The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett
This thin book bears only an incidental similarity to the “Thin Man” movies with William Powell and Myrna Loy. There’s not much wise-cracking repartee between Nora and Nick because she’s mostly relegated to the sidelines. They do drink a lot (especially Nick), but this tapers off when he gets on a case. As for Asta, he’s just a dog. What counts with Hammett is his prose; it’s a model of conciseness – no fat – and at least five characters come across vividly. He was especially good with dangerous, amoral women – in this case Mimi. The mystery to be solved was fairly interesting until my bugaboo with who-dun-its raised its ugly head. The plot got way too complicated, and when Nick unraveled things (it takes him seven pages) my mood soured. Here’s my gripe with this genre: there’s no possible way for a reader to figure out who the villain is because the author purposefully conceals it. I guess many people aren’t bothered by this form of manipulation, but I am. One wishes that, with his talent, Hammett had written straight novels. But I think he drank too much, wore himself out, and took the easy and lucrative path. He dedicates this book to Lillian (that would be Lillian Hellman). I don’t know if anybody (including Dashiell and Lillian) understood the dynamics of their long relationship, but from all I’ve read it was a destructive one. Maybe she was one of those appalling females he was so good at depicting.

Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
This is no love story. There was some sort of bond between Cathy and Heathcliff, and the vagueness of that bond is one of many areas in this novel that remain obscure. The story is related by the housekeeper, Ellen Dean, so we never see Cathy and Heathcliff alone together. We aren’t privy to their relationship in the years they grew up, when they roamed wild and when the bond was first formed. There’s no sense that they were lovers in a conventional sense. Though Cathy declares “I am Heathcliff,” she marries Edgar. I couldn’t understand this act, and neither could Heathcliff; he feels deeply betrayed. Cathy, when accused, strikes back. She tells Heathcliff “You left me too.” Meaning that they could remain together despite her commitment to another man – if only he would allow this. Maybe, to her, there was no physical side to their bond, but to him there was (or he wanted there to be one). Heathcliff always had a hard, defiant side, but Cathy’s marriage sets him off on a path of destruction. He’s referred to (with justification) as an evil beast, a madman, a Satan. He wants to destroy the Lintons and the Earnshaws, the owners of the two estates, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Of the victims of his virulence he says, “I have no pity! I have no pity! . . . I grind with greater energy, in proportion to the increase of pain.” The contagion of a “blackness of spirit” extends over generations; its oppressiveness is moderated only by the voice of Ellen Dean, who is good, compassionate, reasonable – and unable to alter events. When Cathy dies in childbirth her daughter, Catherine, takes center stage. She’s a refreshing presence, inheriting a softer aspect of her mother’s recklessness (she was the first character I felt close to). But Heathcliff negotiates her marriage to his son (whom he despises). Here the novel takes on an icky perversity. If Heathcliff is monstrous in his destructive strength, Hinton is a repellent combination of sniveling fear and malignity. When Hinton dies it seems that Catherine, living with Heathcliff and his coarse nephew Hareton, will sink to their level. What occurs is surprising: Catherine and Hareton fall in love. Their love evolves slowly, starting out as abusive dislike (first on Catherine’s part, then reciprocated by Hareton). I accepted this unlikely match probably because I needed something positive to occur. Their relationship causes a precipitous change in Heathcliff. He comes across them sitting side by side – Catherine is teaching Hareton to read. They look up at him and he sees two pairs of eyes that are “precisely similar” to Cathy’s. When they leave the room a shaken Heathcliff speaks to Ellen: “It is a poor conclusion, is it not. An absurd conclusion to my violent exertions? I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when everything is ready, and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished!” He has seen his younger self in Hareton and a young Cathy in Catherine. But his Cathy is under the ground, and to her side he must hurry. This other-worldly drama deals in extremes – the book is as wild as the windswept moors. What makes it succeed is Bronte’s conviction. But it succeeded only for the duration of the book; after I was done I found myself feeling that her world had nothing to do with me.

