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Hard Boiled Summer Reading
Jun. 11th, 2018 08:38 amI signed up for my library's Adult Summer Reading program (if I read 8 books I get a raffle entry and free books), and currently I'm working on "The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett. I picked it up awhile back at a thrift store having seen the movie years ago and just being curious about it because it's so famous.
It's... different.
Like, it's just about as misogynistic as I would have expected, and the dated slang throws me off only occasionally. It's oddly clunky with how obsessed it is with desciptions, especially of people's changes of facial expression (maybe this is what taking "show don't tell" too far looks like), and I'm bemused at how much of it is basically Sam Spade laconically hanging around his office and apartment while people stop by and exchange impenetrable dialogue. The main characters are constantly lying to each other and making judgments about each other's lies that the reader is mostly not privy to, and it's more annoying than compelling. And there's also... I just feel like this story is the product of a culture alien to me, so it has an odd flavor that I'm not sure what to make of.
It's like Toxic Masculinity Pho.
(Well, if you're as inexperienced as I am. I've only had Pho once and the waitress had to tell me not to eat the basil.)
It's... different.
Like, it's just about as misogynistic as I would have expected, and the dated slang throws me off only occasionally. It's oddly clunky with how obsessed it is with desciptions, especially of people's changes of facial expression (maybe this is what taking "show don't tell" too far looks like), and I'm bemused at how much of it is basically Sam Spade laconically hanging around his office and apartment while people stop by and exchange impenetrable dialogue. The main characters are constantly lying to each other and making judgments about each other's lies that the reader is mostly not privy to, and it's more annoying than compelling. And there's also... I just feel like this story is the product of a culture alien to me, so it has an odd flavor that I'm not sure what to make of.
It's like Toxic Masculinity Pho.
(Well, if you're as inexperienced as I am. I've only had Pho once and the waitress had to tell me not to eat the basil.)
