james.doherty@gsa.gov
23 Nov 99 10:51:00 -0500
Gerald gives a
working definiton of "hard-boiled" as a
"prevaling urge
toward cycnicism, suspicion, doubt, fear, and
violence." I don't
say that he's wrong, but I think it's
really a lot more
simple than that. As I've said before,
"hard-boiled"
historically, and I think for the purposes of
this list, is
nothing more than that which is tough-minded and
colloquial.
Qualifying for the sobriquet "hard-boiled" is not
necessarily a sign
of literary excellence. There are many
hard-boiled writers
who are pretty bad. There are others who
are mid-level.
There are a few who are truly excellent.
Non-hard-boiled
crime writers startify in almost exactly the
same way.
Using this
simplified defintion, by the way, Spenser, like him
or not, is
hard-boiled. He is certainly tough (at times almost
unbelievably so),
and he is certainly colloquial.
JIM DOHERTY
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