Woman in the Dark

Rating:
Summary: Leaving us in the dark
Review: Dashiell Hammett hit gold with his rough-edged anti-heroes and shadowy plots. But he struck out in "Woman in the Dark," a tepid novella that originally appeared in "Liberty" magazine before vanishing for twenty years. Since this will be interesting only to Hammett completists, maybe it should have stayed lost.

A lovely young woman stumbles to a smalll house with an injured foot. It turns out the inhabitant of the house is Brazil, an ex-criminal who did time for killing a man in a brawl. A thug arrives to bring the girl, Luise, back to the man she is living with -- except Brazil punches him out. Now they're both in trouble... and in danger... and on the lam.

"Woman in the Dark" isn't a particularly thrilling thriller. Hammett's heart didn't seem to be in this tale; it's slow and wandering, and the grand showdown is somehow anticlimactic. What's more, it's very rushed -- it almost feels like Hammett scribbled it out with the intent of expanding it into a full-length novel.

Hammett's gritty, somewhat minimalist writing is a little awkward this time around. "One of the men pulled off his cap -- it was a gray tweed, matching his topcoat -- and..." is only one example of the unusually choppy style. But his sense of atmosphere is still unparalleled, with all the grime, grease and smoke of his urban backdrop.

The characterizations are sketchy at best. Brazil is much like Hammett's other anti-heroes, with a tough-guy attitude over some very intense feelings. Love interest Luisa is a walking paper doll, a typical exotic kept woman who falls for our anti-hero -- although it's never quite clear why they do fall in love.

"Woman in the Dark" is an unusually flat, sketchy novel by a classic mystery author. One of Hammett's few misfires, this is a curiosity but nothing worth getting excuted about.

Rating:
Summary: Leaving us in the dark
Review: Dashiell Hammett hit gold with his rough-edged anti-heroes and shadowy plots. But he struck out in "Woman in the Dark," a tepid novella that originally appeared in "Liberty" magazine before vanishing for twenty years. Since this will be interesting only to Hammett completists, maybe it should have stayed lost.

A lovely young woman stumbles to a smalll house with an injured foot. It turns out the inhabitant of the house is Brazil, an ex-criminal who did time for killing a man in a brawl. A thug arrives to bring the girl, Luise, back to the man she is living with -- except Brazil punches him out. Now they're both in trouble... and in danger... and on the lam.

"Woman in the Dark" isn't a particularly thrilling thriller. Hammett's heart didn't seem to be in this tale; it's slow and wandering, and the grand showdown is somehow anticlimactic. What's more, it's very rushed -- it almost feels like Hammett scribbled it out with the intent of expanding it into a full-length novel.

Hammett's gritty, somewhat minimalist writing is a little awkward this time around. "One of the men pulled off his cap -- it was a gray tweed, matching his topcoat -- and..." is only one example of the unusually choppy style. But his sense of atmosphere is still unparalleled, with all the grime, grease and smoke of his urban backdrop.

The characterizations are sketchy at best. Brazil is much like Hammett's other anti-heroes, with a tough-guy attitude over some very intense feelings. Love interest Luisa is a walking paper doll, a typical exotic kept woman who falls for our anti-hero -- although it's never quite clear why they do fall in love.

"Woman in the Dark" is an unusually flat, sketchy novel by a classic mystery author. One of Hammett's few misfires, this is a curiosity but nothing worth getting excuted about.

Rating:
Summary: Lacks the zip
Review: Hammett's style is good enough that you do care about the two main characters. But something's missing. It is almost as if he was lacking interest in his own story. Maybe not.

Whatever the case, it's worth reading just because it's Hammett. It tells the story of a guy who got a bad rap the first time around, and just a few weeks after getting out of jail, he finds himself in danger of going back. There's a feeling of hopelessness here and the ending seems a bit ambiguous.

It's a good crime adventure short, but far from the best Hammett. It's still worth having in your collection.

Rating:
Summary: Lacks the zip
Review: Hammett's style is good enough that you do care about the two main characters. But something's missing. It is almost as if he was lacking interest in his own story. Maybe not.

Whatever the case, it's worth reading just because it's Hammett. It tells the story of a guy who got a bad rap the first time around, and just a few weeks after getting out of jail, he finds himself in danger of going back. There's a feeling of hopelessness here and the ending seems a bit ambiguous.

It's a good crime adventure short, but far from the best Hammett. It's still worth having in your collection.

