The Dain Curse

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but Unusually Vacuous for Hammett.
Review: "The Dain Curse" originally appeared as 4 serials in "Black Mask" magazine, 1928-1929, and was reworked and published as a novel shortly thereafter. The novel impresses me more strongly as a soap opera in three acts than a detective story. Yes, there is a detective, the always nameless Continental Op. And there is certainly a mystery. There are a lot of mysteries, in fact. But "The Dain Curse" is the most far-fetched of Dashiell Hammett's works that I've read, and the least cynical of his novels. I wouldn't call this book well-written, but it's a page-turner. The plot is so convoluted that the reader is even more anxious than usual to read to the end in order to find out what our detective will make of it. And that's the heart of the novel's problems: We keep reading because we are curious to know how the Op will unravel this messy, incomprehensible case. We don't keep reading because we are interested in the characters, the story, or the language. Those elements are far less intriguing than I have come to expect from Hammett. Perhaps it's because Hammett strayed from the world of gangsters and thugs that he knew best, but "The Dain Curse"'s conglomeration of religious cults, drug addiction, melodrama, and bourgeois murder just isn't credible on any level. The central female character in the book, Gabrielle, is more of a damsel in distress than a femme fatale, and she is rather unattractive, physically and intellectually. There's nothing wrong with these things, in themselves, but they typify "The Dain Curse"'s departure from Dashiell Hammett's traditional themes and style. Unfortunately, if this novel was an experiment, it wasn't a very successful one. But I don't deny that it's entertaining on a certain level. "The Dain Curse" is quite a jigsaw puzzle, even if it isn't a credible one. And it gives the reader an opportunity to see another side of the Continental Op, for better or worse. I don't recommend it to those not already familiar with Hammett's work, though, because it's distinctly atypical.

Rating:
Summary: Not Hammett's best, but still plenty good enough!
Review: Of all the protagonists Dashiell Hammett created -- Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, Ned Beaumont -- the Continental Op, for my taste, is the most enduring and compelling. Professedly amoral, "only a hired hand with a hired hand's interest in your troubles," this 'middle-aged fatman' demands that you take him at face value . . . and yet Hammett's genius is such that you're pulled to look beyond that self-description, to look under the "calluses on the calluses" on his soul.

The Op beat, bludgeoned and shot his way through countless short stories, several of which Hammett later "cannibalized" (to use Raymond Chandler's term for a process he himself would employ) into two novels, one of which is "The Dain Curse," originally serialized in Black Mask magazine before its book publication.

Melodramatic in tone, ranging from San Francisco's Pacific Heights to the semi-fictional town of Quesada (an interesting blend of Monterey and Half Moon Bay, in actuality), the novel follows the Continental Op as he solves several seemingly disparate mysteries before he realizes that those "solutions" are bogus and that he can only get to the true bottom of matters and achieve a genuine resolution by "lifting" the "curse" which 20-year old Gabrielle Leggett is convinced dooms her.

She has a drug habit. Through a mixture of cajolery and bullying, the Op sets out to cure her. And Hammett's true genius begins to show itself:

Throughout the first half of the novel, Gabrielle is, frankly, insipid and easily dismissed. Yet once the Op begins to focus on her as the key to everything else, she emerges as a sympathetic and compelling individual, and this has everything to do with the question of motive: Is the Op simply helping her as the means to an end (i.e., his refusal to be manipulated into a false resolution), is he motivated rather by a refusal to allow her to be victimized any further, or . . . are his feelings not quite so impersonal as he claims? Tantalizingly, his statements to her and his subsequent comments at the novel's end are contradictory and -- in the latter case, at least to this writer's sensibilities -- not altogether convincing. Which, I'm completely convinced, are exactly as Hammett intended. Each reader is called upon to reach his or her own conclusion.

Suffice to say, without spoiling anything here, that justice is ultimately done (and how!) and the Continental Op continues on in his -- supposedly -- cold-blooded way. A "sleuth" or "manhunter," to use his terms. A "thieftaker," to use the 18th century British expression.

And yet, ever so much more. Whether he chooses to admit it or not. Ever so much more.

