RARA-AVIS: Re: The Flitcraft Parable

From: Dick Lochte ( dlochte@gmail.com)
Date: 28 Feb 2008


I go along with the general theory that the parable is Hammett's way of letting readers see a little into Spade's psyche. But I've always thought it also was another example of a writer putting himself into his creation. Hammett was a guy who, assuming his biographers are accurate, was a working detective who adjusted to not being a detective, who married a lovely nurse because, well, he was in this hospital, then adjusted to a life of not being in a hospital. And to carry it past the time when he wrote The Maltese Falcon, he was a writer who adjusted to not being a writer. A little simplistic, but what the hell ...



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