Re: RARA-AVIS: Serial Killers...Hard-Boiled and Ellroy

William Denton (buff@vex.net)
Sat, 22 Aug 1998 10:16:09 -0400 (EDT) On Sat, 22 Aug 1998, Words from the Monastery wrote:

: Is this archived? I'd be interested in reading the thread on this topic.

Discussions of what "hardboiled" really means crop up every month or
two. Poke around the archives and you'll see something.

I've saved some of the messages and intend to turn them into something
a little more formal sometime, but who knows. People bring up points
like Chandler's noble knight, urban settings, cynicism, corruption,
violence and alcohol, to name a few, but for every point there are
books that are hardboiled that are just the opposite.

It seems like most people here more or less agree on what's
hardboiled and what isn't. We have categories like:

- hardboiled
- sort of hardboiled
- outsiders think it's hardboiled, but it's not
- it really is hardboiled but you wouldn't have thought so
- noirish
- tough procedurals that could be hardboiled
- pretends to be hardboiled but it's not
- just because it has a P.I. doesn't mean it's hardboiled
- other stuff we won't even mention

: So, if it's not a sore issue ... why isn't a slasher novel or why
: can't a slasher novel be hard-boiled unless it's written by Ellroy?

Or perhaps Michael Connelly, or William P. McGivern. There's nothing
to say that they can't be hardboiled, but most of the ones i've read -
and I'm getting pretty sick of the sub-sub-genre - are gory thrillers,
and while they may seem tough they don't share a lot with the history
of hardboiled fiction. I don't think of Thomas Harris as hardboiled.

Bill

-- 
William Denton | Toronto, Canada | http://www.vex.net/~buff/ | Caveat lector.
            "Let's keep the party polite."

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