The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

I watched The Maltese Falcon (the movie) for the first time not that long ago, so when the book was picked for the March read of a book club I'm in, I was sort of intrigued...and sort of not. I'd actually seen the book in the downtown Ann Arbor Borders once and picked it up and flipped through it and decided that it was probably a dated, pulp-fictiony novel that was only still in print because it happened to be made into a movie that became famous.

And now that I've read it, I can say that that's kind of what it is. It reads like a dime store novel from the 1930s. The plot isn't terribly complex, the characters' motivations aren't well developed. There's mystery and snappy dialogue peppered with sex and violence and rough language (1930's style - it's pretty tame by today's standards), and while it was engaging enough that I didn't dislike reading it, it is a bit dated in style and tone. I found the movie easier to appreciate and enjoy.

I don't think it's that The Maltese Falcon is a poorly written book. I think there are a lot of interesting things in there (gender roles, the falcon as a MacGuffin, historical context, the importance of place) and our book club discussion, which covered some but not all of those, was long and interesting. But one of the things we talked about in our discussion was about how popular genres change over time, and how this book reflected that change. We talked about how themes and tropes and storytelling elements that seem trite or cliché originated somewhere, and weren't trite or cliché at the time. This book is a different read now than it was 80 years ago when it was written, and while it didn't really resonate with me, there was something historically and culturally interesting in reading it. I wouldn't go out and read more Dashiell Hammett detective novels, but it was kind of fun to read just one.