Oakley Hall essay

[David Casseres]

On 8/27/06, Scott Badger <lupine at ncia.net> wrote:
> 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."

What in the everloving brown-eyed world does that mean?  It's not even
pomo, for chrissakes.