About this title: An often ignored key to Hammett's philosophy is contained in the anecdote of Flitcraft that Spade tells Brigid O'Shaughnessy in a seemingly tossed-off aside. According to critic Steven Marcus, in his introduction to Hammett's THE CONTEINTAL OP, the Flitcraft anecdote shows Hammett's belief that "life is inscrutable, opaque, irresponsible, and arbitrary--that human existence does not correspond in its actuality to the way we live it." Although it is not included in the movie version (done by John Huston and otherwise completely--and unusually--faithful to the book), there is reason to believe that this tale does more to explain Hammett's philosophy of life than anything else he wrote.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Bantam Books
Date Published: 1985
ISBN-13:9780553065091ISBN:0553065092
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Audience: General/trade. Few dirt spots on edge of pages. From the Collection of Mystery Classics. read more
Description: Good. Dust Cover Missing. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1992
ISBN-13:9780679722649ISBN:0679722645
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Ex-library. Usual ex lib stickers inside Pages Clean. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 224 p. Vintage Crime. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: First Printing
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Dell, New York
Date Published: 1966
Description: Good. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. Library stamps and stickers. Considerable creasing to wraps. More of a reading copy with clean pages. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1989
ISBN-13:9780679722649ISBN:0679722645
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. A few pages have underlining and markings with ink. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 224 p. Vintage Crime. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Good. 0679722645 25772 PB: spine creased, text appears clean, but may contain highlighting/underlining, or any other marks, blank sticker on review page, cover has light shelf wear-allow up to 21 business days for standard USPS media mail. wt1lbpf. read more
Binding: Unknown Binding
Publisher: Knopf
Date Published: 1957
Description: Acceptable. -1st Printing--178 pgs. Interior-Significant signs of aging w/ cracking and some loose pages in the middle, though they are present. The paperback cover has light signs of aging. -Publish Place: New York-Size: 16mo-over 5¾"-6¾" tall. read more
Description: Good. B000M89H54 Good condition, minor wear. Pages slightly yellowed from age. Shelf wear along the edges of cover. No other major marks or damage. Hardcover: 191 pages, Dell (1966). Sam Spade's most famous case. 100% satisfaction guaranteed. Great customer service and a no problem, EZ return policy. Real people, real service, since 1981. B000M89H54. read more
"Read 'The Maltese Falcon.' Watch the Bogart movie. Read the book again. One thing that should strike you is the fact that there is scarcely one spare word in either creation. Working with Hammett's book in one hand, John Huston must have slapped his screenplay together in about 30 minutes.
Hammett's 'Falcon' is tight as a drumhead. The characters are not drawn but chiseled. The action is as fast as any speeding bullet. Every word of dialog sparks blue and crackles with electricity while it speeds things along. Nothing is wasted. 'The Maltese Falcon' is lean and mean, 100 percent nonfat.
Chandler's Marlowe is more cerebral. Every once in a while he even notices what somebody is wearing. In recent memory, only Gus Hasford's Dowdy Lewis is so hard, so fast, so smooth, and cracks so wise. Hammett's Spade, by contrast, doesn't horse around. He just walks into the room and goes for the throat.
Philosophical issues are fun to ponder. It's nice to be able to think about big issues when, every once in a while, one gets the chance. That's the stuff that typically wins prizes in literary circles, and that's as things should be. Even so, anybody can write a good, hard-boiled dick deserves (and gets) my respect.
Dashiell Hammett gave us Sam Spade, and there are none better anywhere. Read 'The Maltese Falcon.' You will never be sorry."
He's an emotional blank when it comes to the death of his partner, Miles Archer. Spade couldn't care less upon receiving that 2 a.m. phonecall from the police. Everyone has issues with coworkers, but this is ridiculous.
Then...then Spade manages to wrestle a gun from a swarthy, mincing villain. Only to give it back with the bullets still in it.
It's Detective 101: don't hand the swarthy, mincing villain back his weaponry upon kind request.
As for Hammett, he's given me reading pleasure before: The Continental Op short stories are pulp gold, but here...bloated: Hammett spends whole, rambling paragraphs describing our hero rolling a cigarette.
***
The writing picked up speed a bit after the middle - I presume since this was serialized in Black Mask that Hammett was just trying to pump up the word count: he knew where he wanted to go, he just wanted five months of the green soup ladled into his waiting bowl rather than, say, three.
So I get the cigarette rolling, I apologize to the Ghost of H. (any relation to Kirk?) for my eye rolling.
A five-starrer because, at the end, I really wanted Gutman, Cairo and O'Shaughnessy to get away. Spade with them. The Constantinople Affair or some such adventure.
And the scene in the office at the end? Spade's quiet, sad resignation that he can't shove the clinging Iva off any further with the distancing stick of the Maltese Falcon: nice."
"This is a highly recommended read because author Dashiell Hammett produced a highly enjoyable, suspenseful plot which is moved along with the use of great character development and just plain superior novelization skills. Oh yeah, you may also be interested in the book because it influenced the writers of detective noir novels from Raymond Chandler to the present day; it is considered to be one of the best detective novels of all time; and its plot and dialog are the basis of one of the most successful movies of all time.
