John,
Re the question you pose:
> a question I haven't yet answered for myself
is
> whether lacking
> sentimentality, or acting in spite of
one's
> sentimentality is a factor.
> here, I'm leaning toward the latter.
Like just about everything else except toughness and
collquialism, it doesn't have anything to do with whether or
not a character is hard-boiled. A hard-boiled character can
be totally unsentimental, like Stark's Parker, or very
sentimental under the hard exterior, like most of Thomas
Walsh's Irish cops.
A non-hard-boiled character can be totally
unsentimental, like Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu Manchu, or very
sentimental, like Conan Doyle's Dr. Watson. Their
sentimentality or lack of it isn't the deciding factor. Their
attitude, as illustrated by the combination of toughness and
colloquialism, is.
JIM DOHERTY
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