Rating:
Summary: really only of interest to fans
Review: Love may be a many splendored thing, but it sure as heck ruined Dashiell Hammett. This story originally appeared in three installments in Liberty magazine in April, 1933. He had met Lillian Hellman two years earlier, with whom he was to share a rather troubled but now mythical romance (and an unrepentant and slavish enthusiasm for Joseph Stalin) for the rest of his life. The next year he published his final novel, The Thin Man, and then fell silent with a writer's block that ranks second only to that of Joseph Mitchell in legend.

Woman in the Dark is certainly not a novel; at best it's a novella and even then it feels more like the outline for a longer work. The woman of the title is Luise Fischer, the Swiss-born kept woman of a wealthy thug named Kane Robson. Having walked out on him one evening, she twists her ankle and stops for help at cottage occupied by Brazil, a phlegmatic ex-con, who once killed a man in a barroom brawl. When Robson shows up with a henchmen to demand that Luise come back to him, Brazil punches the other man who bangs his head, perhaps fatally, on the fireplace mantle. Now both Brazil and Luise have a reason to take it on the lam :

He emptied his glass and went to the front door, where he made a pretense of looking out at the night.

As he turned from the door he caught her expression, though she hastily put the frown off her face. His smile, voice were mockingly apologetic : 'I can't help it. They had me away for a while--in prison, I mean--and it did that to me. I've got to keep making sure I'm not locked in.' His smile became more twisted. 'There's a name for it--claustrophobia--and that doesn't make it any better.'

'I am sorry,' she said. 'Was it--very long ago?'

'Plenty long ago when I went in,' he said dryly, 'but only a few weeks ago that I got out. That's what I came up here for--to try to get myself straightened out, see how I stood, what I wanted to do.'

'And?' she said softly.

'And what? Have I found out where I stand, what I want to do? I don't know.' He was standing in front of her, hands in pockets, glowering down at her. 'I suppose I've just been waiting for something to turn up, something I could take as a sign which way I was to go. Well, what turned up was you. That's good enough. I'll go along with you.'

So much for the set up, in the two sections that follow, the police track them down and Brazil is shot, but the ending suggests that everything may work out for the two who have by now fallen in love.

It's tempting to read the story autobiographically. Two interesting and seemingly dynamic characters meet up and embark on an exciting though fairly implausible love affair, but then their story just kind of tails off into ambiguous and unconvincing anticlimax. Despite periodic flashes of Hammett's trademark hardboiled style, the book is generally disappointing. The conclusion of the story in particular is a far cry from the great final scene of The Maltese Falcon. Ultimately, the book is interesting chiefly as an indicator of where Hammett was headed just before he stopped writing, but if it's an accurate indication, we didn't miss much.

GRADE : C

Rating:
Summary: really only of interest to fans
Review: Love may be a many splendored thing, but it sure as heck ruined Dashiell Hammett. This story originally appeared in three installments in Liberty magazine in April, 1933. He had met Lillian Hellman two years earlier, with whom he was to share a rather troubled but now mythical romance (and an unrepentant and slavish enthusiasm for Joseph Stalin) for the rest of his life. The next year he published his final novel, The Thin Man, and then fell silent with a writer's block that ranks second only to that of Joseph Mitchell in legend.

Woman in the Dark is certainly not a novel; at best it's a novella and even then it feels more like the outline for a longer work. The woman of the title is Luise Fischer, the Swiss-born kept woman of a wealthy thug named Kane Robson. Having walked out on him one evening, she twists her ankle and stops for help at cottage occupied by Brazil, a phlegmatic ex-con, who once killed a man in a barroom brawl. When Robson shows up with a henchmen to demand that Luise come back to him, Brazil punches the other man who bangs his head, perhaps fatally, on the fireplace mantle. Now both Brazil and Luise have a reason to take it on the lam :

He emptied his glass and went to the front door, where he made a pretense of looking out at the night.

As he turned from the door he caught her expression, though she hastily put the frown off her face. His smile, voice were mockingly apologetic : 'I can't help it. They had me away for a while--in prison, I mean--and it did that to me. I've got to keep making sure I'm not locked in.' His smile became more twisted. 'There's a name for it--claustrophobia--and that doesn't make it any better.'

'I am sorry,' she said. 'Was it--very long ago?'

'Plenty long ago when I went in,' he said dryly, 'but only a few weeks ago that I got out. That's what I came up here for--to try to get myself straightened out, see how I stood, what I wanted to do.'

'And?' she said softly.

