captaind's Full Review: Dashiell Hammett and Yuri Rasovsky - The Maltese F...
The Maltese Falcon is one of the most famous detective stories of all time. First published in 1929, it marks the arrival of detective Sam Spade, and was immortalised by John Huston’s film version in 1941.
Author Dashiell Hammett had himself been a private detective, and his experiences in that field led him to begin writing detective stories. He certainly knows how to produce a spellbinding plot, with plenty of intrigue, interesting characters, and surprising twists. His writing style I wasn’t so impressed with, but more of that in a bit.
The Plot
Into Sam Spade’s office one day comes a young woman, styling herself as Miss Wonderly, who tells a story about her sister running off with a man who she now wants trailing. She says she has been unable to contact her sister and fears for her safety. Spade’s partner, Miles Archer, agrees to look into it and trails the man that evening. Then people start dying…
Spade must try to find out what’s going on, and is visited or visits in turn several people who all seem to be after the same thing, some kind of statuette – though only one claims to know what it actually is. The plot thickens as more people become involved, the police begin to badger Spade, and his relationship with “Miss Wonderly” begins to go well past the normal detective-client boundaries.
The Characters
Sam Spade is the sort of laconic, chisel-jawed, unflappable detective that Humphrey Bogart was born to play (and did, of course). His natural sense of distrust has kept him alive on more than one occasion, and prevents him from taking anyone’s side.
Effe Perine – his personal assistant, who seems very long-suffering and loyal – their relationship seems to go far beyond the normal employer-employee relationship, though there is no real love affair hinted at. She is quicker than Sam to take sides in the strange affairs around them, which could be a problem…
Without giving too much away about the plot, some of the other characters are:
A hotel detective who always seems to tell Sam more than Sam tells him…
A fat man with a great knowledge of history, whose jovial attitude belies an utter ruthlessness…
A strange, single-minded man whose true intentions and allegiance seem to be under constant review…
A woman who seems to be everything but what she at first appears to be…
A very long-suffering lawyer who only does it because the money’s good!
(The politically correct lobby would have major issues with Spade’s character, but you’ll know if that bothers you. It didn’t bother me but his attitude and particularly his relationship with Perine seem a bit strange considering what we’re used to!)
The Writing
The writing style was really the only thing I had a problem with about this book, but it’s quite a major issue. Hammett devises a good plot but the writing itself is rather poor. He has a strange reluctance to use personal pronouns, which often leads to the writing failing to flow. He also seems to introduce characters rather formally, whether it’s the first time or hundredth time they appear in the novel. Finally he seems to have an obsessive interest in small irrelevant details – for instance, listing the entire contents of a cabinet, none of which have anything to do with the plot. (This I assume was to impress on the reader the thoroughness with which Spade did things, and is thus less of a problem.)
In example of the personal pronounce phobia is seen most clearly in the opening section of chapter 5:
”Spade’s elbow dropped as Spade spun to the right… Spade’s elbow went on past the astonished dark face and straightened when Spade’s hand struck down at the pistol”
Then there are sentences that just seem downright odd, such as a couple of sentences after the above:
”The pistol was small in Spade’s hand.”
The above points don’t make this a bad book, and indeed it is still a very easy book to read, but it does mean that the writing really doesn’t flow very well at all.
Verdict
The Maltese Falcon is well worth reading if you liked the film (which is very close to the book), or like detective fiction in general. I did enjoy it but didn’t think much of the writing style, so I doubt if I’ll be reading any more of Hemmett’s books.
Links
This is an entry to MSMorvay’s fourth annual “Resurrecting the Oldies Write Off” – see her profile page for a list of entries.
This is one of very few instances where I prefer the film
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