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Rural Noir: Bluebird, Bluebird and Pop. 1280
By Joe · 1 post · 14 views
By Joe · 1 post · 14 views
last updated Sep 19, 2020 10:14PM
What Members Thought
The Maltese Falcon is a deserved classic of Noir Detective fiction. The writing was crisp and no-nonsense and I could picture Humphrey Bogart playing this part, even though I've never seen it. . .yet. Dashiell Hammett tailored it smoothly so that Bogart was a natural for the big screen edition.
The case begins when a femme fatale comes into the offices of Spade And Archer. What starts out to be a simple case of tailing her male friend ends up with Sam Spade's partner Miles Archer being gunned dow ...more
The case begins when a femme fatale comes into the offices of Spade And Archer. What starts out to be a simple case of tailing her male friend ends up with Sam Spade's partner Miles Archer being gunned dow ...more
The crime story is good but Sam Spade is really a bit of a dick, and not the PI variety. This is my second Spade novel and I think it’s my last. I don’t like my heroes to be entitled, self important tossers.
The Continental Op books were written in the first person while 'Maltese Falcon' (and 'The Glass Key' after it) uses the third person objective (i.e. similar to cinematographic) narration. Initially, I disliked this shift - the book seemed cold and devoid of emotion. Still, when you don't know the thoughts and intents of Sam Spade, the whole novel gets one more dimension - it's no longer a mere whodunnit, but a 'why does he do it' and 'what must he feel doing it', and 'what will he do'.
Great bo ...more
Great bo ...more
May 15, 2020
Lawrence
rated it
really liked it
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review of another edition
Shelves:
noir-pulp-fiction
Allow me to say that I had trouble unseeing Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet in their roles as I read this book. I've seen that movie countless times thanks to my father.
The book opens with the realization that PI Sam Spade's partner has been murdered. The thread leads to a priceless artifact, The Maltese Falcon. Is Sam privy to it's whereabouts? I won't give that away, but this book gives us what we expect in a pulp fiction novel. Dashiell Hammett gives us murder, a confident ...more
The book opens with the realization that PI Sam Spade's partner has been murdered. The thread leads to a priceless artifact, The Maltese Falcon. Is Sam privy to it's whereabouts? I won't give that away, but this book gives us what we expect in a pulp fiction novel. Dashiell Hammett gives us murder, a confident ...more
I first read "Falcon" 40 years ago. I was more impressed with the book this time through. Hammett's book really is the Ur-text of modern American writing, both literary and "genre." I am sure Hammett was influenced by Hemingway, but there is something that rings more true in Hammett's cynical and ironic take on a pulp story than in Hemingway's meaning-fraught exercises in terseness.
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Dashiell Hammett’s classic detective story. It gripped me from page one even though I knew the story via John Huston’s movie adaptation of the same name. Besides the amazing plot, what Hammett does so masterfully is to give us character insight through their dialogue, physical description and actions only. There is not one sentence of interior monologue, and none is needed. We understand who and how these characters operate strictly through observation. I would imagine the toughest part of Husto
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The classic of noir pulp fiction. The tough PI, the femme fatale and the dark as night plot. No one comes out of this novel well. A must read for anyone even with a passing interest in crime fiction!
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Sep 13, 2019
Kevin Leader
marked it as to-read
May 02, 2022
Aniruddh Sudharshan
marked it as to-read
Mar 11, 2023
Willj_1984
marked it as to-read
Mar 24, 2024
Samantha
added it
