The Maltese Falcon in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

May 01, 2017 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: hard-boiled, mystery, 1001-books, classic, dick-lit, detective-mystery, oh-unlikeable-you, noir

I didn't really love this, I found it tedious, and Sam Spade is an ass, even to his friends. I assume that must be part of his appeal, but it doesn't appeal to me. I can't help comparing this to Chandler's The Big Sleep, which I read recently. Chandler's book dazzled me. I'm clearly a Chandler gal, not a Hammett gal!

Hammet's style makes me irritable and restless. This is wordy, heavy on the descriptive. I don't care exactly what everyone looks like and what they're wearing. Every time Spade rol I didn't really love this, I found it tedious, and Sam Spade is an ass, even to his friends. I assume that must be part of his appeal, but it doesn't appeal to me. I can't help comparing this to Chandler's The Big Sleep, which I read recently. Chandler's book dazzled me. I'm clearly a Chandler gal, not a Hammett gal!

Hammet's style makes me irritable and restless. This is wordy, heavy on the descriptive. I don't care exactly what everyone looks like and what they're wearing. Every time Spade rolls a cigarette or drinks a whiskey or brandy or coffee, we read about it. In detail. My god I Do Not Care! What does it matter how many cups of coffee everyone drinks? I feel like I'm reading a movie script.

Things I had to look up:
chypre - a non-alcoholic perfume made from sandalwood with citrus top notes and mossy, woodsy undertone
Levantine - Syrian? I was unsure if there was a double meaning here that I missed.
Baumes rush - Senator Caleb H. Baumes sponsored a New York law (the Baumes Law) which called for automatic life imprisonment of any criminal convicted more than three times. Some criminals would move to a state that didn’t have this law in order to avoid its penalty should they be caught again, and this was known as a “Baumes rush,” because of the similarity to “bum’s rush.”
Romeville - I looked this up and it is thieves' slang for London, but the context of Spade's comment makes it seem like he means NYC.
Gunsel - from Yiddish gendzl (gosling), a boy kept for homosexual purposes. Per William Safire: "misunderstanding of the 1929 Maltese Falcon quotation above (which survived in a popular 1941 film adaptation). The novel was originally serialized in a magazine, Black Mask, whose editor refused to allow vulgarities. Hammett used the word gunsel knowing that the editor would likely misunderstand it as relating to gun, and therefore allow it." (Thus, gunsel is sometimes used now to mean "criminal carrying a gun.")
Gooseberry lay - tramp slang for stealing laundry from clotheslines
...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jul 29, 2014 Christina rated it liked it

Even though this is the famous one, Hammett's big success, I didn't think it was as amazing as Red Harvest or as good as the Dain Curse. Partly that could be because of the plot: Red Harvest is about corruption and morality and Dain Curse is something of a murder mystery with a little hint of ghost story, and I tend to enjoy those more than I do "searching for a thing" books. Part of it could also be the narration, third instead of first person. But I think for me it boils down to the main chara ...more

Like · see review

Mar 16, 2013 Jennifer rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, library-book, kindle, 1000bookstoread

The language is... really hard for me to get around. But it's a classic (sort of?) for a reason. Great plot, well-paced, characters who scream off the page, even if they seem about as realistic as a paper bag...

OH the metaphors. And the "it was a dark and stormy night" ness. I may never get over it.

Four stars anyways, because hey. I was surprised and interested. ...more

Like · see review