The Maltese Falcon: This Bird Is Not the Word

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worked as a detective himself. In the case of a detective novel though, excitement is the name of the game, and Hammett fails to deliver. The story is very slow, with very little to excite the reader.

The namesake of the story, the coveted Maltese Falcon statue, comes into Spades hands by little more than chance, no actual detective work. A man walks into his office and gives it to him, and after nearly 200 hundred pages leading up to that! This was both disappointing and anti-climactic. Coming back to Hammetts writing, the plot is also very much like a list of events, not a story. It is similar to reading a 250 page plot synopsis for a movie (which may explain why the 1941 movie adaptation got such positive reviews).

The third reason why The Maltese Falcon does not live up to it status as the mother of all detective fiction nor as classic literature is it’s lack of an overall theme. While there is no definition for a classic, they appear to be highly praised novels that are touching new people regardless of generation. In other words, classics are timeless. Timeless stories that provoke thought and emotion, whether they’re read in 1930, or 2015. The Maltese Falcon does not provoke any thought on the human condition. It is an account of a cliche detective in the 1930s. Maybe entertaining to readers of the time, given books were one of the few things around to provide entertainment, The Maltese Falcon bears no substance to a reader in 2015. It is a cultural artifact if nothing else.

From the exhausted list of classic literature out there, I have decided to examine three beloved classics that in their greatness magnify the shallowness of The Maltese Falcon. Those novels are Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, H. G. Wells The Island of Doctor Moreau, and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.

To Kill A Mockingbird is set in the same decade as The Maltese Falcon. This is where the similarities end. Harper Lee created complex characters who defied stereotypes so prevalent in The Maltese Falcon. It wasn’t a detective novel, yet we were in more suspense over Boo than we were interested in Samuel Spades doings. Lee portrayed flawed characters not unlike us, who struggled with the gargantuan issue of racial tension at the time. The issue of tolerance so strongly represented is one of such relevance today with the global issue of terrorism and ongoing discrimination.

H. G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau was written nearly forty years before The Maltese Falcon, yet was infinitely more compelling. Although the language was occasionally a hindrance, the imagery Wells created was inconceivably vivid. It was hauntingly twisted, yet at times beautiful. The real redemption of the novel though, were the morals and ideals questioned. Can man play God? What is unethical in science? Where is the distinction between right and wrong? Moral debates raised by the profound science fiction novel have plagued my mind since reading it, and countless others as well.

These three classics, though written decades apart, are all relatable today thanks to their timeless themes. The Maltese Falcon, however, lacks any greater meaning. Through its horrible writing, boring characters and plot, and lack of any depth, The Maltese Falcon fails to live up to its reputation. Exciting in the thirties, the detective novel has not stood the test of time and is, in my opinion, gravely misjudged as a classic.

Bibliography:

Hammett, D. 1930. The Maltese Falcon