The Big Knockover: Selected Stories And Short Novels (1989) - Plot & Excerpts
I read this as a follow-up to reading The Continental Op, which I enjoyed very much. This volume includes eight more stories featuring the Op, as well as an unfinished novel, Tulip. The Op's stories were great, as I expected. I thought that with some of these stories, Hammett seemed to be playing with other genres, although the hard-boiled style was the same. The Gutting of Couffignal was almost a military story, while Corkscrew was a shoot-'em-up western. I also liked the character in this story known as "Milk River" (as nameless as the Op himself), and the relationship between him and the Op, which I thought was unusual. The Op normally doesn't get too involved with anyone else, but I think he came to feel a real friendship for Milk River. I think that Hammett must have had fun writing the title story, The Big Knockover, because it was so big that he got to make up literally dozens of colorful names for the crooks!The unfinished novel, Tulip, was interesting, and I feel a bit ambivalent about it. The story involves a first-person narrator, very autobiographical, and a visitor named Tulip. These two men play a game of words with each other, which is often difficult to understand. Hammett also injects other stories into the narrative: the narrator relates, in his own words, a story that Tulip tells him about something that happened to him (or maybe didn't), later he reads aloud an old newspaper article that he wrote years earlier, that Tulip has saved - a very esoteric review of a book about the Rosicrucians by the mystic Waite (the man behind the Rider-Waite Tarot, I believe), and later still, the narrator relates a long account of what happened to him in several hospitals following the first World War, when he had TB. Although Hammett never finished the novel, he did write a few concluding paragraphs, in which,, months later, he has shown Tulip a manuscript that he has written (the preceding narrative, perhaps?), and Tulip tells him he didn't get the point. I'm not sure I did, either.The book also includes an interesting and touching introduction by Lillian Hellman, Hammett's long-time lover.
I own the Library of America edition of Hammett’s stories so I was surprised when I picked up this book at a library book sale and saw that it had many stories not included in that edition. Most in this set are longer stories – almost novellas – with overblown, outsized plots worthy of a Die-Hard-style Hollywood treatment. But they are, I feel, not Hammett’s best work. The collection starts with an improbable story about small island taken over by an army of thugs intent on robbing a jewelry store and bank. There are a few more typical noir stories, then an odd tale of the Continental Op riding horses and bringing the law to a western town. There’s even a street gunfight. Then there’s an odder story about the Continental Op going to Europe to help a young millionaire become king, and then help him escape. There’s also a rather racist story about Asian gangsters in San Francisco.The last two stories in the book constitute a novella of their own. It is about an improbable bank heist involving a hundred crooks from all over the US. This concludes with an equally improbable ending where the Continental Op’s life is saved. The story continues in the next tale with the capture and death of the mastermind of the bank robbery. The most interesting piece is also the most out of place and unusual, Tulip. It’s an autobiographical story about a guy trying to convince a writer to write about his life. It’s a very interesting way for Hammett to write about himself and this character at the same time. I like the concept. While the style is clearly Hammett, the story is anything like his. But it’s a great concept. It’s too bad he didn’t finish it. For the Hammett completest, I suppose this is a must-have. But you could do worse trying to find some light reading. I’d recommend that most folks start with the Continental Op collection or the Library of American edition (if you want a good hardcover).
What do You think about The Big Knockover: Selected Stories And Short Novels (1989)?
I'd been meaning for a while to dip my toes in the realm of gritty, old-school noir, and this book was my first foray into the genre.I can't say that these stories represent any particular level of profundity or that Hammet's writing is the work of a great literary genius, but looking at his work relative to popular culture, it's impossible not to acknowledge the influence that he's had. I love when it's when it's possible to trace simplistic cliches back to their roots, and place them in their original contexts, thus giving us a reference point from to appreciate them when they pop up in contemporary works. Even in writing about these stories, it's difficult not to use phrases like "hard-boiled," or to imagine gorilla-like muscle men with a cigarette dangling from their lips, and a piece of cold steel hidden in their coats. But in the end, I think it's these over the top and cartoonish qualities in stories like these which have allowed them to stand the test of time. We are enraptured by this fantasy world and its many outlandish, flawed, often broken characters.
—Bobby
The Big Knockover is something of an odds-and-ends collection of Hammett's short fiction. Most of it is filled with stories about The Continental Op, basically the first hard-boiled detective, and as a whole they're pretty good. Some of the tales - Dead Yellow Women and the title story in particular - stand out and really pack a punch. And like a wise man one said about pizza or Eric Clapton's guitar playing, even when an Op story isn't at it's best, it's still pretty good. It's interesting to read these stories with the hindsight of how Hammett's career went. One can see him experimenting with location and content in these tale even as he keeps the Op at their core; Corkscrew reads as a hard-boiled western, This King Business delves into federal politics in a post-WW1 European country and Dead Yellow Women has a theme of patriotism blended into a story about human trafficking. There's really some depth to these stories, which show Hammett as a writer who could take inspiration from a range of ideas.At the same time, the book includes a section of an unfinished novel of Hammett's called Tulip. It's an odd story about a writer - almost surely based on himself - who can no longer write. It's not exceptionally good and in a way it's depressing to see Hammett trying to write his way out of a creative block. It really doesn't fit in with the rest of the story, although I can see why it was included by editor Lillian Hellman.It's too bad that Vintage hasn't collected all the Op stories - the ones here and in the Nightmare Town and Continental Op volumes while cutting out the other stores - in one book. But until they do, this book is the one to go with.
—M. Milner
This is not your usual collection of short stories. (Ok, in a the modern era where everyone seems to have posthumously published works, maybe it's not so unusual.) In the covers of this book we have:a) Lillian Helman's words about the man,b) Several gritty, pulp-style dark slices of life with our friend The Continental Op, andc) Snatches of incomplete tales, including the unfinished novel, "Tulip".Need I say any more?Even if you only care for the classic "film noir", bleak American style of hard-boiled detection the Op's appearances in this book will keep you satisfied. But, if you delve into the introduction and the other works, you'll reap an unexpected bonus that I found well worth the price of the book. I hope you do, too.(Another book read ages ago and probably deserving of a re-read.)
—Mike
