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Dashiell Hammett
- Thread starter Geenh
- Start date
Well, I don't know that I would say "crappy". Hammett was very much a stylist in his writing, and he isn't to everyone's taste, just like Hemingway isn't, etc. I might say, though, that the bulk of his notoriety is derived more from the fact that a couple of his books were made into very famous movies (The Maltese Falcon, to name one).
I think that the biggest disappointment I had with Hammett was that his Sam Spade looks nothing like Humphrey Bogart - though that is no fault of Hammett's.
In any event, I don't think that you can dismiss one of the "godfathers" of the hard-boiled school so easily.
By all means, start with The Maltese Falcon. If you don't like it, well, it's fairly short and easy to read.
I think that the biggest disappointment I had with Hammett was that his Sam Spade looks nothing like Humphrey Bogart - though that is no fault of Hammett's.
In any event, I don't think that you can dismiss one of the "godfathers" of the hard-boiled school so easily.
By all means, start with The Maltese Falcon. If you don't like it, well, it's fairly short and easy to read.
Flintlock Bill
New Member
I've just finished The Maltese Falcon, and while it DID hold my attention, I did think it was poorly written. Some people swear by Dashiell Hammett, but I can't see it myself. Sam Spade may have been innovative a character once upon a time, but he isn't now.
Maybe Hammett's style has been copied so many times that it's now a cliche. Be that as it may, I can't call The Maltese Falcon a classic. The film, yes, but not the book.
Maybe Hammett's style has been copied so many times that it's now a cliche. Be that as it may, I can't call The Maltese Falcon a classic. The film, yes, but not the book.
Wanda
New Member
The Maltese Falcon - landmark detective novel?
I've just read the Maltese Falcon. I know they say this was supposed to be a landmark detective novel, particularly bec of Sam Spade. Well, he may be smooth but he's a drunkard and sleeps around with other people's wives. So not sure what's so good about that.
I've just read the Maltese Falcon. I know they say this was supposed to be a landmark detective novel, particularly bec of Sam Spade. Well, he may be smooth but he's a drunkard and sleeps around with other people's wives. So not sure what's so good about that.
domani
New Member
Amongst fictional private eyes, those vices are probably as common as fingernail biting. Contrasted with a PI like Neil Fargo in Joe Gores' Interface, or Hammett's own Continental Op, Sam Spade would be a boyscout in comparison. A lot of the greatest hardboiled/noir fiction doesn't always require or encourage reader identification with the main characters.
For The Maltese Falcon, I think its objective third-person narrative style is its most notable aspect - even as actions are described and dialogue relayed, it never reveals directly what the characters are thinking; the thoughts and motivations are revealed only obliquely through the dialogue and actions. Hammett uses the same objective style in The Glass Key, as well.
Andy.McKinney
New Member
I have only read The Glass Key (a big influence on the Coen Brothers' Miller's Crossing) and the protagonist Ned Beaumont is very cool and detached and a bit of a rogue but surely that is the charm of such characters? They are flawed heroes/anti-heroes and we identify with them in our own imperfection. Ned has a pretty jaded view of women but then there are guys who get messed up by women which could very easily leave you like that. (True for women with men of course.)
I don't think that Hammett ever aimed to be Chekhov or Dostoyevsky but that does not make it bad. Sometimes you feel like Duck a l'orange and somtimes you feel like fried egg and bacon! One is not better than the other, they are just different. Hammett is a good page-turner bedtime read or good for air ports.
The Irish bluesman Rory Gallagher was a big fan of Hammett's. I can just imagine Rory relaxing with The Thin Man on the tour bus. Rory even wrote a song called Continental Op. Continental Op - YouTube
If there had been no Dashiell Hammett is unlikely that we would have had Raymond Chandler.
Chandler says: "Hammett was the ace performer... He is said to have lacked heart; yet the story he himself thought the most of [The Glass Key] is the record of a man's devotion to a friend. He was spare, frugal, hard-boiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before."
Andy.
I don't think that Hammett ever aimed to be Chekhov or Dostoyevsky but that does not make it bad. Sometimes you feel like Duck a l'orange and somtimes you feel like fried egg and bacon! One is not better than the other, they are just different. Hammett is a good page-turner bedtime read or good for air ports.
The Irish bluesman Rory Gallagher was a big fan of Hammett's. I can just imagine Rory relaxing with The Thin Man on the tour bus. Rory even wrote a song called Continental Op. Continental Op - YouTube
If there had been no Dashiell Hammett is unlikely that we would have had Raymond Chandler.
Chandler says: "Hammett was the ace performer... He is said to have lacked heart; yet the story he himself thought the most of [The Glass Key] is the record of a man's devotion to a friend. He was spare, frugal, hard-boiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before."
Andy.