A Mother’s Love - Mary Morris
Halfway through this novel I did some research and learned that Mary Morris grew up in circumstances quite unlike those of her protagonist. Whereas Ivy has a hardscrabble life, Morris was (at least looking at her bio) blessed with every advantage. I felt a bit resentful about this. When I recovered my senses, I realized that I should give the author credit for creating so authentic a character. If any young woman sees single motherhood in a romanticized light, they need to read this book. Little Bobby poops and sucks and screams. Little? For all the attention he demands, Bobby could be the size of a bungalow. Ivy diligently fulfills her duties, but it’s grueling and is breaking her down emotionally and physically. The father of the boy is no help. Matthew thinks Ivy should have gotten an abortion; at any rate, he’s just not ready for parenthood and won’t even assist her financially. That she has sympathy for this jerk’s “problems” shows her passive, weak side (which coexists with her angry side). Bouts of fear and depression are the predictable offshoot of her isolated existence in a grubby apartment in New York City. She’s beset by memories, most of them involving her own mother, who ran off when she was seven, taking with her a younger daughter. The “Why” of this event – why run away and why take Sam? – is unsolvable and is something Ivy struggles to come to grips with. Of her father we get little; he’s well-meaning, but his gambling problem leads to an itinerant lifestyle in the western deserts. Memories of the past intermingle with present-day facts and with Ivy’s imaginings. In the present, things begin to brighten; she finds a supportive friend in Mara and the perfect babysitter in Viviana (she’s a babysitter in the sense that Einstein could solve really difficult equations). At the end of the book one is left feeling that Ivy has gone through the roughest stretch, and that she’s become stronger for it. As for the mother who abandoned her, she thinks, “I miss her, but not really the one I lost. Rather I miss the one I never had, the one I am trying to become.”

One for the Books - Joe Queenan
I thought I might get chummy with a fellow lover of books; I should have known better. As early as page seventeen, when he lumps A Fan’s Notes with Dune (both books that are, in his opinion, “impossible to enjoy”), I began to question his taste and intelligence. But on page seventy-two we irrevocably parted ways over Vanity Fair, which he calls “implacably precious.” “I hated it. Despised it,” he writes, then he goes on to attack the “lantern-jawed” Reese Witherspoon who plays Becky Sharp in the movie version. Mean-spirited gibes run throughout the book; Queenan considers many people to be ignoramuses, dinks, cretins, etcetera. While he’s flippantly dismissing works of substance (usually with no reason given), he devotes much of his time to light fare and outright junk (such as the biography of Sonny Bono and the “voluptuously vulgar” Va Va Voom). We all need escape reading occasionally, but thirteen Ruth Rendell mysteries in a row? Some books he won’t abandon (he’s spent pretty much of his entire adult life struggling with Middlemarch and Ulysses) and others he rereads repeatedly (The Best of Roald Dahl nine times). He claims that he’s able to consume many books simultaneously (presently he’s “blasting away” at thirty-two, but the number has been much higher) and he can read anywhere (on a subway, at a prizefight, waiting in line at the supermarket, at a wake). He seems mighty proud of these feats, which struck me as the literary equivalent of a carnival sideshow act (“The Amazing Queenan!”). He’s been a columnist for top magazines and newspapers and has published eleven books. He’s talented – his writing style is pleasurable and he can be amusing. Actually, of the enormous number of titles that he cites, we agree on the worth of more than half. Still, I don’t like the guy, and I don’t think he much likes himself or his life; despite his success and his claim that he has “sixty-five close friends” he seems to be a discontented man. Reading was his form of escape from a boyhood blighted by an alcoholic, abusive father (once again we see how abusiveness begets abusiveness, though the form it takes may vary). His addiction to books was, he writes, the reason why he didn’t make any headway in his career until his mid-thirties. “Well, that and the fact that the people were appalling.” Since he did build a career, he must have started cozying up to these “appalling” people. Just an observation.

The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett
As I read this novel images from the movie played in my mind. John Huston wisely followed the storyline closely and used much of the author’s smart, snappy dialogue. The fact that Hammett’s Sam Spade is tall and has light brown hair didn’t bother me; I always saw Bogart. In both book and movie Spade is tough and efficient, like other fictional private eyes, but we’re never clear as to what makes him tick. Is he capable of dishonesty? Is he emotionally invulnerable? What feelings does he have for Brigid O’Shaughnessy? This element of ambiguity makes Spade intriguing. The most lively interactions are the ones involving the effeminate Joel Cairo and the grossly fat Casper Gutman (Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet are perfect matches for Hammett’s characters). The novel is superior to the movie in one important aspect. I got a grip on who and what Brigid was because she’s shown with her hair down; she’s a woman who can – and does, often – use her sexuality to manipulate men. Spade turns her in not only because she murdered his partner (“just like swatting a fly”), but also because he won’t “play the sap” for her. Like Spade, she’s an enigma, but he (and we) know enough about her to understand how dangerous she is. This wasn’t clear in the film version, in which Mary Astor was too prim. The book and movie end differently (Hammett never wrote the line “It’s the stuff that dreams are made of”). In the book we’re back in Spade’s office the day after he delivers Brigid and the others over to the police; he greets his secretary Effie (who may be his real – and platonic – love) with a bright “Morning, angel.” He soon has an unwelcome visitor: his partner’s wife. He had an affair with her and she’s clinging to him. He shivers when he hears her name, then tells Effie, “Well, send her in.”