Hammett wrote "The Maltese Falcon" in 1930. He had pursued drinking, advertising and writing after service in World War I. He had served as a Pinkerton detective before and after the Great War, from 1915 to 1921. This novel was his first big success. He wrote other short stories and novels, most notably "The Thin Man", his last novel, in 1934, after which he devoted his life to pursuing far-left causes. He began a 30-year love affair in 1931 with playwright Lillian Hellman. Despite contracting tuberculosis as a result of his war service, he was able to wrangle reenlistment into the Army for service in the Aleutians in World War II. "The Maltese Falcon" was adapted into a Warner Brothers film starring Ricardo Cortez and Bebe Daniels in 1931, followed by the more famous film from the same studio with Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor in the starring roles in 1941.
The central character is hard-nosed, hard-bitten, hard- smoking detective Sam Spade of the Archer and Spade detective agency in San Francisco (Spade's character had also been used by Hammett in three lesser known short stories). He comes into contact with a cast of grifters and criminals who are pursuing a great treasure. He learns that the object of their desire is a solid gold jewel-encrusted falcon originally made as a gift from the Isle of Malta to the King of Spain. It has traveled a convoluted route across history for several centuries, and is about to appear in Spade's life. The Falcon itself is a MacGuffin, perhaps the classic example of that device; in the end, it does not matter who owns it. It is the chase that matters and Hammett keeps the suspense going until the end.
Along the way, Spade meets the beautiful Miss Wonderly, soon exposed to be named Brigid O'Shaughnessy. Her visit to the detective agency is followed quickly by the murder of Spade's partner, Miles Archer. Spade has to find out who killed Archer, learn the significance of the Falcon, and dodge the veiled recriminations of police Lt. Dundy. Floyd Thursby, Archer's most likely killer, was also murdered the same night as Archer; Dundy could close the case on the Thursby murder by pinning the crime on Spade. Spade is fascinating because he is working for his own interests. He will work for any client, taking money from Brigid and another grifter, the effeminate Joel Cairo. He will engage in a business relationship with the most intelligent and dangerous grifter, the obese Caspar Gutman (an example of Hammett's sardonic wit), also known as "G" (the"Fat Man" in the film) who employs a short-fused young killer named Wilmer to do his dirty work.
Spade is playing all of the principals against each other and trying to keep out of the line of fire. He is a bitter, cynical character who owes no allegiance to any causes. His motivation seems to be based on calculating how he will come out on top, financially or otherwise. It is clear that he has friendly history with the investigating detective on the case, Tom, (a clue that he may have worked for the S.F.P.D. in the past); Tom tries to run interference between Lt. Dundy and Sam, but only gets wisecracks and incomplete disclosures from Sam . He agrees to share the eventual proceeds of the Falcon with Gutman when he helps him find it; he also engages into a conspiracy with O'Shaughnessy, Gutman and Cairo to offer up Wilmer as the "fall guy" for the killing of Thursby, but in the end he drops a dime on Gutman, Cairo and Wilmer to get them arrested. He professes to reciprocate with O'Shaughnessy's avowals of love, even spending an evening with her at his apartment (one scene definitely left out of the film in the censored 1940's; another scene not filmed was Cairo's fawning over "the boy", Wilmer, when he laid semi-conscious on Spade's couch) but he gives her up to the police in the end. He tells her things could have been different if the Falcon didn't turn out to be worthless, with his famous statement that more money would have been one more item "on her side." He even denies that he was engaged in the Falcon Quest to avenge his dead partner; he had been having an affair with Archer's wife, and he publicly declared that he considered Archer to be "stupid".
Oh, by the way, the Falcon makes its appearance while being carried into Spade's office by a sea captain who promptly drops dead on Spade's floor. I didn't know until recently that the actor playing that uncredited, non-speaking role in the film was veteran character actor Walter Huston. He appeared as a favor to his son in John Huston's directorial debut. Another movie tidbit is that Sam's iconic statement at the end about the Falcon being the stuff that dreams are made of, is not in the book.
This book is a period piece which can still be read and appreciated. Sure, there are cultural discrepancies that don't resonate today, such as when Sam is telephoned in the early morning hours to come to the scene of his partner's murder. He gets dressed starting with his "union suit." Holy fashionistas! What the hell is that? Sam's office is also the pit of politically correct hell for his secretary, Effie, who is always addressed as "precious", "angel", or words to that effect instead of her name; she even gets unintentionally bruised by Sam while he is in a tirade. She responds to this treatment by vamping on the edge of his desk, rolling his Bull Durham cigarrettes for him, and acting like she would like to replace Wonderly/O'Shaughnessy in his affections. Beyond these historical norms, however, is a well-thought story with a central character that is as nuanced as any in modern fiction. Spade almost seems to fit into the present more than the distant past. He is motivated to get his own definition of justice while never revealing any personal standard of morality.
To paraphrase Gutman, "Well by Gad Sir!" A great yarn indeed."
"I never thought would ever like mystery books, but The Maltese Falcon changed everything>
The Maltese Falcon is about the one very complicated case that the private eye team of Sam Spade and Archer. It begins a simple case to keep an eye on a supposed kidnapper, commissioned by the beautiful and deceiving Miss Wonderly, who changes her name frequently to remain out of the trouble that follows her. This simple job taken by Archer soon turns violent and results in his death. At first the police suspect Spade, though Spades blunt and cunning attitude shakes off every little problem to get the truth out of Miss Wonderly and the full story of his partners death; which turns out much older and worldly than he thought, from Spain to Istambul to California, Spade tracks down the one most precious item of the world.
The Maltese Falcon is simply the best mystery novel ever written. i recommend this book from anyone from thirteen to ninety. The author, Dashiel Hammett creates complicated and realistic characters that just pull you in, and creates violence and love in a way unimaginable. i highly recommend this book."
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