Saturday, February 3, 2018

The Lost Notebooks of Dashiell Hammett


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fortune to have located and purchased one of these, from a shady bibliophile in Istanbul;   and here present previously-unpublished excerpts.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.”


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.”


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~         ~

For an additional glimpse of the hard-luck life,
back in the railroad days, try this:

~         ~
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1 comment:

  1. 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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