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Re: RARA-AVIS: Working towards a definition of sorts
"Hardboiled" (meaning a tough, cynical or unsentimental person) has been
part of American slang at least since WWI. By the 30's and 40's,
"hardboiled" was being used to describe any literature which was written
in a realistic and unsentimental style--not just detective stories.
Literature outside the detective genre was often described with the
adjective "hardboiled" in publisher's publicity materials, dust-jacket
copy, and by reviewers. It should also be noted that "hardboiled" was a
buzzword frequently (exclusively?) found in literature deemed
appropriate for men.
"Noir" as a literary term is defined as "an adjective taken over from
the phrase _film noir_ to apply to any work, especially one involving
crime, that is notably dark, brooding, cynical, complex, and
pessimistic." (Quoted from Harmon & Holman's _A handbook to literature_,
7th ed., 1996.) Again, "noir" is not limited to crime fiction, and it
shares many of the same elements we associate with "hardboiled" (I don't
feel that there is any implied gender qualification with noir
literature, however). I don't know when "noir" was appropriated for
literary studies, but I think it's interesting to note that the 6th
edition of this handbook (1992) has no entry for the word.
It's fallen out of fashion for a publisher to describe a book as
"hardboiled" these days, but you see books described as "noir" all the
time. It's the buzzword that sells books, that that's the bottom line.
Attempting to sort out the difference between "hardboiled" and "noir" is
the literary equivalent of trying define the difference between "pants"
and "slacks."
Jim Stephenson
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