Double Indemnity. Cain, James M. 1935. New York: Vintage, 1989.
Reading this novel is like striking a match and becoming entranced by the intricacy and aesthetic beauty of the flame until it dissolves and you close the book and never want to write another word because you will never be as clean a stylist as James M. Cain is. Of course, if you've no aspirations about writing then you won't have have to stomach that dose of pessimism upon finishing Double Indemnity. This book is like 99% fat free ground chuck...there is literally nothing in it that is unnecessary. No florid pretentiousness. No "bet you can't understand this" anatomies of a murder. No stilted cliches. One wonders how much Cain had to edit out of his earlier draft(s). It is a fucking shame that most people will probably think that it was only a movie screenwritten by Raymond Chandler, and not an absolutely great novel written by someone else less famous. As good old Horace says, I don't like slobbering plebeian entertainment fiend idiots, and I stay away from their shit. Or something like that. By the way, this book is so damned readable that it will probably only take twice as much time to read as it would take to watch the film. Have I made myself clear, class? Stop bitching about how Wilder's adaptation didn't win any Oscars and start bitching about why Cain isn't a household name.
Double Indemnity is about Walter Huff, an insurance salesman in seedy LA who meets the seductive Phyllis Nirdlinger who is unsatisfied with her married life and drops a hint about purchasing accident insurance for her husband without telling him. The narrator, experienced in insurance sleaze in a noirish kind of way, picks up on her hint and becomes her partner in crime because he falls in love with her. The narration is done in a first person, confessional manner by the seemingly ordinary Walter, who meticulously maps out not only how to kill, but how to get away with killing. Inevitably though, complications hinder the lovers' plan, in the form Walter's suspecting coworker Keyes and with Phyllis's daughter Lola, along with her supposedly ne'er-do-well boyfriend Sachetti. I'm not saying another word about the plot of this novel because it's only 115 pages long and if you start it, you will be psychologically obliged to finish it (unless you happen to start it when you are bleeding to death or in some other kind of grave danger).
The only problem I have with this wonderfully dark story, the teensiest little speck on an otherwise gleaming, flawless canvas, the mole on the Mona Lisa if you will, is that I found the attraction between the lovers and co-murderers a tad unbelievable. What I mean by this is that after Walter executes the murder, for obvious reasons he cannot be seen with Phyllis because he sold her the insurance policy. This distance causes Walter to kind of fall out of love with her but simultaneously fall in love with Lola (with a little pity toward her thrown in for good measure). Perhaps the sparseness of the narrative here does not work to its advantage, as a more wordy style would make the attraction seem more plausible. Indeed, in novels of this type, call it noir or hardboiled or whatever, it is usually the crime that seems more believable than whatever romance springs up from the well of the plot. But look, if you want a book that describes romance in a more realistic way, there are only millions of others to choose from. So quit complaining. Besides, how can you hate on a style that is this controlled?
I drove out to Glendale to put three new truck drivers on a brewery company bond, and then I remembered this renewal over in Hollywoodland. I decided to run over there. That was how I came to this House of Death that you've been reading about in the papers. It didn't look like a House of Death when I saw it. It was just a Spanish house, like all the rest of them in California, with white walls, red tile roof, and a patio out to one side. (3)
...
Her brow wrinkled up, and I saw there was nothing washed-up about her. What gave her that look was a spray of freckles across her forehead. She saw me looking at them. "I believe you're looking at my freckles."
"Yes, I was. I like them."
"I don't."
"I do." (11)
SSSNNNIIIIP...SNIP...SNIP...SNIP...SSSSSNIP. You hear that? It's Cain cutting the bullshit out of description and dialogue in a way that would make Hemingway blush. This novel is minced onion while most others contain far too many semi-sliced chunks. It's lean but mean. Clean but sordid. Stylistically straightforward but emotionally conflicted...and why shouldn't it be this way, since it's about a man who kills for love and regrets it?
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Friday, November 8, 2013
The Thin Man
The Thin Man. Hammett, Dashiell. 1933. New York: Vintage, 1992.
With more red herrings than a fish market, The Thin Man is the perfect example of an important work that it is easy to respect but hard to love. It is important in that Dashiell Hammett was really the first writer of noir fiction, a genre that has never lacked devoted readers and writers. The story concerns Nick Charles, a former San Francisco gumshoe who is on vacation in New York with his wife Nora when he suddenly learns of the murder of Julia Wolf, former secretary (and mistress) to Clyde Wynant, an eccentric inventor who previously employed Nick to tail a jealous rival inventor who claims Wynant ripped him off. Nick starts getting messages from Wynant, asking for his help in finding Julia's murderer through the latter's attorney Herbert Macaulay, who served with Nick during the war. Despite his better judgment, Nick gradually becomes involved with the case as well as with Wynant's family: his controlling and dangerous ex wife, strangely bookish son and beautiful but naive daughter. Double crossings and acts of violence ensue as Nick becomes more involved in solving the crime.
