan at heart. I’d probably have to reread the Marlowe novels to be certain, but The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye, The Lady in the Lake and Farewell, My Lovely are all as good as (or maybe better than) Hammett’s best (so far, Falcon).
I so often find that I prefer great writers to Great Writers, myself. I have a habit of appreciating artistic innovators but really digging the people who come just a little bit later and work on polishing those innovations until they’ve got a crow-attracting shine.
It’s really a toss-up. Chandler was by far the better stylist; Hammett was better at plotting.
Chandler was more noir than Hammett – in his world everyone was corrupt, even the police. Hammett’s world assumed that the cops (most of them) were honest (not counting Red Harvest), and his Op usually worked with the police to catch the criminal. I’d say that Chandler’s attitudes were more modern than Hammett, who often was quite close to the traditional cozy mystery than noir.
I think I’d give Hammet the edge, but only by a whisker. Both are Great Writers.
Hmm. I started a Nobel Prize Authors book group a few months ago, and this has been a frequent topic of discussion. I find I go back and forth. I started the group because I’d been swung way in the other direction for a long time–hadn’t read a “great” book in years, and was feeling less and less satisfied with everything I read. But my pattern is to dig deep for a while, then get distracted by something shiny and wallow in trash (i.e., effortless fun) for a while.
While I tend to read and re-read Chandler when I’m “slumming” it (I put it in quotes because I mean no value judgment; I’ve read everything Elmore Leonard has ever read at least twice each. I’ve read everything James Joyce has read, too, but not all of it more than once.), I think I could read Hammett in either context.
Yes, definitely. But the other side of that coin is that Chandler is more of a one trick pony, to coin a phrase. Hammett’s stuff was more, what, Dickensian; deeper and wider treatments of authentic humanity. The joy of reading Chandler, though, is the hyperbole that made it Noir. But I think you nailed their differences on the head.
I’d have to choose Cain over Chandler too. Cain was darker, more disturbing. Which brings us inevitably to Jim Thompson, perhaps the darkest of the noirish novelists. But I’m not familiar with Thayer; will investigate.
I’ll throw in another vote for Cain; the man aspired (and largely succeeded) in elevating pulp to literature, or perhaps vice versa. Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Mildred Pierce had all the undercurrent of noir but with the trappings of reality. Thompson wasn’t much of a writer in any literary sense, but at his best he’s like a double shot of cheap bourbon, followed by a .38 in the gut. The Grifters is one of the most subversively nihilistic stories I’ve ever read, and Pop. 1280 is ruthless. Highsmith at least smoothed out her Pyrrhonism with flowing prose; Thompson just blasts the story out at you like a prizefighter.
Hammett was more interesting for his own history than his writing, methinks. I’d rank Chandler as more fun to read, but Hammett more fun to read about. I still haven’t figured out what happened to the chauffeur, though. snicker
Please, Og, nobody mention Mickey Spillane. I’d rather read a stack of MSDS docs than a Mike Hammer novel.
Just ordered Call Her Savage from abebooks.com. They don’t have 13m13w, which is odd; they have dozens of copies each of any of the rarest books I’ve ever searched for. Is there another title? or is it really that rare?
Boy is this a tough thread. Chandler had probably the best metaphors of anybody(my fave is the one about being about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angelfood). Cain wrote some of the greatest dialogue ever. Hammett had Sam Spade and a wicked sense of irony. Although I have to admit to getting Hammett’s and Chandler’s works confused in my head–I believe it was Hammett who wrote the story whose prime clue was that the goldfish were floating a little low but I would have to check–I would never confuse these two with any others, not even Cain. And I’d have to elevate Chandler, not that Hammett isn’t worthy, he’s just a little closer to ordinary.
