The Maltese Falcon
Dashiell Hammet
-
-
3.9 • 478 Ratings
-
Publisher Description
An Apple Books Classic edition.
Dashiell Hammett’s landmark detective novel introduced Sam Spade, a private eye who operates by his own slippery moral code in a world where everyone lies and almost no one gets out unscathed.
When a beautiful woman walks into Spade’s San Francisco office with a story that’s obviously fake, he takes the case anyway. Within hours, his partner is dead and Spade himself is a suspect. The hunt for a jewel-encrusted statue called the Maltese Falcon pulls him into a tangle of thieves, killers, and con artists, all willing to betray each other for a shot at the prize.
Spade plays every angle, trusting no one—not the cops, not his clients, and especially not the woman whose lies started it all. With a lean, brutal narrative that’s impossible to put down, The Maltese Falcon invented the hard-boiled detective and remains the template for every morally ambiguous hero that’s followed.
Customer Reviews
Positive reflections
His meditations give intimate descriptions of the common theories of life,-religious outlook- yet still offer usefulness for reflection and ultimately, application. (Moral philosophy)
Demonstrating the need for a modern translation
It is a fine service that this translation has been made freely available.
For myself, however, I find it an unsatisfactory translation, because the translator insists on using antique phrasings in the style of the King James Bible. Perhaps this was an effort to dignify and honor Aurelius' work, but Aurelius' thoughts need no such assistance, and are harmed by the artificial patina of age applied here, and the air of pontification it creates. Instead, his thoughts require only the clearest possible translation into modern English. That done, they speak for themselves and unpretentiously make their own dignity.
Unwittingly, in my view, this translation deprives Aurelius' thoughts of their natural dignity, forthrightness, and ability to speak directly to the reader across the millennia, by inserting the barrier of a pulpit between Aurelius and his reader.
Victorian translation.
Victorian translation. Accurate, but sounds a bit stilted to a modern ear.