<<That's what I feel is the main problem with Leonard.
He seems
a tad bit too CUTE/GLIB for my taste. I hate to resort to
this but I
must make a film comparison.>>
I don't know what experience you have of hoods,
down-and-outers, and
sundry guys who scheme to get righ in American cities. From
my
experience in Los Angeles, I would say that Leonard captures
perfectly
the mixture of desperation, violence, and humor that make up
everyday
life in the big city, especially in its less privileged
sectors.
It is perhaps wrong to view Leonard as a "noir" writer. As
far as I can
tell, he is a realistic writer - and humor (what you call
"glibness") is
an important part of reality. Come to think of it, Leonard
may be a
perfect example of a very hardboiled author who is not at all
noir...
In Leonard there is no sense of doom because he is a cynical
optimist -
he doesn't think that the bad guys are very different from
the good
guys, therefore there is no real "fall from grace" and
"impending doom"
as there is in Goodis, Thompson, and some of Willeford. For
Leonard,
there are not circles of hell, but just one big hellish-funny
bathtub
that pretty much includes everyone.
As to Tarantino, the very mention of his name annoys me...he
is a
disgrace to the hardboiled genre.
Regards,
Mario Taboada
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