On 7 September 2001, Dick Lochte wrote:
: Going back to Holmes, if getting out the needle and
shooting up after
: a tough case isn't hardboiled then what are we talking
about?
I don't think a bit of mild recreational cocaine use counts
for much, especially when it was legal. Holmes brooded, he
was a loner, he was tough, he walked some mean streets and he
was not himself mean--the more I go on the more I can see the
case for it--but I'd never consider him a part of the
hardboiled canon. He was a Victorian gentleman, and the whole
package of the era, his nature, his habits, Conan Doyle's (or
Watson's) writing, the mysteries themselves, all combine to
exclude him. The stories have been favourites since I was 10,
but I wouldn't count Holmes in with Spade, Marlowe, and all
the rest. Some traits in common, but things are just shifted
a bit too far out of line.
Bill
-- William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 07 Sep 2001 EDT