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RARA-AVIS: Definition of Hard Boiled



Appreciate Richard King's sourcing hard-boiled back to WWI.  And appreciate
the enduring, lately apologetic Jiro for his Hammett/Hemingway piece, that
anticipated mine.

And when the vets, like Eugene Krebs in Hemingway's "Soldier's Home" got
back, they weren't ready to buy into job, marriage; in response to his
mother's question of whether he feels love for her, he gazes at the bacon
fat hardening on his plate.  Hemingway's TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT and"The
Killers," as mentioned, have hard-boiled elements.  Neither is prized as EH
at his best: Lit crit prof types (like me) like to come up with formulas--
"Hemingway imitating Hemingway"--, but he could be echoing others he read.

-----------
Ron Goulart in THE DIME DETECTIVES builds a case that seems convincing for
Carrol John Daly's Terry Mack, later Race Williams, as the first
significant serial tough guy detective, though only a few months earlier
than Hammett's Continental Op in 1923.  Never read Daly, and what Goulart
says about his style is not encouraging. Does Goulart have it right, on
both counts?  I defer...

While we're sourcing the world of the hard boiled or noir, we probably
ought to tip the hat, at least, to the naturalists writing  before WW I,
who were regarded as pretty lowbrow by most establishment critics and
publishers.  (Hemingway is often termed a "naturalist, " given his emphasis
on environment.)  Surely these earlier naturalists helped "create" the
fictional mean streets, the urban jungle to which tough guys and gals
either adapt or don't survive .

In that line, I'm reminded that adult first-time readers of Chandler--in
library discussion programs -- often judge Marlowe a bit soft in the head
for maintaining his loyalties longer than seems reasonable, given the
social environment, the faithless characters, and the consequences for
himself.  In fact, I half agree with them with regard to THE LONG GOODBYE.
Liked Robert Altman's movie ending better than Chandler's.

OK, should be something here to feed on, chew up, spit out....


Bill Hagen
billha@ionet.net


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