I am writing this after at least my third reading of The Maltese Falcon. Some critics say the book is Hammett\u2019s best; it\u2019s undoubtedly his best-known and most popular, but I prefer Hammett\u2019s next novel, The Glass Key. TMF sports flamboyant characters and an exciting plot that\u2019s nearly a conspiracy theory. The Glass Key contains more realistic views of corruption and human frailty, which is more to my taste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nevertheless, I enjoyed TMF and recommend it. The book is about Samuel Spade, private detective. Raymond Chandler modeled Philip Marlowe on Spade, but Spade has a far different role. Marlowe is clearly an errant underdog knight in Los Angeles. Spade may be a knight, but he\u2019s not an underdog. He declares that San Francisco is his town, and, at points, he\u2019s the town fixer who pulls strings to guide political outcomes. Note also that Spade has a partner, Miles Archer. Marlowe never had a partner and never will. The closest Marlowe had to a partner was his stumbling buddy, Terry Lennox, in the Long Goodbye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hammett\u2019s style rings oddly in my ear. Hammett was widely read, but he dropped out of school in his early teens to help support his family. He claimed to have developed his authorial skills writing reports for the Pinkertons. His word choice is dated. His sentences often feel to me like he was pushing himself into a more elevated style than was natural to him. For example, \u201cThe boy raised his eyes to Spade\u2019s mouth and spoke in a strained voice of someone in physical pain\u2026\u201d is awkward and abstract for pulp magazine readers. Chandler, on the other hand, writes with the self-assuredness of a well-trained Oxfordian, which he was. Nevertheless, both have an ear for the best in language. Compare the near iambic pentameter a few paragraphs later in TMF: \u201c\u2019Come on,\u2019 he [Spade] said. \u2018This will put you in solid with your boss.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I divide the book into three parts. The key to this division is the \u201cFlitcraft episode\u201d in which Spade tells Bridgid the story of a man from Tacoma who leads an ordinary moderately prosperous life with a wife who enjoys new salad recipes. One day, a heavy beam drops from a construction site and lands next to Flitcraft, barely missing him, and leaving him with a scratch from a flying concrete chip that becomes a permanent scar. Flitcraft immediately vacates his ordinary life. His wife and children are well provided for and he disappears into a life of wandering. After a few years, Flitcraft turns up in Spokane, leading an ordinary and moderately prosperous existence with a wife who looks nothing like his first wife, but enjoys new salad recipes. The three parts of TMF correspond to Flitcraft\u2019s Tacoma, wandering, and Spokane lives. The pursuit of the Maltese falcon is Spade\u2019s wandering. That phase ends when the pursuers of the falcon exit and the final chapters are Spade\u2019s return from the life interrupted by the falcon. This structure is like a fairy tale in which much of the action is in a dream that intertwines with the waking world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I leave the book with a question: has Spade\u2019s adventure in fairy land transformed his life and character? Or has Spade\u2019s walk-about with the falcon only revealed what was previously hidden or latent? In Chapter 20, Spade says to Bridgid \u201cDon\u2019t be too sure I\u2019m as crooked as I\u2019m supposed to be.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Has Hammett told us that Spade has not changed, but we have?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am writing this after at least my third reading of The Maltese Falcon. Some critics say the book is Hammett\u2019s best; it\u2019s undoubtedly his best-known and most popular, but I prefer Hammett\u2019s next novel, The Glass Key. TMF sports flamboyant characters and an exciting plot that\u2019s nearly a conspiracy theory. The Glass Key contains … <\/p>\n