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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
Really liked this book a lot. It's surprisingly still very readable, and with it coming in at only 217 pages, there's not much of an excuse to pass this one by if you have any interest in it, the movie, or what are now known as noir genre books/films.
Contrasting it with modern-day mystery-thrillers, The Maltese Falcon doesn't spend its time dropping hints and inserting twists to keep the reader interested. Instead, the focus is on how the protagonist (Sam Spade, a private-eye detective) responds to all the other characters that are all, in their own way, trying to come out on top in their search for an invaluable artifact from the Crusades.
And Sam is a very interesting protagonist. Throughout the book - which is told in the third-person objective POV, so we never know what he's thinking or why he's doing it - he's relentless in making the best of every situation for himself. Without spoiling, it makes the ending extremely enjoyable.
Instead of discussing the plot too much (which I loved), I just have to list a few quotes that I would've highlighted if I wasn't reading a library book. They've only gotten better with age:
Joel Cairo: "You always have a very smooth explanation."
Sam Spade: "What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?
Sam: "Listen, Dundy, it's been a long time since I burst into tears because a policeman didn't like me."
Finally, it was interesting to read this in 2018, where the characterizations - the femme fatale, the hardboiled detective, etc. - would come across as cliche, if not for the fact that they were pretty much created in this book.
Contrasting it with modern-day mystery-thrillers, The Maltese Falcon doesn't spend its time dropping hints and inserting twists to keep the reader interested. Instead, the focus is on how the protagonist (Sam Spade, a private-eye detective) responds to all the other characters that are all, in their own way, trying to come out on top in their search for an invaluable artifact from the Crusades.
And Sam is a very interesting protagonist. Throughout the book - which is told in the third-person objective POV, so we never know what he's thinking or why he's doing it - he's relentless in making the best of every situation for himself. Without spoiling, it makes the ending extremely enjoyable.
Instead of discussing the plot too much (which I loved), I just have to list a few quotes that I would've highlighted if I wasn't reading a library book. They've only gotten better with age:
Joel Cairo: "You always have a very smooth explanation."
Sam Spade: "What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?
Sam: "Listen, Dundy, it's been a long time since I burst into tears because a policeman didn't like me."
Finally, it was interesting to read this in 2018, where the characterizations - the femme fatale, the hardboiled detective, etc. - would come across as cliche, if not for the fact that they were pretty much created in this book.
I read this book for an online book club and at first I really enjoyed it. As the story went on and I grew to really dislike Sam Spade. The story also was kind of hard to follow and I didn’t feel very interested in it. Overall at the end there were turns but I didn’t care for it much. The story and author are unique and it’s definitely a classic but just not my style.
Easy to see why this is a classic. Wish there were more/any mystery writers these day that were as good.
One of the classics of the hard-boiled genre, Hammett's classic is a good one though I don't think it holds a candle to his sublime "Red Harvest." The dialogue is great and the plot is thick but I felt that it came just short of the greatness by which the work is normally assessed by. Not to dwell on that though, it's a great story in its own right and there were no disappointments from this reader.
Re-read (12/18/2018):
I had read The Maltese Falcon years ago but remembered very little of it aside from it having a complicated plot. Since I read it the same year I started delving hard into crime fiction, it kind of got lost in the shuffle of other classics I read, especially compared to Hammett’s sensational Red Harvest, a pulp masterpiece that would get my vote for best crime novel of all-time.
But as I have never seen the movie, and keep forgetting the thread of what many allege to be one of the great works of contemporary literature written in the English language, I felt like I should revisit this to see if there was something I missed in my initial need to consume fictional works of crime.
The answer is…no. Not really. The plot isn’t as complex as I recall, which is good. But this is a good-but-not-great work written by a writer who has more talent than this. The dialogue is good, sure but the characters are thin and you’re left wondering why even bother injecting Spade into this nefarious affair in the first place as ice from the need for a story. I think what The Maltese Falcon gets love for more than anything is being the OG of the anti-hero in crime fiction. For years, I had considered Sam Spade to be the force of good amidst the people lurking in the bad San Francisco underworld but Hammett introducing him as “Satan’s Angel” and not giving him many redeemable features shows that we’re not supposed to really like this guy. Nowadays, media is oversaturated with the male anti-hero, doing bad things to stop bad people. Again, much of this can likely be traced back to The Maltese Falcon.
It’s good, not great. Another re-read might help me appreciate Spade’s character more when the sun finally sets on that character’s archetype.
Re-read (12/18/2018):
I had read The Maltese Falcon years ago but remembered very little of it aside from it having a complicated plot. Since I read it the same year I started delving hard into crime fiction, it kind of got lost in the shuffle of other classics I read, especially compared to Hammett’s sensational Red Harvest, a pulp masterpiece that would get my vote for best crime novel of all-time.
But as I have never seen the movie, and keep forgetting the thread of what many allege to be one of the great works of contemporary literature written in the English language, I felt like I should revisit this to see if there was something I missed in my initial need to consume fictional works of crime.
The answer is…no. Not really. The plot isn’t as complex as I recall, which is good. But this is a good-but-not-great work written by a writer who has more talent than this. The dialogue is good, sure but the characters are thin and you’re left wondering why even bother injecting Spade into this nefarious affair in the first place as ice from the need for a story. I think what The Maltese Falcon gets love for more than anything is being the OG of the anti-hero in crime fiction. For years, I had considered Sam Spade to be the force of good amidst the people lurking in the bad San Francisco underworld but Hammett introducing him as “Satan’s Angel” and not giving him many redeemable features shows that we’re not supposed to really like this guy. Nowadays, media is oversaturated with the male anti-hero, doing bad things to stop bad people. Again, much of this can likely be traced back to The Maltese Falcon.
It’s good, not great. Another re-read might help me appreciate Spade’s character more when the sun finally sets on that character’s archetype.
A true detective noir story. It's a page turner from the first to the last. The pacing of the book is excellent, filled with plenty of colourful characters. None more so than Sam Spade, the protagonist of the story who'll surprise you at every bend.
Definitely one of my favourite mystery novels!
Definitely one of my favourite mystery novels!
I didn't really enjoy this book. Despite being a fan of this genre, I found the plot lacking and Sam Spade too brutal. I don't know why but I just didn't connect with it at all.
It's one redeeming feature were the descriptions which were brilliantly phrased, but that wasn't enough for me.
It's one redeeming feature were the descriptions which were brilliantly phrased, but that wasn't enough for me.
Definitely a great noir novel. It was very suspenseful, and you have to come to terms with the fact that there really is no hero in the story. Sam Spade is the manliest man to ever man. I think he's comparable to James Bond in a lot of ways but of course distinctly American rather than English. The book also has a lot of *great* dialogue that's pretty memorable./ One of the good ones was when Cairo irritably tells Spade that he always has a smooth answer for everything and Spade responds, "What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?" You just don't get dialogue like that anymore. Definitely recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the genre it's a pretty great example of it.
Every bit as great as it’s reputation. Great story, characters, and dialogue. It bears noting that John Huston’s version of this is pretty much perfect. I’ve never seen a film adaptation that was so close to the book and so brilliantly cast.