Oakley Hall essay

[Scott Badger]

In The Simple Art of Murder maybe ....Chandler says something to the effect 
that his detectives seek a solution that serves, not necessarily the 
truth....

Chandler on Hammett:

"[Hammett] had style, but his audience didn't know it, because it was in a 
language not supposed to be capable of such refinements. [......] Hammett's 
style at its worst was as formalized as a page of Marius the Epicurean; at 
its best it could say almost anything. I believe this style, which does not 
belong to Hamett or to anybody, but is the American language (and not even 
exclusively that anymore), can say things he did not know how to say, or 
feel the need of saying. In his hands it had no overtones, left no echo, 
evoked no image beyond a distant hill."


Otto:
>I like the Prefatory Note of "Warlock", especially in the light of
> some recent discussions here on the list:
>
> "This book is a novel. The town of Warlock and the territory in which
> it is located are fabrications. But any relation of the characters to
> real persons, living or dead, is not always coincidental, for many are
> composites of figures who still live on a frontier between history and
> legend.
> The fabric of the story, too, is made up of actual events interwoven
> with invented ones; by combining what did happen with what might have
> happened, I have tried to show what should have happened. Devotees of
> Western legend may consequently complain that I have used familiar
> elements to construct as fanciful design, and that I have rearranged
> or ignored the accepted facts. So I will reiterate that this work is a
> novel. The pursuit of truth, not of facts, is the business of
> fiction."
>