The Maltese Falcon

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 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. show more 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 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 show more 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

I once read the following in some TV guide regarding the classic movie adaptation: “The 1941 mystery is the yardstick against which all private-eye films are measured.” It is even more true of the novel. Never before (or since) has a protagonist been forced to look so deeply within himself, to have to explain who he is to so many while not completely understanding why he is that way himself. Sam Spade knows what he has to do, and extensively he knows why he has to do it. He acts assuredly, without hesitation. Yet there is a deeper part of himself that is merely along for the ride, as if some of his decisions were never really decisions at all. He has led a life with more than a few amoral choices but when confronted with what should show more be the easiest of shortcuts, he discovers he has a moral core that cannot be so easily overruled. An array of fascinating characters and the explanation and solution to several murders become side issues once all the lies are exposed. THE masterpiece. show less

The scene is San Francisco at a time just before the Great Depression. When the beautiful Miss Wonderly walks into the private detective agency he and his partner share, Sam Spade’s life soon gets more interesting and whole lot more complicated. Following up on the young woman’s request to find her missing sister results in the deaths of two people, including Spade’s partner, and Spade himself is quickly implicated in the murders. However, the lady’s story is a ruse, as her real purpose in hiring Spade is to help her secure possession a priceless artifact—a jewel-encrusted statue of a falcon--that has changed hands many, many times over the past few centuries. Unraveling the mystery puts Sam in constant danger from a dizzying show more array of high-level crooks and fortune seekers, low-level hoodlums, clueless law enforcement officials, and the duplicitous femme fatale herself. How he navigates those dangerous waters is what drives the story to its satisfying conclusion.

As a matter of course, I don’t spend a lot of time with noir-ish crime fiction, although I have read some great examples of the genre by writers such as Raymond Chandler and Graham Greene. That is worth noting because I found The Maltese Falcon to be the best of what I have encountered in this area so far. To me, the novel had everything that I would have hoped for: a hardboiled hero who plays by his own rules, a mysterious love interest who may or may not be trustworthy, an assortment of compelling supporting characters, a clever plot that moves along nicely, engaging dialogue that places the reader squarely in a bygone era, and, in the bird statue itself, one of the greatest objects of misdirection to be found in literature. And, make no mistake, this book does rise to the level of being called literature; in fact, it even rates a place on Modern Library’s list of the 100 Best Novels (#56, to be exact). After reading it, I cannot really argue with that assessment. show less

Every time I return to this book, I like it better. One of two memorable detectives created by Hammett (the other being the Thin Man), Sam Spade is the quintessential hard-boiled detective. He skims the edge yet pulls it off with bravado and audacity. This time through, what I noticed is that Hammett is continually asking himself what each of his characters feels at a given moment, then depicts it through facial features, gestures, or posture, rather than telling us outright.
My edition, a Vintage paperback, seems to have been carelessly typeset. Every so often, words go missing. It’s either the typesetting or Hammett is even more creative than I give him credit for.
I’ve watched the film several times as well. I admire how much of show more the characterizations and even dialogue made it onto the screen. The screen adaptation excises side stands that would make the film overlong and confusing, but they work in the book. Reading the book, one sees how well Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Mary Astor were cast (even though she’s not a redhead, but that doesn’t matter in black-and-white). It’s a challenge to push Bogart out of mind since the description Hammett delivers resembles nothing as much as a Guy Fawkes mask. Spade in the book is taller than Bogart as well.
But I don’t try too hard to erase the insolent way Bogart delivers his lines. He made Sam Spade his, lack of physical resemblance notwithstanding. show less

This is my introduction to classic hard-boiled detective fiction. Sam and Miles are rough characters from go, to demonstrate that heroes can be as lethal as the villains and an even match for them. Chapter Two has an incredible hook, and then it's off to the races. Sam understands very little about who is hiring him or why they think he's the best man for the job, introducing a layered mystery plot. He demonstrates his skill at taking things as they come, and so must the reader. Either Sam knows more than we do, he is figuring it out faster, or he is just really quick on his feet. Any of these interpretations works, but the last is well supported by the wrap-up. The fantastic battle-of-wits dialogue reminds me of Asimov but with a thick show more layer of emotion spread over it; there's nothing robotic about these characters. show less

Arguably Dashiell Hammett's best novel (though he preferred The Glass Key), and certainly the most famous and influential. The story is slight: the reader knows almost immediately that Brigid O'Shaughnessy is bad news, and it's equally obvious that the only reason San Francisco private detective Sam Spade tolerates her for so long is that he's not a particularly swell guy himself. Hammett was, fundamentally, a shallow person whose art emerged directly from that superficiality; it was only when he started to chafe against being classified as a mystery writer and decided to become "profound" that he realized he could no longer write.

It falls short of perfection due to some clunky prose, but overall The Maltese Falcon is an impressive show more stylistic achievement. It lacks the realism of Hammett's Continental Op stories, but this book is the source of the mythic image of the American private eye: an image that audiences all over the world fell in love with, and still cherish. Spade and O'Shaughnessy are shallow, unpleasant people, and the plot may not amount to much, but the novel is tinged with such an indefinable sense of magic (and moves along so briskly) that you'll be fascinated by their interactions in spite of yourself. This was Hammett's gift to his readers.

So great was the public demand for more Sam Spade that Hammett's agent compelled him to write three short stories, all of which can be found in the collection Nightmare Town. One of them ("Too Many Have Lived") is pretty good, but it doesn't come close to matching the power of the novel. show less