Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961)

I've never read Hammett before, nor have I ever seen the movie based off this book. In fact, I only had the barest hint of what this was even about.

And I think, at least for me, that was the best way to come into this story. Sam Spade is an absolutely brilliantly written character. He's almost always unflappable, and can toss an unexpected wrench into any other characters' machinations. He's basically the element of chaos.

At the same time, he's an absolute bastard. Screwing his partner's show more wife. Leading his secretary on. Screwing his client (in more ways than one). Doesn't seem to give a shit that his partner was murdered.

He's an interesting guy.

But Hammett doesn't stop there...he loads this short novel with other fascinating characters. Brigid. Gutman. Cairo. The cops that are following him around. The kid. The hotel detectives. Everyone is an absolute joy to read.

And then there's the ever-twisting plot. Yes, it gets more and more complicated as the story progresses, drawing the reader into a vat of confusion, leaving them not knowing what's true and what's not, which is, I believe, the entire point of the story...this is like a damn dream where the reader can take absolutely nothing anyone says at face value. Spade constantly calls out his client for lying, and often, she readily admits to it. There's not a single reliable narrator to be found here, and that's half the fun.

Just an absolute blast to read. Now I have to go watch the movie... show less

Because I’m such a Chandler fan, I always compare any “noir” PI to Philip Marlowe. Sam Spade is a different animal altogether. Of course I couldn’t help picturing Bogart in my head at first, but by the end, the blonde Satan took over and I think that fits Spade’s borderline-sociopath nature better.

Spade is more ruthless and cruel than Marlowe and more devious and intellectual than Hammer. He’s manipulative and has questionable motives for the things he does. During this latest show more ensnarement (I didn’t really think of this as a case, more of a trap) he knew the extent of how much he was being played pretty much from the start. Instead of trying to rectify things, he just turned the tables and set people up, some in needlessly cruel ways. It didn’t make him likable in the way Marlowe and even Hammer are likeable, but he is interesting to watch. show less

Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald -- my three personal gods of hardboiled crime literature. While I've read Chandler over and over, and am still working my way through Macdonald's greater output, I haven't revisited Hammett in a very long time. I'd almost forgotten what a rough elegance he brought to the tough language of hardboiled fiction. RED HARVEST is one of his most cherished novels by crime-story aficionados, though it's not nearly as well known to the general public show more as his more famous MALTESE FALCON and THIN MAN novels. The story of an anonymous private dick who comes to Montana town known as "Poisonville," gets caught up in a murder, and winds up taking on all comers in a rodeo of wrongdoers is ostensibly the source material for several well-known films. (Akira Kurosawa's YOJIMBO is, according to many opinions, an unacknowledged rip-off of RED HARVEST, though I see only the barest of similarity in plot and almost none in tone. But YOJIMBO is definitely the inspiration for A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS and LAST MAN STANDING, and thus RED HARVEST is seen by some as the progenitor of those films, too.)

At any rate, RED HARVEST stands on its own as a superb, dark, bloody, and raw detective story, though mystery and detection are much less prominent parts of the stew than they are in the FALCON and THIN MAN stories. Nobody wrote wordplay like Hammett. Chandler's was more poetic, even in its knuckle-hardness. Chandler may have been the Fitzgerald of hardboiled. If so, Hammett was the Hemingway. show less

You know those washing powder tests on TV? You do something impossibly disgusting to a little white affair, pop it in the machine with Brand X and - hey presto, it comes out better than new.

I felt really guilty about starting this book. I'd just finished Perlman's Seven Types of Ambiguity which so moved me in every way as a reader that I wanted to turn next to something that Perlman could spoil without my caring. Sure enough, I was disappointed by this to the extent it almost got the flick. show more But I was fairly sure if I did that, the next one and the one after that would be spoiled too. I'm so glad I persevered.

I suspect the Seven Types of Ambiguity effect aside, there was also the phenomenon of putting Chandler and Hammett together. Forget that, put it entirely out of your head, for if you expect Hammett, having come to him from Chandler to be 'like' him, you will be disappointed, he couldn't be further apart in terms of style and, if it comes to that, content in important ways. Chandler describes things, he observes his world with a savage and critical wit. Hammett describes nothing, he could not scarcely be more minimalist. Marlow is on the outside looking in, Charles is on the inside.

Marlowe thinks, Charles drinks.

I was rather taken aback by the fact that Charles is an indolent rich person who spends his life partying and drinking before breakfast. But once I got used to the fact that he is on the inside, this is such good stuff....I'm going back for more. show less