Double Indemnity

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?