→ April 27, 2007
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Cortázar, Hammett, and a nonfiction book.

Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch is a bizarre novel; the first 56 chapters represent a complete work, a single story with a single protagonist and enough pseudo-intellectual pablum to make this Virginia Woolf hater want to light the book on fire. The last third of the book comprises interstitial chapters which may be added to the story proper if the reader wants to read the longer work. A few relate to the main narrative, a few more are of the newspaper-clipping style seen in a lot of other works, but most are just nonsense. The book is quite acclaimed – someone named C.D.B. Bryan is quoted as saying it’s his favorite novel, although why I’m supposed to take the opinion of a man with three initials in place of a first name seriously I have no idea – but it was a slog, and even slowed down towards the end. The core storyline is somewhat directionless, and doesn’t really conclude in any conventional sense; the main character needs a smack upside the head, both to get him to stop talking nonsense and to get him to do something with his life. The “freewheeling adventures” promised on the book’s jacket don’t even begin until the book is two-thirds finished, and they’re not freewheeling, not terribly adventurous, and are by and large extremely boring. (Exception: a bit of chapter 51, where the main character begins working at an asylum, a scene which sparks a few laughs.) So I wouldn’t exactly recommend this one.

Cleaning up a few books I read in March: Dashiel Hammett’s The Thin Man doesn’t exactly need my recommendation. Hammett’s one of my favorite authors, with a spare style that conveys so much more than Hemingway’s more-praised sparseness (which often struck me as a bit sing-song). That said, I’d probably send Hammett first-timers The Maltese Falcon, and for readers who want a lot of action I’d recommend Red Harvest. The Thin Man is best-known for the characters it introduced to the world, Nick and Nora Charles, but the book didn’t have quite the same tension as the other two I mentioned.

Ingrid Rowland’s The Scarith of Scornello was a fun, short read, telling the true story of a simple hoax orchestrated by a teenager in 16th-century Tuscany that turned into an elaborate academic fraud and ended up altering the course of the kid’s entire life. It’s billed as a bit of a mystery, which it isn’t, because the back cover of the book tells you that the whole thing was a hoax, and it turns out that some of the teenager’s contemporaries knew it was a hoax all along, while others were more than happy to believe in artifacts that appeared to increase the glory of their region in ancient times.

Filed Under: Literature, Nonfiction Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Comments

  1. Jesse G.
    Apr, 28 2007 / 1:37 pm

    I love Dashiell Hammett. He was truly a master. I have never read anything of his (and I have read nearly all of his work) that wasn’t excellent. If you haver read some of his more popular work I would try Red Harvest which is his first novel and has a much darker and more disturbing tone to it than either of the two you mentioned.

    Also, if you like Hammett I would really suggest reading some of the other noir masters, specifically Raymond Chandler, who arguably rivals Hammet as the master of the genre and Walter Mosely.

  2. admin
    Apr, 28 2007 / 7:29 pm

    Chandler’s great; already read two of his works, and the Big Sleep is on my to-be-read shelf.

  3. Jesse G.
    Apr, 29 2007 / 9:31 am

    Oops, I can’t believe I missed your mention of Red Harvest. Regardless, you are in for a treat with The Big Sleep.

    Also, if you like the classic Hollywood era pictures I would definitely take the time to see The Big Sleep and, even moreso, The Maltese Falcon. Both star Bogart and each one has a brilliant leading lady, Lauren Bacall and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, respectively along with some classic character actors from the period including Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Charles Waldron, and Louis Jean Heydt. The Falcon is a cut above but The Big Sleep has the chemistry of Bogart and soon-to-be wife Bacall which is a real treat to watch.

  4. Chris
    Apr, 29 2007 / 3:35 pm

    If you’re going to mention The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep, I need to throw in The Third Man (my personal favorite movie), Double Indemnity, and Touch of Evil.

    Keith, have you read any James Lee Burke? His Dave Robicheaux is sort of like Easy Rawlins, but in Cajun country. Pretty good stuff, but they tend to be repetitive when you read more than a couple.

  5. admin
    Apr, 29 2007 / 3:43 pm

    I haven’t seen the film version of TBS – I always read the book first – but I’d rate the other four 1. Double Indemnity, 2. Maltese Falcon, 3. The Third Man (better than the book, which actually came after the film), and 4. Touch of Evil. Double Indemnity really is just about perfect.

    Chris, I haven’t read anything by Burke. Should I start with The Neon Rain, which appears to be the first novel with Robicheaux as the main character?

  6. Chris
    Apr, 29 2007 / 6:42 pm

    The Neon Rain is the place to start, as there is a definite storyline that runs through the novels. Heaven’s Prisoners is the second in the series, and it’s a little better. In fact, they made it into a mediocre Alec Baldwin movie 12 years ago. With that one, read the book before the movie, then skip the movie.

    The Big Sleep is a fine movie, but it’s a little bit of a mess–the DVD has a nice documentary about all the different post-production and reshooting problems.

    Oh, have you seen Passage to Marseille? It’s got the best from the cast of Casablanca (Bogart, Lorre, Greenstreet, and Rains) and it’s also directed by Michael Curtiz. I’ve been meaning to snap that one up on Amazon, but haven’t done it yet…

  7. Jesse G.
    Apr, 30 2007 / 11:30 pm

    While I would agree that the plot of the film version of The Big Sleep is convuluted to the point of meaniglessness, if you enjoy great acting and especially if you love the classic Hollywood style it is a very enjoyable movie.

    Also, I love Double Indemnity but I can never like it as much as The Maltese Falcon because I don’t find Fred MacMurray believable. He always reminds me of a Disney character like Pluto or Goofy. I know that sounds ridiculous but he isn’t badass enough for me. I guess that is outweighed by how amazing Barbara Stanwyck. Here is a great article about her in a recent New Yorker.

  8. Chris
    May, 1 2007 / 11:03 am

    Jesse, have you seen The Apartment? MacMurray is terrific as an adultering slimeball. His performance in Double Indemnity is a lot easier to get into after seeing that one.

  9. admin
    May, 1 2007 / 12:10 pm

    Ray Walston was my favorite of the slimeballs in that movie – “Hey, buddy boy!”

  10. Jesse G.
    May, 1 2007 / 8:50 pm

    I haven’t seen but I will be sure to rent it in the near future. Thanks for the advice.

  11. Scott
    Oct, 25 2007 / 3:09 pm

    Hammett is fantastic. And Hopscotch is a master work. The problem Keith seems that you just do not like experimental (for lack of a better word) fiction. That said, I understand it is not for everyone, but this kind of fiction truely sets the mind reeling and gets us to ask questions about our world we live in. And though I do love Hammett and genre fiction, and consider both art, do they really true affect us anymore if they ever did. Would we ever ask the question of “Why was this novel written?” in realtion to a Hammett novel, or even some of the magical realism novels you hold dear? And what does it mean that we have stopped questioning such things? Don’t get me wring, stories are great, but sometimes the best stories are not the story at all, but the telling.

  12. keith
    Oct, 25 2007 / 6:58 pm

    Scott, I think you’re extrapolating far too much from the fact that I didn’t like one particular novel. And yes, “why was this novel written” can be asked of many non-experimental novels – for example, if you aren’t asking that question about “One Hundred Years of Solitude” (one of the magical realism novels I hold dear) or “Things Fall Apart” (about as unexperimental a novel as you’ll ever read), then you’ve missed 80% of the point of both books.