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language: English
country: USA
year: 1930
form: novel
genre(s): mystery
dates read: 26.12.23-5.1.24
Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon was disappointing. stylistically: as much as I think the distant third-person narration is aesthetically fun (it’s what I like about Legend of the Galactic Heroes, too), it also leads Hammett into some extremely clunky overuse of personal names (when he could have just used “he” but was worried about ambiguity). the most engaging part was the scene where Sam went off to go investigate something and instead of following him, the narration stayed in his office and had him narrate what he’d found when he returned. fascinating decision.
the character work is underwhelming, although it’s fun that Cairo is so consistently characterized as gay and possibly as involved with Wilmer. like, this is obviously presented as a negative thing, but it’s also kind of a non-issue, in an interesting way, and certainly he’s no more villainous than any of the other characters.
Spade himself is just…so much less compelling than the Continental Op, partly because he has a name and partly because the plot he’s in is just…circles upon circles for no reason and with no resolution. which, to be clear, could be interesting — except that it seems like the novel thinks it’s actually gone somewhere and that the “resolution” it offers is supposed to be compelling.
it doesn’t even really manage to be atmospheric, which was the saving grace of The Big Sleep.
what a let-down after Red Harvest.
moods: mysterious (I guess)