Well, it is true that Gutman and company are criminals and
Spade defends himself against them, but the fact remains
that, unlike in real life, their sexual orientation was a
choice made by the author. But I have to agree that a
revisionist approach is only good for highlighting the
attitudes of the age, not in judging the material as a work
of literature.
And Spade was not a nice guy. Hammett compares him to Satan
in the first couple of sentences of the book. I'd even say
that if the bird was real, Spade would have run off with
Brigit. People tend to project a sense of moral justice on
Spade and I think that's incorrect.
Stephen Allan www.noirwriter.blogspot.com
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