So I read Hemingway’s “Killers”. I watched the film clip. And here I sit wondering how anyone
could have gleaned any plot from the original work with fewer than three or four readings.
Maybe I am as sensitive as brick to all or mostly dialogue works, but it seems that that type of
literature is in the realm of plays or scripts. It simply doesn’t seem to work as a short story style.
The story, once I understood it, is a simple one: two hitmen are after a “big Swede named Ole
Andreson”, a heavy-weight boxer. One could infer why he has a hit on him, maybe for throwing (or not throwing, as the case may be) a fight. They enter a restaurant that he frequents and wait for him to come in for dinner. The owner of the restaurant is kept in the restaurant-front, and the cook and Hemingway regular Nick Adams are taken into the back. The two men eventually leave and Nick is convinced to go tell Ole about the whole thing. Ole simply says what amounts to “Ok. Cool. Thanks. Bye.”
Again, perhaps I am not used to the gritty style of Noir literature. I love Film Noir. The realism, the atmosphere; it’s definitely something that I enjoy. The literary style is much the same, but at the same time something very different altogether. The atmosphere is there, but if Film Noir has a smoggy, New York City atmosphere, then the literary style is a smoggy… Tibet or Nepal. Sure it’s gritty, but, well, pretty thin. Not quite as believable as Film Noir in my opinion. Why is this, though?
The short story is all dialogue, as if Hemingway was afraid of anything else at the time he wrote “The Killers”. This, in my opinion, is effective in creating a psychological feel, but at the same time fails to allow the atmosphere that makes anything Noir, Noir to develop. This is the first work by Hemingway I have read, and frankly I am a little scared to delve into anything else by him. But I will, because one work does not make an author, or break a good reader.
could have gleaned any plot from the original work with fewer than three or four readings.
Maybe I am as sensitive as brick to all or mostly dialogue works, but it seems that that type of
literature is in the realm of plays or scripts. It simply doesn’t seem to work as a short story style.
The story, once I understood it, is a simple one: two hitmen are after a “big Swede named Ole
Andreson”, a heavy-weight boxer. One could infer why he has a hit on him, maybe for throwing (or not throwing, as the case may be) a fight. They enter a restaurant that he frequents and wait for him to come in for dinner. The owner of the restaurant is kept in the restaurant-front, and the cook and Hemingway regular Nick Adams are taken into the back. The two men eventually leave and Nick is convinced to go tell Ole about the whole thing. Ole simply says what amounts to “Ok. Cool. Thanks. Bye.”
Again, perhaps I am not used to the gritty style of Noir literature. I love Film Noir. The realism, the atmosphere; it’s definitely something that I enjoy. The literary style is much the same, but at the same time something very different altogether. The atmosphere is there, but if Film Noir has a smoggy, New York City atmosphere, then the literary style is a smoggy… Tibet or Nepal. Sure it’s gritty, but, well, pretty thin. Not quite as believable as Film Noir in my opinion. Why is this, though?
The short story is all dialogue, as if Hemingway was afraid of anything else at the time he wrote “The Killers”. This, in my opinion, is effective in creating a psychological feel, but at the same time fails to allow the atmosphere that makes anything Noir, Noir to develop. This is the first work by Hemingway I have read, and frankly I am a little scared to delve into anything else by him. But I will, because one work does not make an author, or break a good reader.
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