'And what? Have I found out where I stand, what I want to do? I don't know.' He was standing in front of her, hands in pockets, glowering down at her. 'I suppose I've just been waiting for something to turn up, something I could take as a sign which way I was to go. Well, what turned up was you. That's good enough. I'll go along with you.'

So much for the set up, in the two sections that follow, the police track them down and Brazil is shot, but the ending suggests that everything may work out for the two who have by now fallen in love.

It's tempting to read the story autobiographically. Two interesting and seemingly dynamic characters meet up and embark on an exciting though fairly implausible love affair, but then their story just kind of tails off into ambiguous and unconvincing anticlimax. Despite periodic flashes of Hammett's trademark hardboiled style, the book is generally disappointing. The conclusion of the story in particular is a far cry from the great final scene of The Maltese Falcon. Ultimately, the book is interesting chiefly as an indicator of where Hammett was headed just before he stopped writing, but if it's an accurate indication, we didn't miss much.

GRADE : C

Rating:
Summary: Romance Hard-Boiled.
Review: Originally serialized in "Liberty" magazine in 1933, "Woman in the Dark" barely qualifies as a novella. It's more an extended short story. The book is subtitled "A Novel of Dangerous Romance", and some critics have suggested that this is Hammett's least cynical work in its view of love. I don't think it is, but it might be his most optimistic portrayal of love for one of his detectives. "Woman in the Dark" is romantic in its own hard-boiled way.

A foreign woman, Luise Fischer, trying to leave her domineering lover, takes refuge at the home of a no-nonsense ex-con name Brazil. Her lover and his henchman try to coerce her to return, and Luise and Brazil are forced to flee together when the altercation turns nasty. "Woman in the Dark" really isn't a fully fleshed-out story. It feels like a vignette: Lots of texture. Interesting characters, about whom we learn almost nothing. It's the story of an incident and its aftermath among a small group of people. I enjoyed it. I would definitely recommend it to Hammett fans. But this is Hammett Lite. 3 1/2 stars. The Vintage Crime edition includes an inconsequential introduction by Robert B. Parker.

Rating:
Summary: Romance Hard-Boiled.
Review: Originally serialized in "Liberty" magazine in 1933, "Woman in the Dark" barely qualifies as a novella. It's more an extended short story. The book is subtitled "A Novel of Dangerous Romance", and some critics have suggested that this is Hammett's least cynical work in its view of love. I don't think it is, but it might be his most optimistic portrayal of love for one of his detectives. "Woman in the Dark" is romantic in its own hard-boiled way.

A foreign woman, Luise Fischer, trying to leave her domineering lover, takes refuge at the home of a no-nonsense ex-con name Brazil. Her lover and his henchman try to coerce her to return, and Luise and Brazil are forced to flee together when the altercation turns nasty. "Woman in the Dark" really isn't a fully fleshed-out story. It feels like a vignette: Lots of texture. Interesting characters, about whom we learn almost nothing. It's the story of an incident and its aftermath among a small group of people. I enjoyed it. I would definitely recommend it to Hammett fans. But this is Hammett Lite. 3 1/2 stars. The Vintage Crime edition includes an inconsequential introduction by Robert B. Parker.

Rating:
Summary: Brief, but all the best of Hammett
Review: This is a brief story, about 75 pages, but packs in all of Hammett's hard-boiled best. The mysterious, beautiful woman appears one night, with a trail of trouble catching up to her. Our hero, if you could call him that, offers his help without knowing what help she needs. Her past catches up to her, his catches up to him, and hers catches up to him.

He's sleaze but she trusts him, a little. His friends are sleaze but he trusts them, a little. The cops are sleaze, and nobody trusts them.

You weren't looking for the Great American Novel, you were looking at Hammett. It's dark, moody, and gritty, as you expected. but the right people get something in the end. It's not the finest, but it's a godd evening's read.

//wiredweird

Rating:
Summary: Skillfully written.
Review: This pamphlet sized publication is really a short story which can easily be read in one sitting. It's about an ex-con and a mystery woman who meet one stormy night and are forced to take flight from the woman's rich boyfriend as well as the police. Hammett's craftsmanship as a writer is well demonstrated here.The dialogue is superb; crisp, uncomplicated and studded with 1930s slang. The narrative portion of the text is equally remarkable with sentence structure that can best be described as elegant in its simplicity. Hammet provides the exact amount of information necessary to move the story forward. No more, no less. Leaving to the reader's imagination the tasks of fleshing out the characters and supplying the individual backstories that led up to the situations contained in these pages. The Woman in the Dark is storytelling in its most refined form and a great example of Dashiell Hammett's best work.