Rating:
Summary: More Continetal Op
Review: The Dain Curse begins with a routine insurance investigation. Some moderately valuable diamonds were stolen and the Continental Op is put on the case to find the culprit. Not soon after, the Op learns that something larger is going on. The family he is investigating has some deep secrets and maybe even a curse follows them. The story takes place in three parts with three different mysteries, but they culminate to solve the Dain Curse, which is at the center of all the action.

I was introduced to the Continental Op a few years ago in short story form and loved the character quite a bit. I've been saving the novels for a few years and it was worth the wait. Hammett became famous for Sam Spade and the Thin man, but the Continental Op is deserving of more attention. He's not typically handsome and he's even short and fat, but he has enough brains an no how to get the job done.

A shame that Hammett got sucked into revolutionary politics and spent the last 30 years of his life writing nothing of value, because his early stuff is nothing less than Great American Literature.

Rating:
Summary: In Spite of Flaws, Hammett's Second Novel Is A Winner
Review: Today, of course, Dashiell Hammett's reputation rests largely on the legendary novel THE MALTESE FALCON, but this does not mean that his other work isn't worth a look, and THE DAIN CURSE is a case in point: tightly written in a merciless tone, Hammett's second novel clearly sets the stage for much that was to follow.

Hammett first made his reputation as a pulp magazine author, churning out a series of short stories in a lean, mean prose that drew numerous fans and built critical attention. One of the most popular characters of his short story work was known as "the Continental Op"--an insurance detective ("Op" being short for "operative") whose various adventures would ultimately form the basis for this, Hammett's second novel-length effort.

Although some will disagree, I personally consider THE DAIN CURSE an noticeable improvement over Hammett's first novel, RED HARVEST. Like most of Hammett's work, both works are noteable for their hard-hitting prose, both offer convoluted plots, and both provide us with archetypical characterizations--but where I find RED HARVEST a strangely flat and slightly up-hill read, THE DAIN CURSE hooks you with the first few pages and holds your attention with ease throughout the entire course of the novel.

The story is, as previously stated, convoluted. The Op is called in to investigate stolen diamonds--but strangely enough, these diamonds are not really precious: they are imperfect stones loaned by a jeweler to scientist/artist Leggett, who experiments with them in an effort to improve their quality. Leggett seems as surprised as everyone that any one would actually go to the trouble of stealing them--but suddenly the tone of the characters shift, and those who first welcomed the investigation seem to resist it while those who originally opposed it seem to encourage it. Clearly, there is something more going on than a simple burglary, and it short order it becomes clear that the "something" is murder.

While THE DAIN CURSE is an entertaining read, it does have its flaws--and they are flaws that Hammett would take some pains to correct in his future work. Given that the novel is largely based on various short stories Hammett had previously written, it is hardly surprising that the movement of the plot has an episodic feel; there are actually points in the book where you feel the story has ended long before you've run out of pages, only to have Hammett spin off the plot into an unexpected direction with a somewhat awkward joining of the elements involved. The characters also tend to be inconsistent, and while this actually forms part of the plotline, Hammett does not entirely succeed in carrying off the effect.

Perhaps the single most oft-leveled accusation against the novel is that its heroine proves a largely unsympathetic character who lacks either the power of THE MALTESE FALCON'S perfidious Bridgett or the snap and spark of THE THIN MAN'S Nora. For myself, I did not find this the major flaw that so many others do; what is an issue, however, is the very limited attention Hammett offers the character in the first third of the novel, where she reads as a minor supporting character--and rather than build the role in a way that places her front and center, Hammett simply shifts gears and suddenly puts her at the forefront. The result is an extremely awkward transition that undercuts one's suspension of disbelief.

But whatever its flaws, THE DAIN CURSE is a truly entertaining read, written in the developing Hammett style that would peak with THE MALTESE FALCON. It may in some respects be a "developmental" work, but it is no less the worse for that, easily outclassing the vast majority of Hammett imitators that sprang up as the author rose to fame. Recommended to fans of the classic hard-boiled fiction school.

--GFT (Amazon.com Reviewer)--

Rating:
Summary: a real page turner
Review: Unlike most people, I feel that THE DAIN CURSE was one of the best novels that Hammett has written. After reading THE MALTISE FALCON, and THE THIN MAN, this novel seemed to keep my attention more than the other two. It had action at every turn, and seemed not to dwell on one point, but investigate the different aspects of the case. This was a great novel, and was worth reading.