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Re: RARA-AVIS: Academic Definition of Hard-Boiled
I think there is developing on this list the most stupid split between
academic and non-acadecmic (noticeable in the numerous posts in which
people feel the need to claim their "non-academic" status). The
encyclopedic definition was not "academic," any more than any other def.
I've ever read. It was just limited. It's an ENTRY, not an in-depth study.
It's not particularly satisfying as a definition, but few definitions are.
Do you really think *that* entry was written by academics? How could it
be? I understood every word. Michael
====================== =========================================
Michael D. Sharp "My time-wasting abilities are legendary!
msharp@umich.edu If only I could harness them as a force
Department of English for good!" -- Shaun M. Strohmer
University of Michigan
On Mon, 3 Feb 1997, Jiro Kimura wrote:
> At 11:37 PM 02.02.97 -0500, <RKING@VUNET.VINU.EDU> wrote:
> >
> >From BENET'S READERS ENCYCYLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LITERATURE (HarperCollins,
> >1991), edited by George Perkins, Barbara Perkins, and Phillip Leininger:
> >
> >"hard-boiled fiction.
>
> >prettifications of the Conan Doyle school and an attempt to apply
> >the literary lessons taught by such serious American novelists as
> >Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos. Hard-boiled fiction seems to
> >have appeared first in a magazine called the BLACK MAST (founded 1919),
> >and its development was closely associated with the editor, Joseph
> >T. Shaw. Many critics today feel that the first full-fledged
> >example of the hard-boiled method was Dashiell Hammett's story "Fly
> >Paper," which appeared in August 1929 in BLACK MAST. In 1946 Shaw
> >compiled THE HARD-BOILED OMNIBUS: EARLY STORIES FROM BLACK MASK,
> >including stories by Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Raoul Whitfield, and
> >George Harmon Coxe. To these names should be added W.R. Burnett,
> >Jonathan Latimer, and Peter Cheyney. Later, hard-boiled fiction
> >in a particularly violent phase became hugely popular in the Mike
> >Hammer novels of Mickey Spillane."
> >
> >This seems to me to be a fairly fitting definition, and mentions
> >many of the concepts and ideas put forward by members of this list
> >during the last few weeks.
> >
> Sorry, I don't believe this kind of "lilterary" encyclopedia. It may be
> one of the many "definitions" (plural) of hardboiled fiction, but these
> editors know very little about hardboiled fiction, or read it very rarely,
> or regard it as a lower form of so-called "literature." I don't think
> these guys have read Black Mask stories. The first Op story is "Arson
> Plus." These guys should not have forgotten Carroll John Daly, however
> poorly he wrote.
>
> If it has convinced you, it's okay, but it does not satisfy me. If you
> want an academic definition, please try a mystery encyclopedia. Sorry,
> being a member of the so-called Big Chill Generation, I tend to disbelieve
> academic types of any kind.
>
> Hammett was not influenced by Hemingway or Dos Passos. I believe Hemingway
> was influenced by Hammett instead.
>
> Jiro Kimura, non-academic type
> *********************************************
> Jiro Kimura
> Kanazawa, JAPAN
> e-mail: jkimura@nsknet.or.jp
> The Gumshoe Site (http://www.nsknet.or.jp/~jkimura/)
> *********************************************
>
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