There is a novel written by perhaps Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammet or the like that has a chapter in the middle that doesn’t pertain to the rest of the novel. In it the story of man is told, who one day picked up and left a wife and family to move to another town, never to go back to his former life again. After this chapter ends, the mystery story continues and this chapter is never alluded to again. What is this novel?
It is *The Maltese Falcon *by Dashiell Hammett.
One of the most brilliant passages from one of my favorite novels.
Regards,
Shodan
Thanks dopers.
I read that book so many years ago that I couldn’t remember what it was. Any Hammet aficionados or others want to comment on the significance of this chapter to the rest of the book? Did Hammet does this often?
No, this interjection of an unrelated story is nearly a unique occurrence in Dashiel Hammett’s novels (well, there is the re-telling of a dream in The Glass Key, but that’s not quite the same thing, since the meaning of the dream is much more obvious in The Glass Key, and we all know that a Dream in a Novel will be Significant.)
I remember trying to find any articles on this, a while ago when I was re-reading The Maltese Falcon. It doesn’t seem like there is any consensus on what it means. (Try “Flitcraft parable” as search terms in Google.)
My interpretation when I read the book was obvious, but I haven’t found anything that I found more convincing. Sam Spade says that the “part he likes best” is that the man went back to the same life he had before his accident. Does this mean that this has been his guide for detective work - people will always fall into their same patterns? e.g. Brigid O’Shaughnessy started by lying to him - she might mix some truth into what she tells him, since she is frightened because her life is currently at risk, but in the end she will naturally revert to lying.
P.S. You can find the passage here
http://www.fallingbeam.org/beam.htm
Don’t forget the great image presented by this sentence:
So much for my faulty recollection that the chapter was never alluded to again…
No, you’re right - Sam Spade tells the story, and at the end of telling the story says “here’s the part I liked best” - then the story is never mentioned again. (See the link in my previous post, where you can find the full text of the story from The Maltese Falcon’s Chapter 7)
Sort of.
My take on it is that Spade is trying to explain how everybody reacts to life as if it made sense. His way of figuring out what is going on is to watch how people react to random things. He says later (to Brigid O"Shaughnessy) that he is going to try to solve the case by causing it to blow up - to “heave a wild and unpredictable monkey wrench” into the works and see what comes flying out.
Everyone else tries to make sense of things by treating them as if they made sense. Spade does the opposite - regard, or trigger, random events and see how they react to them.
People cling to their notions of life long after they stop making sense. Gutman continues his quest for the falcon even after he finds out the one he was chasing for seventeen years was a fake - after all, it is only “an additional expenditure of time of five and fifteen seventeenths percent”. And based on that, the kid Wilmer shoots him down and kills him. Spade can get away with everything he does as long as he has a fall guy - as long as he has something he can use to reinforce the DA’s theory that the crime makes sense. Spade is willing to use Cairo for this, even if Cairo never killed anyone. And he can do it, because the DA clings to his theories on what the murder is all about.
At the very outset of the novel, Bridgid O’Shaughnessy comes to Archer and Spade with a story - a theory - that obviously is false. But neither Spade nor Archer believe her, or care - Spade because of the $200 she pays, and Archer because he wants to get into her pants.
Then that story falls apart, and Brigid comes up with a different narrative. She seduces Spade, on the reasonable theory that they are lovers, Spade will be her “sap” like Thursby was. She relies on this to the very end, when Spade recognizes that she killed Archer. But he won’t go along with the idea. He turns her over to the cops.
Think of the story Spade comes up with when the police come to see him when he, Brigid, and Joel Cairo are together at Spade’s apartment. It’s a goofy story - because a sensible one would have gotten them all arrested. When Spade tries to act in ways that assume that things make sense, it doesn’t work. It makes sense to try to protect Brigid - but when Spade does, it is a set-up, to get him into his apartment without a gun in his hand.
Spade succeeds in the novel, because he doesn’t believe that things should make sense. Even at the end, it doesn’t make sense that he would care who shot his partner - he didn’t like Archer, and he doesn’t want Archer’s wife to think he will marry her after Archer is dead. But he still does it.
Regards,
Shodan