Re: Definition of hardboiled (was Re: RARA-AVIS:
blumenidiot (blumenidiot@email.msn.com)
Tue, 16 Feb 1999 12:45:50 -0600
>><<Which of these do think is not hard
boiled:
>>
>>Stark's Parker series
>>Gores'DKA series
>>Willeford's Burnt Orange Heresy
>>Fleming's James Bond series
>>Hamilton's Matt Helm series
>>The first three of Parker's Spenser series
>>Hammett's The Thin Man
>>Goodis' Dark Passage
>>Leonard's Get Shorty
>>Coben's Bolitar series
>>Kaminsky's Toby Peters series>>
>>
MT opined "I would say that only the Willeford and the Hammett
are not.",
but James Rogers was said that,
>>
> I reach exactly the opposite result....I would say that
only the
>Hammett and the Willeford *are* hardboiled. The rest
strike me as imitation
>goods, though sometimes fun. >
>
I'm glad we list members know what we are talking about. I put
in The Thin
Man only because I felt it was Hammett's only major work that
was not hard
boiled. I think Dark Passage is noir but not hard boiled. The
Willeford is
closer to hard boiled. The The Kaminsky series might be called
'comic
imitation hard boiled'. He has all the elements but the books
with their
famous people and wierd sidekicks never seem serious enough to
me. I guess
if we accept the Helms as hard boiled we have to throw in the
Bonds too. I
think the others show how widely the term may apply. As time
goes on any
genre is going to be stretched and tweaked, gradually diverging
from the
classic mold.
Mark Blumenthal
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