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GLASS_KEY
March 27, 2003
The Glass Key (1931) Rev: June 19, 2004
by Dashiell Hammett:
The initial set-up:
Our hero is "Ned The politician is Paul
Beaumont", who is Madvig, a machine-boss On top of this, there's
as he describes who is also running a bookie who tries to
himself "a gambler, speakeasies and skip without paying Ned
and a politician's gambling houses; Beaumont's winnings;
hanger-on". cutting a deal with a the girlfriend the
hoity-toity Senator bookie abandons; Paul
because he's after his Madvig's daughter,
daughter; and fighting who's been fooling
a rear-guard action about with the
against a rival Senator's son Taylor
speakeasy operator Henry; and Taylor Henry
who's even more vicious himself, who ends up
than he is. dead in the street near
"The Log Cabin Club"
This is the that Paul Madvig uses
book Hammett as a base of
wrote after operations.
"The Maltese
Falcon". (Heh: "Log Cabin
Club". Paul Madvig
It has much in common is no Abraham
in style and theme Lincoln.)
with it's more famous
predecessor, but I
recommend this one For one thing, it has
more highly. not had the meaning
sucked out of it by a
film adaptation as
Style: if one man is excellent as the 1941 G_IN_THE_AIR
responsible for "Maltese Falcon".
crystallizing the
American style, it's (As far as the filmed
Hammett: he perfected "Glass Key" goes:
clean, simple, direct Pretty boy war hero
prose. Alan Ladd borders on
the pet rock
(Hemingway is often given category, though
credit for "inventing" William Bendix did a
this, but "The Sun Also fine job with the
Rises" was published in character Jeff.)
1926, and Hammett's
"Continental Op" stories
started running in 1924.)
The immediately striking
thing about "The Glass When Hammett wrote the
Key" (like "The Maltese Glass Key he *may* have
Falcon") is that it is been thinking of it as But there was
completely, relentlessly, a movie script in novel certainly influence
external. form ("The Jazz Singer" going the other
had been released in way: there were a
The third-person 1927. But he was number of attempts
narration follows the already going in this at doing "The
main character around, direction some years Maltese Falcon" in
and records what he does before that, circa movie form, before
and says, but never ducks 1924: my guess is that John Huston did the
inside his head to tell this was a minimal definitive version
us what he thinks. influence. in 1941, with
Humphrey Bogart.
A hot topic in mid-20s Of course, it
literature was "stream *could* be he (And for once
of consciousness": was thinking Hollywood had
writers like James about stage the sense to
Joyce and Virginia plays... stop.)
Woolf attempted to
capture on paper the But the distance
torrent of words that from audience to
flow through the human curtain line is
mind. much larger than
from the reader
Hammett on the other to Beaumont's
hand, evidentally mustache.
believed that this
was impossible,
that no one FOGGY_BOTTOM
understands human
thought well enough
to record it honestly.
"The Glass Key" is in
effect (and perhaps by
design) an anti-"stream
of consciousness"
story: the reader
knows everything that
goes on, but can only
infer why.
But Hammett isn't pushing
the Literary Ambiguity in
your face... it's largely Or at least, the reader
pretty clear what's going usually *thinks* it's clear:
on in Ned Beaumont's head. different readers sometimes
find they disagree when they
compare notes.
SPOILERS
Ambiguities:
When Beaumont first breaks with
One of the virtues of the Madvig, he ends up getting roped
"Black Mask"/hardboiled in by Shad.
school is it's rejection BLACK_MASKS
of the absurdities of the Later, Beaumont gets together
mystery genre. with Madvig again for awhile,
and the world at large decides
There are no curare-dipped it was all a trick in the first
barbed shoe-laces, and no place, a shifty maneuver to get
succotash on the stairs at Shad.
over the suit of armor with
crossed-halbreds. I know at least one person who
got the impression that that was
However, "The Maltese Falcon" actually supposed to be the case.
does have a rather romantic
macguffin (a piece of
historically significant It seems pretty clear to
jewel-studded gold -- though me that Hammett had the
characteristically it never opposite idea in mind:
actually appears on stage). human character is much
And similarly, the main more shapeless than that,
character in "The Maltese and human motivations
Falcon" is the rather much less rational.
unlikely Lone Private Eye. Beaumont gets mad, and
walks out, then starts
"The Glass Key" has the toying around with Shad
gritty realism cranked for the hell of it and
up another few notches, get's pushed back into
with it's backdrop of Madvig's camp when Shad
corrupt politics and an starts playing hardball.
ethically dubious
political fixer as a The details of what Beaumont was
main character. *really* trying to do remain
open questions:
My first guess with
this kind of tale of Maybe he was just
corruption is that trying to see if
the author is trying he could con Shad
to use fiction to into letting him
say some things that walk out with a
you might not get ten thousand
away with dollar "payoff" in
otherwise... his pocket and a
train-ticket out
When Hammet was of town.
writing, Prohibition
was in full swing, Maybe he was
and Jimmy Walker and blowing some
the Tammany Machine smoke for Madvig,
were still in charge but just for old
of New York City. time's sake as a
parting gift.
So maybe the author
is trying to Maybe Beaumont
puncture some himself doesn't
naivete: The message really know and
is that underneath hadn't thought
the respectable it out very
front your leaders clearly...
put up, there's
greed, power-lust,
stupidity, and That seems to be the
corruption too conception of
clumsy to be Beaumont's character:
glorified with words he really *is* a
like "conspiracy". gambler, and he
constantly dives into
things without a
But this mission appears to plan, and then trys
be completely hopeless: to see what he can
everyone is always willing squeeze out of the
to believe stuff like this situation.
about some other land, or
some distant time, but not Was he really sure
about *our* boy, not in what he was going
*this* day and age. to do when he
lifted one of
But I'm afraid that Taylor Henry's
Paul Madvig has a hats?
lot in common with
the last mayor of Why exactly *did*
San Francisco. he go out to the
house where
(And I've got Matthews (the
my suspicions editor of the
about the Observer) lived?
present one as
well.) Twice over, he has a
hand in manipulating
things so that Paul
Madvig's enemies die,
but he can't really
be said to have
planned their deaths.
The glass key can open the door,
but it's fragile, it may break
and leave you with the door stuck
open. You will have to live with
whatever was on the other side of
it, and it may not be -- probably
won't be -- what you expected.
So what is
The Glass Key
really?
Consciousness?
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