Mark,
Re your comment below:
> Just because Parker is not "a paragon of
moral
> virtue" does not mean
> that the series does not deal with moral choices.
A
> lot of "does not"s
> in that sentence, but can't the bounds of
morality
> be explored by
> looking at someone who lives outside
them?
Parker doesn't amke moral choices because he never considers
the moral ramifications of any actions he takes. His only
concern is how any decision he makes will benefit him.
In any case, Bill said that what distinguished hard-boiled
from the other pulp genres was that hard-boiled more
concerned with morality. I don't think that's inherently more
true of hard-boiled crime fiction that it is of, say, the
western or the swashbuckler or the military/war story. Or
even, for that matter, the cozy or traditional mystery.
To take to examples from Sherlock Holmes, Holmes lets a
criminal go in "The Blue Carbuncle" because he thinks justice
will be better served than by turning him over. He lets a
murderer go in "Charles Augustus Milverton" because he thinks
that the victim deserved his fate. We might disagree with
Holmes's choices. We might even regard them as immoral. But
he, unlike Parker, DOES consider the moral ramifications of
his actions. And Holmes is as much "NOT hard-boiled" as
Parker IS hard-boiled.
It doesn't come down to moral choices. At the risk of
repeating myself one more time, it comes down to toughness
and a colloquial style.
JIM DOHERTY
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