Anthony Dauer wrote:
> If you accept that the genre is evolutionary in
nature than it logically
> follows that it's devolutionary as well. Thus
Sherlock Holmes is
> hardboiled for his era and culture, while not being
hardboiled for ours
Loath though I am to enter this ultimately futile
debate...Holmes isn't hardboiled, if only because of class.
He's relatively comfortable and works because he wants to,
not because he has to. He's fairly obviously of upper middle
class, if not upper class, even if he's not a member of
Society.
A more hard-boiled Victorian detective would be John
Bennett's Tom Fox (from REVELATIONS OF A DETECTIVE, 1860), a
cop who actually worked the streets rather than lounging
about his apartment using drugs, playing the violin, and
waiting for his clients to come to him.
jess
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