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A review by dee9401
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
2.0
I turned to Dashiell Hammet since he was one of the first authors to popularize the hardboiled genre. This style is one of my favorites, and I've read examples of it from American and Japanese authors. I really love Raymond Chandler, who is sometimes called Hammet's successor. On a meta-level, I was also excited that Hammet was born in my adopted state of Maryland (in St. Mary's County) and grew up in Philly (my hometown) and Baltimore (my new hometown and where I worked for many years). Alas, the stars didn't align to make this a great book for me.
The hardboiled style of fast-paced, staccato writing is absolutely there. Hammet has mastered the art of story telling and I wanted to finish the book almost from the very first page. However, unlike Chandler, there was no social context or message. I have called Chandler a hardboiled Steinbeck: dealing with social issues while still telling a great detective story. Hammet's characters are two-dimensional cut outs who lack any nuanced behaviors or redeeming factors. They have no backstory or clear motivation. There's no discussion of the overall social situation, how things got the way they were, why it should be fixed and how that might not work anyway.
In Red Harvest, one has a very utilitarian story of bad guys getting taken down by the scheming of an unnamed and shady detective. This feels ore like the script for a late 20th/early 21st century Hollywood film. Lots of "shoot 'em up", sexiness and drinking, rather than a well-honed novel from the early 20th. Alas, I probably won't read any more Hammet.
The hardboiled style of fast-paced, staccato writing is absolutely there. Hammet has mastered the art of story telling and I wanted to finish the book almost from the very first page. However, unlike Chandler, there was no social context or message. I have called Chandler a hardboiled Steinbeck: dealing with social issues while still telling a great detective story. Hammet's characters are two-dimensional cut outs who lack any nuanced behaviors or redeeming factors. They have no backstory or clear motivation. There's no discussion of the overall social situation, how things got the way they were, why it should be fixed and how that might not work anyway.
In Red Harvest, one has a very utilitarian story of bad guys getting taken down by the scheming of an unnamed and shady detective. This feels ore like the script for a late 20th/early 21st century Hollywood film. Lots of "shoot 'em up", sexiness and drinking, rather than a well-honed novel from the early 20th. Alas, I probably won't read any more Hammet.