The Watchful Gods and Other Stories - Walter Van Tilburg Clark 
The Watchful Gods is a short novel. A boy wakes up on his twelfth birthday; he very much wants a rifle. He gets his wish and immediately goes hunting; after he kills a rabbit he feels remorse. Buck comes across as a normal boy in his interactions with his family and his fantasies about a girl, but he’s quite out of the ordinary. He has a strong spiritual/mystical side; he feels the presence of gods who are directly involved in his life. Some are good, some are malevolent (there’s also an indifferent god presiding over all). And there are sprites – spirits of happiness. By killing the rabbit, Buck believes that he has sided with the malevolent god; he tries to right the wrong he’s committed in an elaborate burial ceremony. Buck’s spirituality is linked to nature, for which he has great affinity; large portions of the novella are made up of descriptions of the natural world. Clark had something to say, but he layered so much onto his character and situation that they got buried under too many words (along with any point he wanted to make). Not helping matters is an indeterminate ending. In the stories Clark also had a larger purpose in mind; most are good, and one unobtrusively rises to greatness. “The Indian Well” opens with a long description of nature, but here the words relate to living creatures – road runners, lizards, coyotes, rabbits, antelope. And then man. A man and his mule arrive at the spring; they’re the latest in a long line of travelers, stretching back to time immemorial. Clark describes the ordinary events and the drama of this lone man’s stay. After a year he leaves (this time more alone than when he came); at his departure “the disturbed life of the spring resumed.” This story evokes the great and harsh cycle of existence, and man’s uneasy place in it. 

Red Harvest - Dashiell Hammett 
There’s a grimy feel to this novel, and that’s its main virtue. Hammett’s unembellished prose efficiently captures the disreputable denizens of Poisonville. Dinah Brand stands out, fascinating and formidable; I almost kept reading just to get more of this tough dame. Almost. I quit the book at the halfway point, after a couple of ridiculous shootouts. Actually, my doubts began early on, when the nameless private eye states that he knows who murdered a guy. Huh? I had no clue who did it (things had gotten complicated quick). It turns out to be a character who appears for only two pages and who’s presented (by the author) as the most unlikely suspect of all. This isn’t playing fair with the reader. Then a boxer knocks out an opponent who’s supposed to win (the fix is on) and immediately gets a knife in the neck. This knife is thrown from somewhere in the back of a crowded arena. I’m supposed to swallow this nonsense? The real crime that needs solving is why the Library of America devoted two volumes to the work of Hammett. 

The Radiant Way - Margaret Drabble 
I consumed this book like comfort food – and it wasn’t junk but carefully-prepared dishes like smoked salmon with morel sauce. It gave me a warm feeling of comradery, which is the strength of TV series featuring an enduring set of friends (though this novel’s three female characters are too discerning to waste their time watching sitcoms on the telly). Alix is the most grounded; Esther is otherworldly and enigmatic; Liz vacillates between contentment and turmoil. The novel opens with a New Year’s Eve party given by Liz and her husband at their posh Harley Street home; as 1980 is rung in Liz learns that her husband is leaving her for another woman. What follows covers a span of five years; the women’s lives are altered in many ways, some good, some bad. England itself (there’s a strong element of social commentary) is greatly changed, much for the worse. This is an ambitious, complex, intelligent book. It’s also a messy melange. But I have no desire to go into its faults. For nearly four hundred densely-packed pages it kept alive in me those feelings of comfort and comradery, and feelings sweep aside criticism. I thought Drabble might be going seriously off course in the book’s last fourth, but she righted the ship and sailed it into its berth – to the very place where it belonged. * 

Death of a Doxy - Rex Stout 
Archie takes center stage, and he’s as lively and engaging as ever. My problem with this Nero Wolfe outing is that the murderer’s identity is based entirely on an alias he uses in an extortion note. Does the name Milton Thales mean anything to you? It didn’t to me, but to Nero Wolfe it pointed directly to one person. If this character hadn’t chosen that particular name there wouldn’t be a scrap of evidence against him. That’s flimsy. A mystery should present a preponderance of evidence that enables the attentive reader to identify the bad guy. Stout usually does this, but not here. Also, in the three Wolfe mysteries I’ve previously read the guilty party commits suicide; in this one he’s murdered, though the police rule his death to be a suicide. Case closed.