Sam Again
Vienna, 1950. Twenty years have passed, but Sam Spade is still determined to get hold of the Maltese falcon. His current connection is Harry Lime, and the two of them are confabulating at the top of the Prater’s Ferris wheel. «I’ve found a clue,» Lime says. Descending, they head for the Café Mozart, where, in one corner, a black musician is playing As Time Goes By on a zither. At the little table in the rear, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, which is wearing a bitter smile, there is Rick. Among the documents Ugarte showed him, he has found a clue; he shows Sam Spade a photograph of Ugarte. «Cairo!» the private eye murmurs. «When I knew him he went by the name of Peter Lorre,» Lime says with a sneer.
Rick continues: in Paris, which he entered in triumph with de Gaulle and his forces, he learned of the existence of an American spy, whom the OSS had released from San Quentin in order to set him on the trail of the falcon. The word then was that he had killed Victor Laszlo in Lisbon. He should be arriving any minute. The door opens and a woman appears. «Ilsa!» cries Rick. «Brigid!» cries Sam Spade. «Anna Schmidt!» cries Lime. «Miz Scarlett!» the black man cries, turning that gray color that blacks turn when they blanch, «You’re back! Don’t hurt Massa!» The woman has an enigmatic smile. «I am as you desire me…. And as for the falcon…»
«Yes?» the others all cry, in one voice.
«As for the falcon,» the fascinating adventuress replies, «it wasn’t a falcon. It was a hawk.»
«Screwed!» Spade murmurs, «and for the second time!» He clenches his jaw, making his profile all the more sharp.
«Give me back that hundred dollars,» Harry Lime says. «You never get anything right.»
«A cognac,» Rick orders, ashen.
From the end of the bar the form of the man in the mackintosh emerges, a sarcastic smile playing about his lips. It is Captain Renault. «Come, Molly,» he says to the woman. «The Deuxième Bureau men are waiting for us at Combray.»
1982
How to Use Suspension Points
In «How to Recognize a Porn Movie» we will see that to distinguish a pornographic film from a film that merely depicts erotic events, it is sufficient to discover whether, to go from one place to another by car, the characters take more time than the spectator would like or the story would require. A similar scientific criterion can be applied to distinguish the professional writer from the Sunday, or non-writer (who can still be famous). This is the use of suspension points in the middle of a sentence.
Writers use suspension points only at the end of a sentence, to indicate that more could be written on the subject («and this point could be further elaborated, but…»), or, in the middle of a sentence or between two sentences, to underline the fragmentary nature of a quotation («Friends … I come to bury Caesar…»). Non-writers use these dots to crave indulgence for a rhetorical figure that they consider perhaps too bold: «He was raging like a … bull.»
A writer is someone determined to extend language beyond its boundaries, and he therefore assumes full responsibility for a metaphor, even a daring one: «The moving waters at their priestlike task / Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores.» Everyone agrees that Keats has allowed his fancy to soar, but at least he makes no apology for that. The non-writer, on the other hand, would have written: «The moving waters at their … priestlike … task/ Of pure … ablution.» As if to say: don’t mind me, I’m only joking.
A writer writes for writers, a non-writer writes for his next-door neighbor or for the manager of the local bank branch, and he fears (often mistakenly) that they would not understand or, in any case, would not forgive his boldness. He uses the dots as a visa: he wants to make a revolution, but with police permission.
The following little list of variations may serve to indicate the ghastliness of these dots, suggesting what might have happened to literature if our writers had lacked self-confidence:
«A … rose by any other name»
«Never send to know … for whom the bell … tolls.»
«A man’s a … man for a’ that.»
«Call me … Ishmael.»
«The widow Douglas she took me for her … son, and allowed she would sivilize me.»
«Who’s afraid of … Virginia Woolf?»