Ultimately, the novel is a disappointment given that it starts so strongly. The reader is immediately drawn to the cool world weary charisma of Nick Charles, the archetypical PI who has seen evil in its many incarnations. The main problem with the book is that the concepts it relies upon eventually grow stale. The jokes certainly have not aged well. Reading this book in and of itself is almost a kind of detective work in that one must determine not what is, but what isn't a lie. There are simply too many characters, many of which end up contributing nothing to the plot besides artificial drama. Unnecessary characters aside, one wonders whether this story could have worked as a piece of short fiction instead.
This novel is less a work of noir fiction than a progenitor of the whodunit. One should not dismiss Hammett solely on grounds of this novel; his short stories are excellent in that they are imagistic, with hardly any of the narrator's or other character's thoughts expressed. Stylistically, Hammett is almost surgical in his economy. One cannot deny his ability to write clearly and distinctively. But the story is simply too complicated for the reader to follow along, and there is remarkably less action and bloodshed than the reader would expect. Much of the narrative consists of Nick relaying new information from one character to another; information that he gets from unreliable sources. The contrived nature of the plot alienates the reader. One of Hammett's earlier short stories "The Man Who Killed Dan Odams" is the epitome of simplicity: a man breaks out of jail and hides out in a remote house, taking the woman and boy who live there hostage. He reveals his identity to them, and this leads to his downfall as the they are the family of the man that the protagonist killed (which got him thrown in jail in the first place). What is remarkable about that story is that it is so pared down that there is nothing unnecessary. So focused is the author that every little detail serves some purpose. The images tell the story—in true noir style the thoughts of the characters rarely break into the narrative.
There is little of that precise focus in The Thin Man, even though as far as novels go, it is rather short. If anything, this book tends more toward hardboiled fiction, but it is nowhere near as effective a piece of writing as say, James M. Cain's Double Indemnity. One gets the feeling that this work is less a story than a kind of gigantic math problem with the final chapter (in which Nick explains to Nora how ——— murdered Julia Wolf et al.) serving as a QED flourish.
With more red herrings than a fish market, The Thin Man is the perfect example of an important work that it is easy to respect but hard to love. It is important in that Dashiell Hammett was really the first writer of noir fiction, a genre that has never lacked devoted readers and writers. The story concerns Nick Charles, a former San Francisco gumshoe who is on vacation in New York with his wife Nora when he suddenly learns of the murder of Julia Wolf, former secretary (and mistress) to Clyde Wynant, an eccentric inventor who previously employed Nick to tail a jealous rival inventor who claims Wynant ripped him off. Nick starts getting messages from Wynant, asking for his help in finding Julia's murderer through the latter's attorney Herbert Macaulay, who served with Nick during the war. Despite his better judgment, Nick gradually becomes involved with the case as well as with Wynant's family: his controlling and dangerous ex wife, strangely bookish son and beautiful but naive daughter. Double crossings and acts of violence ensue as Nick becomes more involved in solving the crime.
Ultimately, the novel is a disappointment given that it starts so strongly. The reader is immediately drawn to the cool world weary charisma of Nick Charles, the archetypical PI who has seen evil in its many incarnations. The main problem with the book is that the concepts it relies upon eventually grow stale. The jokes certainly have not aged well. Reading this book in and of itself is almost a kind of detective work in that one must determine not what is, but what isn't a lie. There are simply too many characters, many of which end up contributing nothing to the plot besides artificial drama. Unnecessary characters aside, one wonders whether this story could have worked as a piece of short fiction instead.
This novel is less a work of noir fiction than a progenitor of the whodunit. One should not dismiss Hammett solely on grounds of this novel; his short stories are excellent in that they are imagistic, with hardly any of the narrator's or other character's thoughts expressed. Stylistically, Hammett is almost surgical in his economy. One cannot deny his ability to write clearly and distinctively. But the story is simply too complicated for the reader to follow along, and there is remarkably less action and bloodshed than the reader would expect. Much of the narrative consists of Nick relaying new information from one character to another; information that he gets from unreliable sources. The contrived nature of the plot alienates the reader. One of Hammett's earlier short stories "The Man Who Killed Dan Odams" is the epitome of simplicity: a man breaks out of jail and hides out in a remote house, taking the woman and boy who live there hostage. He reveals his identity to them, and this leads to his downfall as the they are the family of the man that the protagonist killed (which got him thrown in jail in the first place). What is remarkable about that story is that it is so pared down that there is nothing unnecessary. So focused is the author that every little detail serves some purpose. The images tell the story—in true noir style the thoughts of the characters rarely break into the narrative.
There is little of that precise focus in The Thin Man, even though as far as novels go, it is rather short. If anything, this book tends more toward hardboiled fiction, but it is nowhere near as effective a piece of writing as say, James M. Cain's Double Indemnity. One gets the feeling that this work is less a story than a kind of gigantic math problem with the final chapter (in which Nick explains to Nora how ——— murdered Julia Wolf et al.) serving as a QED flourish.
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