>I've always read the conclusive kiss-off of
Brigid
O'Shaughnessy, for instance, as more self-denial than
sadistic
>(regardless of where Bogart took it).
Ellroy is *not* in the
tradition of "pure" hardboiled exemplified by Hammett, Paul
Cain, and
Raoul Whitfield (and, much later, guys like Richard Stark and
E. Richard
Johnson).
The Maltese Falcon instance I take to be deeply hard-boiled
and
anti-sentimental. Spade may love O'Shaughnessy--but that's
beside the
point. Unlike the sentimentalist, Spade won't be guided by
emotion.
BTW, maybe we should throw the GQ article on the reading list
as a sort
of interlude.
Doug
>
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