At 04:05 PM 02/10/2007, you wrote:
>--- "Kerry J. Schooley"
><<mailto:gsp.schoo%40murderoutthere.com>
gsp.schoo@murderoutthere.com>
>wrote:
>
> >
> > Sorry William. We can both admire and
appreciate The
> > Maltese Falcon,
> > but you just don't get it.
>
>With all due respect, we'll just see about
that.
There needs to be more to this discussion that "is so," "is
not." Mustangs, T-birds, angels on pin-heads, split hairs and
protesting ladies are diversionary arguments; nothing to do
with the text. You cannot simply ignore that list Hammett
puts in Spade's mouth because you find it inconvenient. This
list is a rejection of what many in Western Judeo Christian
literature (and probably others) would say is all that makes
life worth living. He screws his partner's wife. He's as
capable of deception as anyone in the narrative. He is
cunning and clever, and has no friends or loved ones. If he
has won anything it is that his business will survive, and
what a sad business it is. On the evidence it rewards him
with little in the way of income or anything else.
You say this is not "screwed" in the noir sense, but tell me,
Romantic that you are, which of these "heroic" attributes
would you emulate?
So there, Kerry
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