The Thin Man

I've been in the middle or near the end of several other books since winter break, but at my stepmom's house last week I picked up this book as something light and not scary for my brain. My dad had given me The Maltese Falcon for Christmas, which was fun but also a little odd, so I decided to try this one also.

Dashiell Hammett wrote mystery novels (I guess it's actually called detective fiction, but whatever), sharp and witty and perfect for film adaptations - The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man were both adapted to the screen. Hammett and Lillian Hellman (his long-time partner) worked on the screenplays so the adaptations are more faithful than usual.

The Thin Man is about a detective, Nick (with his wife, Nora), who is visiting New York from San Francisco (the cities are strong influences in both novels - specific streets and clubs and restaurants are mentioned; I think there's a walking tour in San Fran based on one of his books, but I could be mistaken). He runs into the grown-up daughter of an old client, who is delighted to run into him because - gasp! - her father is missing! Thus Nick is reluctantly involved in the search for the father (a very thin man), falling in with gangsters, doofus cops, crazy ex-wives, and Freudian-obsessed sons. The daughter thinks she's in love with him, and shows up at inappropriate hours planning unsuccessful seductions. Nora finds this to no end amusing, and otherwise follows Nick around (along with their dog, Asta), making various quips as to his detective abilities, etc.

Hammett was a detective for Pinkerton's, an old-fashioned real-life detective agency, so his stories are not flashy - plots are intricate but action is fairly minimal. What action there is - deaths, fights, chases - doesn't get described in gory detail. There are not a lot of clues given, which is why I suppose "mystery novel" isn't the correct term; but a lot of events occur which the Detective (Nick Charles in The Thin Man, Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon) puts together to solve the crime without a lot of explication. The prose is very prose-y - words are only tools to tell the story, sparingly but effectively. (Hellman's writing is more aesthetic.)

While the mystery may fail to mystify, it's the characters that fuel Hammett's stories. Dialogue is witty and peppered with 1930's slang (I barely understood most of The Maltese Falcon), and the characters change from friend to foe as the story continues; while personalities remain consistent throughout the novel, intentions are never clear until the end. Nick and Nora Charles are totally charming characters, and the novel is worth reading just for their exchanges. It's said that he based them on his relationship with Hellman, which I can only hope to be true - Nora Charles is the perfect foil, fascinated by his detective work without being awed by it. They spend most of the novel drinking or drunk ("How do you feel?" "Terrible, I must have gone to bed sober") and finding ways to being clever. (Effie Perine, the secretary, plays much the same role in The Maltese Falcon - I'm not sure why Nora gets more literary attention than Effie.) While Hammett's male-ness comes through strongly in his description of women, which is limited, the lines he gives Nora reveal a background and character that could be worth a novel on their own.

Hammett was also a political activist - I'm not sure if he was a Communist, but he was vocally antagonistic to the McCarthy government and worked with Lillian Hellman in several leftist organizations and activities. They were strong influences in each other's life, collaborating professionally in a number of fields. His politics don't come through in this book, although I find that a deep attention to characters tends to reflect a more progressive attitude.

Anyway, I highly recommend this book for something fun and goofy - it's a perfect plane, train, bus, etc. book.