The author Dashiell Hammett paid his dues before he published his classic noir stories
and novels: first, as a detective
with the Pinkerton Agency, based in the rough-and-tumble West, and secondly, as
an observer of underclass American speech, which he scouted out in the dives of
the era immediately after the first World War, recording what he heard in unlined, now-yellowed
notebooks. It has been our
good fortune to have located and purchased one of these, from a shady
bibliophile in Istanbul; and
here present previously-unpublished excerpts.
~
Overheard at the Sangsue-ci Lounge, in Cicero, Illinois:
So he shows me his .32.
I sez, Dat all ya got??
A nod of the head indicates a customer loudly holding forth
at a table across the room.
“So who’s t’ wise-guy?”
“Some cit thinks he’s the cat’s own jockstrap,
but fact is, he’s from hunger.”
“Some cit thinks he’s the cat’s own jockstrap,
but fact is, he’s from hunger.”
Job interview:
“I hear you paint houses.”
“Oh yeh? Who toleja dat?”
The Darwinian origins of Altruism:
“So why would I help you out, a rat like you?”
“You’ll do it for my bright blue eyes.”
“You’ll do it for my bright blue eyes.”
~
~
~
For an additional
glimpse of the hard-luck life,
back in the railroad
days, try this:
~
~
~
.
I hope they didn’t charge you too much for that notebook, Dr J. Those excerpts are likely from the juvenilia of Raymond Chandler, back when he was striving to hone a style that would out-Hammett Hammett, as regards the American vernacular. Which is ironic, since Chandler himself was an overeducated Englishman, slumming for his supper in L.A.
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