Mario wrote:
>I hope we understand one another now. What I have
said is
>the truth.
As long as you get Jim's certification, of course. :-)
Anyway, Mario, I wasn't so much disagreeing with you as using
your comments as a springboard to thinking out loud. And
we're we're pretty much in agreement when it comes to the
disdain we feel for the current bloating of the hard-boiled
novel, and evidently, the over-glorification of the
past.
One of the frustrations I do have with the genre is those who
claim to love it, but have only read from one era, a group
you certainly don't fall into.
And some of them seem to have not read from any era. One
so-called expert once wrote a top ten list that of the best
hard-boiled novels of all time that consisted primarily of a)
books that had already been made into film or b)
self-published books by friends of his. I wonder if he's read
anything, beyond a TV guide.
It's actually one of the things I do enjoy about the genre --
the push and pull of the old and the new, and the
permutations the formula goes through in the hands of often
very excellent writers.
Oh, by the way, Jim, welcome to the very exclusive "Legend in
Your Own Mind" Club. Having been similarly designated such by
Chairman Pipsqueak numerous times over the years, I know the
deep pain you must be feeling now. Perhaps you can draw
consolation from this: you can be a legend in my mind if I
can be a legend in yours.
--
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