«April is the cruellest … month»
«I am a camera with its … shutter open»
And so, down to: «riverrun, past Eve and … Adam’s»
Not that it matters if the Great would have looked foolish. But, as you see, these dots, suggesting the writer’s fear of using bold, figured speech, can also be used to suggest his suspicion that the rhetorical figure, by itself, will seem literal and flat. An example. The Communist Manifesto of 1848 begins, as everyone knows, with the words «A specter is haunting Europe,» and you must admit this is a great incipit. It would still be pretty good if Marx and Engels had written «A … specter is haunting Europe»; they would merely have suggested, perhaps, that communism might not be such a terrible and elusive thing, and the Russian revolution might have taken place fifty years earlier, maybe with the Czar’s consent, and Mazzini would have taken part in it, too.
But what if they had written «A specter is … haunting Europe»? Is there some doubt about its haunting? Is it stable? Or do specters, per se, appear and disappear in a flash, suddenly, with no real time for haunting? But that isn’t all. What if they had written «A specter is haunting … Europe»? Would they have implied that they were really exaggerating, that the specter at most might be haunting Trier, and people everywhere else needn’t worry? Or would they be suggesting that the specter of communism was already haunting also the Americas and—who could say?—maybe even Australia?
«To be or … not to be, that is the question.» «To be or not to be, that is the … question.» «To be or not … to be, that is the question.» You can see how much work Shakespearean scholarship would have to do, plumbing the Bard’s meanings.
All men are created equal.
All … men are created equal.
All men are … created equal.
All men are created … equal.
All men are created equally entitled to use suspension points.
1991
How to Write an Introduction
The purpose of this article is to explain how you put together the introduction to a book of essays, a philosophical treatise, or a collection of scientific articles, to be published, ideally, by a university press or its equivalent, all in accordance with the rules long established in the academic world.
In the paragraphs that follow I will clarify, as succinctly as possible, why an introduction must be written, what it must comprise, and how to list the acknowledgments: for skill in making acknowledgments is the hallmark of the thoroughbred scholar. It can sometimes happen that a scholar, his task completed, discovers that he has no one to thank. Never mind. He will invent some debts. Research without indebtedness is suspect, and somebody must always, somehow, be thanked.
In preparing this article I have drawn on a long and invaluable familiarity with scholarly publications; these have been brought to my attention by the Ministry of Public Education of the Italian Republic, the Universities of Turin and Florence, the Polytechnic Institute of Milan, and the University of Bologna, as well as New York University, Yale University, and Columbia University.
I could not have completed this work without the patient and impeccable collaboration of Signora Sa-bina, thanks to whom my study, which by 2 A.M. is reduced to an undefined mass of cigarette stubs and waste paper, every morning is found in acceptable condition once more. My special thanks also to Barbara, Simona, and Gabriella, whose efforts have saved my hours of reflection from the importune interruption of transatlantic calls inviting me to conferences on the most disparate subjects, alike only in being remote from my personal interests.
This article would not have been possible without the unfailing assistance of my wife, who, always ready with the reassurance that all is vanity, was—and is—able to tolerate the moods and demands of a scholar constantly obsessed by the major problems of existence. Her devotion in offering me apple juice, successfully passing it off as the most refined Scotch malt, has been an immeasurable and incredible contribution, documented by the fact that these pages have retained a minimum of lucidity.
My children have been a source of great comfort to me and have provided me with the affection, the energy, and the confidence to complete my self-imposed task. Thanks to their complete, Olympian detachment from my work, I have found the strength to conclude this article after a daily struggle with the definition of the intellectual’s role in a postmodern society. I am indebted to them for inspiring an unshakable determination to withdraw into my study and write these pages, rather than encounter in the hall their best friends, whose hairdresser follows esthetic criteria that revolt my sensibilities.
The publication of this text has been made possible by the generosity and the economic support of Carlo Caracciolo, Lio Rubini, Eugenio Scalfari, Livio Za-netti, Marco Benedetto, and the other members of the board of directors of the publishing firm of L’Espresso. My special thanks to the