"The Maltese Falcon" Join Us!

The 2nd Wednesday Book Group will meet on May 9th @ noon!  We will be viewing the film before we discuss May's book selection, "The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett.  We hope you will join us.  This event is free and open to the public.

Discussion questions made available by the publisher:

1. Sam Spade's attitude toward authority is patently clear in remarks like "It's a long while since I burst out crying because policemen didn't like me" [p. 19] or "At one time or another I've had to tell everyone from the Supreme Court down to go to hell, and I've got away with it" [p. 170]. How is Spade's distrust of power manifested in his actions? How important is distrust as an aspect of his character?

2. Of the three women in the book--Brigid O'Shaughnessy, Effie Perine, and Iva Archer--are any fully realized, or are perhaps all three, as stereotypes, three sides of one woman? As a stereotype, what does each woman represent? What does Spade mean, and what does it say about Spade, when he tells Effie, "You're a damned good man, sister" [p. 160]?

3. A blatant stereotype is Joel Cairo: "This guy is queer" [p. 42], Effie informs Spade when the perfumed Cairo comes to the office. Is a homosexual character effective or necessary in the plot? Would he be as effective without sterotyping? Why do you think Hammett created him?

4. Near the end of the story, Spade says to Brigid, "Don't be too sure I'm as crooked as I'm supposed to be" [p. 215]. What evidence is there that he's not crooked? Does honor temper greed in his negotiations with the others in the hunt for the black bird? How are greed and ruthlessness packaged here so that ultimately we might not care whether the characters are crooked or not? Does style compensate for all in the hard-boiled genre?

5. "By Gad, sir, you're a character" [p. 178], says Gutman, laughing, when Spade suggests making Wilmer the fall-guy. Is the Spade-Gutman relationship one of justice versus corrupt wealth or one of equals competing for the same prize? How does Gutman's sophistication and erudition reveal another side of Spade?

6. When Spade returns to the office in the last scene, Effie does not greet him with her usual verve. What has happened to the breezily affectionate bond between them? What is Effie's relationship to Brigid? Will Effie forgive Spade, or do we not know enough about her to make predictions?

"The Golden Gate" by Vikram Seth" --Discussion April 11th @ 1pm

We hope you will join us in our discussion of Vikram Seth's  "The Golden Gate", a novel in verse.  Typically our Wednesday book group celebrates National Poetry month by sharing poems we've enjoyed,but this year we will be discussing Seth's novel.  Set in the early 1980's in San Francisco it is the story of life among young professionals in California.

Seth was born in 1952 in Calcutta, India, moved to England to study at Oxford and eventually went to California to Stanford University to work on a gradute degree in economics. 

A listing of some of  Seth's works:
Mappings (poetry) 1980
From Heaven Lake: Travels through Sinkiang and Tibet (travel essay) 1983
The Humble Administrator's Garden (poetry) 1985
The Golden Gate (verse novel) 1986
All You Who Sleep Tonight (poetry) 1990
Beastly Tales from Here and There (fables) 1991
A Suitable Boy (novel) 1993
Arion and the Dolphin (libretto) 1995
Poems, 1981-1994 (poetry) 1995
An Equal Music (novel) 1999
Two Lives (biography) 2005