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RARA-AVIS: Definitions & Academics
Defining "hardboiled" and "noir" is like defining "jazz" and "swing" -
a dubious enterprise at best. A definition is no substitute for reading
or listening, respectively. If the terms are understood as broad
metaphors, they do no harm; if they are used as criteria for inclusion
and exclusion of authors or works, they can only lead to misunderstandings
and nitpicky quarrelling.
Incidentally, John Dos Passos's U.S.A. trilogy is as hardboiled as they
come... and someone like James Ellroy is clearly a literary descendant of
Dos Passos (his style is laced with a dose of Jim Thompson, too). To say
that Ellroy is hardboiled and Dos Passos is not seems to deny the obvious.
Hemingway,too, is notoriously hardboiled (some say to a fault!), even though
he did not write mysteries. For that matter, Geoffrey Household was
hardboiled too, although he is rarely mentioned as such.
As to the purported rift between academics and lay folk, it's a dead
horse that I suggest should be left alone - it's not really germane to
a discussion of mysteries. And an academic badge is not worth much
these days - plumbers are more prosperous than professors...
Regards,
Mario Taboada
Old Dominion University
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