Al,
Re your comment below:
> You're forgetting half of your own definition of
hardboiled. You
> talk about the toughest characters and writers but
you don't talk
> about the most colloquial.
>
> Incidentally, here's a link (in French) to a quote
by Marcel
Duhamel
> describing La Serie Noire books. I'm told that he
mentions
morality,
> non-conformity, anguish, corruption, action,
violence and a host of
> other things we frequently talk about here. I
believe you've said
on
> several occasions that we shouldn't redefine what
Duhamel
previously
> defined. Well, now we have the words from his lips
and they
> aren't 'dark and sinister'. I'd be most appreciative
if one of the
> French speakers on list has the time to translate
this.
I didn't forget the other half of the definition. All the
writers I mentioned write in a colloquial style. But, in the
context of the question, I presumed (and yes, I grant that it
was a presumption) that he was asking who was the toughest,
not who was the most colloquial.
As for Marcel Duhamel's comments, he isn't giving a
definition. He's describing the subject matter that readers
can expect. On the evidence of the books published in his
line, it's clear that all the thing he brings up aren't in
every single book he published. So it can't stand as a
definition. On the other hand, the subject matter, and the
way his writers treat that subject matter, sounds dark and
sinister to me.
Since he isn't giving a definition per se, we have to infer
what noir means by finding some common element shared by all
the books, at least by all the books with which we are
personnaly familiar, on a list that ranges from James M. Cain
to novelizations of DRAGNET scripts, and concluding that
whatever they all seem to have in common MUST be the defining
element.
This, by the way, sounds like a good place to mention that my
second "I Like 'Em Tough" column is posted in the latest
issue MYSTERICAL-E. YOu can find it here:
http://mystericale.com/index.php?
issue=current_issue&body=file&file=like_em_tough.htm
Coincidentally, the subjects of this issue's column are the
definitions of hard-boiled and noir.
JIM DOHERTY
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