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Surprised there is no mention of Dashiell Hammett, a contemporary of Christie's. He wrote The Maltese Falcon in 1930, introducing the world to Sam Spade, an int
by jihadjihad 5y ago
Surprised there is no mention of Dashiell Hammett, a contemporary of Christie's. He wrote The Maltese Falcon in 1930, introducing the world to Sam Spade, an interesting contrast to Hercule Poirot. The interwar period certainly was the golden age of detective and mystery novels, whether they were more in line with the Christie formula or followed a more hard-boiled, American style.
I wonder to what degree the novels of that period informed the more paranoid, Cold War-era novels and films after WWII. John le Carré and Ian Fleming obviously come to mind, but Orson Welles's The Third Man and Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity are also great explorations of the postwar noir genre.
I'm sure there are essays about how it's all connected, and how it can probably be traced back to early mysteries like Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, but I haven't found anything yet that charts the history of the genre and explains the relative stability of its tropes and motifs over time.
- freddie_mercury 5y agoWhy would it mention Dashiell Hammett? It is an article about Golden Age detective fiction rules, not some overview of all the good detective fiction authors. Anyway, Hammett wasn't even a Golden Age author, as Chandler's famous essay makes abundantly clear.
- the_af 5y ago> Surprised there is no mention of Dashiell Hammett, a contemporary of Christie's. He wrote The Maltese Falcon in 1930, introducing the world to Sam Spade I think it's because Dashiell Hammett wrote in a different genre. Rather than detective fiction, he wrote in the hardboiled or noir style, totally unlike Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle or other authors of what we associate with "detective/whodunnit fiction". His stories are not that much about the mystery (contrast them with Christie's, which are all about the mystery, and without which they would not be interesting to read), but about the rough and cynical detective making a living in an uncaring world, where corruption rules and the law is similarly dirty and suspect. Also they smoke a lot and wear hats!
- bambax 5y agoDashiell Hammett is mentioned just after the list of 10 rules: > Dame Agatha and the Detection Club’s rules ushered in what’s known as the Golden Age of detective fiction. However, on the other side of the pond, a revolution in form was brewing in the livers of Dashiell Hammett and his successor Raymond Chandler. Hardboiled cop fiction took all Agatha Christie’s rules and blew them straight to hell. Or was the article edited after your comment? [Edit: apparently the whole URL was changed...] > Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity are also great explorations of the postwar noir genre God how I love that movie. It's perfect in every sense of the word. "There's a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff."
- kgwgk 5y ago> Orson Welles's The Third Man I'm not sure if you were implying some kind of authorship but it was written by Graham Greene and directed by Carol Reed.