The Maltese Falcon

San Francisco reeks of moral ambiguity in The Maltese Falcon. Samuel Spade is crooked, harsh with ladies, sleeps with his partner's wife, and has no problem breaking or bending the law when it fits him. In this narrative, everyone is double-crossing everyone else in order to find a priceless Maltese falcon that somehow ended up in San Francisco after a heist in Constantinople. However, as a reader raised by Agatha Christie's Poirot, Mosley's Easy Rawlins and, of course, Sherlock Holmes, adjusting to Sam Spade and the morally corrupted detectives like him takes some adjustment. Hammett's writing style could be a bit awkward, too, although it's perfect how he never explains the interior thoughts of the characters, allowing them to keep their secrets until everything comes to a shattering resolution in the final chapter. This novel has everything: suspense, intrigue, femme fatale, San Francisco at dark, conflicts with law enforcement, murder, and a lost treasure. The novel seems to be a commentary on the thin line between the detective and the social forces he, at best, is supposed to allay. But, is someone like Sam Spade truly any better than Gutman, Cairo, Brigid or Thursby? Perhaps he is a necessary evil, since he is ultimately the one who tracks down the murderer of Miles Archer. 

Mary and the Giant

An early novel by PKD, Mary and the Giant features a young woman adrift in a small California town of the 1950s. Mary is not sure what she wants, like many young people, but she rejects the mainstream aspirations and habits of her peers and community. She feels a certain affinity for African-Americans since they too are excluded from the mainstream, but despite her relationships with various men, she doesn't find what she's looking for. Tweaney, her African-American lover and singer, falls short. She also rejects her fiance Dave Gordon, who accepts the status quo and doesn't deviate from the mainstream. Joseph Schilling also falls short. However, what interests me the most about this realist novel of Dick, is the use of jazz. Jazz operates as an aura of urban cool and popular taste that rejects the mainstream. Jazz is urban. Jazz is Negro. Through Paul Nitz, her final lover in the novel, Mary experiences bop jazz, as well as life in San Francisco. The tiny town of Pacific Park couldn't hold her, so the big city wins in the end. Jazz and jump provided the context for black-white intimacy, Mary's independence from her family, and, ultimately, her liberation. Classical music, the genre preferred by Schilling, though stimulating to Mary, loses to the jazz musician Paul Nitz and the chance to break out of the mold represented by the genre. The battle between the urban and rural in California plays out in this novel (a pattern in some of Dick's realist fiction), but here the musical element predominates. Sure, Dick's Mary has a rather condescending view of African-Americans at times, but jazz as a symbol of a very American fixation on breaking from the confines of society and establishing oneself are powerful themes. All in all, a sweet and casual read, but not unworthy of one of the 20th century's greatest science fiction authors. One truly feels the turmoil of young adulthood and sailing adrift.

The Broken Bubble

The Broken Bubble was one of Dick's realist novels published posthumously. It's prose is awkward and clunky. The four central characters, two couples, brings to mind the more successful Confessions of a Crap Artist. However, 1950s San Francisco truly emerges as a character in this novel, and intergenerational conflict between teenagers (with their affiliated gangs, clubs, maltshake diners, skating rinks) and the older generation sheds a fresh light on Philip K. Dick. Presumably, his teen characters reflected some of his fan base (science fiction readers of the day), and perhaps he wrote this novel with that in mind? Indeed, one of the teens writes a science fiction short story himself and despite its corny nature, one cannot help but think Dick was defending some of the virtues of the genre for moral value. In spite of the novel's horrendous depictions of the struggle of married life and selflessness, Jim Briskin (not the same first black president Briskin in Crack in Space) sticks by his ex-wife while Art and Rachael struggle through with their marriage. Unfortunately, most of the minor characters and subplots are not as seamless as they should be, so the whole narrative is disjointed. But as an early example of Dick's writing and with a San Francisco setting, one sees how the rise of the teenager complicated life in American culture of the time. 

Being Black in San Francisco

Came across this interesting article today about the experiences of a black woman living amidst white hipsters who have taken over the 'progressive' city of San Francisco, the very same city that has essentially put all the niggas on the other side of the bridge, to quote Chappelle. Although I have never lived in or even visited the Bay Area yet, I can speak to hipster and 'progressive' white racists from a similarly stereotyped 'progressive' or 'liberal' American city. White folks from a local progressive party (including one loser and former drug addict who lost in a race for political office, thank God), hipsters I lived with in a housing cooperative, and many others all made me sympathize with the writer of the above piece.