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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
I got to about page 16 in this, so though I'm adding it to my read pile, it's only a tiny bit read. I was prepared to like it, having seen and pretty much liked the movie based on it, and liking the vivid, unique descriptions I read so far, as in "she tortured her lower lip with glistening teeth." But there were already four or five swear words, so I flipped through the book and found more, as well as a rather intimate scene. Perhaps it wasn't all that detailed, but I didn't want to risk damaging my thought life with all these things. It's too bad! The author may be a master in his story-telling, but it wasn't quite enough to keep me reading.
Even taking into consideration the time in which this book was written, the misogyny and hard boiled detective attitude was just too much. Sam Spade was a total ass.
This is my first experience with a book noir; I have watched movies of this genre, but I have never read one before.
Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon is as famous as any member of this genre as I am aware, although with the exception the ending scene of the book/movie, I don't think I have ever seen the entire film.
The book begins when a beautiful, mysterious, slightly past her best-used-by date comes to our hero Sam Spade and employs him to watch after her and protect her from an as yet mysterious man. Plenty of mystery here.
I was actually a bit disappointed in the progress of the book. Sam Spade learns things, perhaps learns things, or pretends he knows things without actually learning them. The things he knows/learns are given to the reader as he gives convenient overviews to his lovely secretary or others. Anyway, you can learn the entire story in only 217 pages.
I debated between two and three stars. I guess I gave it three in honor of his historical significance.
Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon is as famous as any member of this genre as I am aware, although with the exception the ending scene of the book/movie, I don't think I have ever seen the entire film.
The book begins when a beautiful, mysterious, slightly past her best-used-by date comes to our hero Sam Spade and employs him to watch after her and protect her from an as yet mysterious man. Plenty of mystery here.
I was actually a bit disappointed in the progress of the book. Sam Spade learns things, perhaps learns things, or pretends he knows things without actually learning them. The things he knows/learns are given to the reader as he gives convenient overviews to his lovely secretary or others. Anyway, you can learn the entire story in only 217 pages.
I debated between two and three stars. I guess I gave it three in honor of his historical significance.
Well, as a detective story, while it's often talked of as one of the best ever written, I would give it only three stars. However, and it really only becomes this in the last few pages, I realized this book, almost as much as it is a detective story, is about the very complicated relationships between men and women, and of loyalty. The figure of Sam Spade and the women around him is so much deeper when thinking about that. He's a terrible misogynist, as a hard-boiled 1920s detective would be expected to be, but he's not shallow, and he's not cruel, not really. Very interesting.
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A great book, both buoyed and curtailed by the 1930s era it is written in.
It’s so genuinely funny. Great dialogue, much of it dropped directly into the 1941 film version, no distillation. Required reading for any fans of noir, of hard-boiled detective fiction. It’s a stylized reference for pre-WWII culture, jargon, and viewpoints.
Each character is more crooked and bizarre than the last. Spade is not supposed to be a role model. He’s supposed to be flawed, even egregiously so, it’s hard boiled detective fiction. More emphasis is placed on dialogue, repeated details, and ambience than character depth. Although Effie Perine is an underrated character. She’s boyish, not wimpy, and not glamorous, yet she’s a moral force. It’s just that the players involved are not moral people, so she’s out of her depth.
And yet I can totally understand readers DNFing this novel. It sprinkles bigotry as liberally as the US used to sprinkle pesticides and lead paint. Bits of racism, colorism, misogyny, chauvinism, etc. seep in; the fat phobia alone is to the point of being nauseating.
I don’t know how to rate this yet.
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
medium-paced
It’s a sign of the times, but I loathe how Hammett wrote the women in this story. Plot was otherwise interesting and kept me invested. Didn’t feel like much payoff at the end though.
I actually enjoyed this book a lot with all of the twisting and the turning. I listened to the audio dramatization of the novel so maybe that added to it but overall was pretty good. I would definitely suggest to someone that wanted a mystery/thriller.
it reads almost scene for scene like the movie which is probably b/c the movie was made after it but i think the film only added 1 scene and 1 additional character. which if it was remade today they would have completely done the book no justice and added lame action sequences everywhere... anywho it was still fun to read and the charaters were awesome.