[SNIP]
> Bill, what I would define as "hardboiled" is a story
where the protagonist is
> usually a cop or a private eye with a cynical, tough
attitude towards the world, a
> "rough on the outside but sweet on the inside" kind
of guy. And the plot
> invariably involves murder, though not necessarily a
killer-type story, like The
> Maltese Falcon, which is really about the theft of an
object worth dying/killing
> for. What distinguishes hardboiled from just a
thriller is the depth to which the
> characters are drawn. One can read a dozen Robin Cook
medical thrillers and not
> remember the "heroes" while a character like Sam
Spade sticks forever in your
> mind. The "Prey" hero, Lucas Davenport, is a pretty
fleshed out character, which
> is why I consider this series to be in the
"hardboiled" school. Anyway, that's
> how I define the genre. I'd love to hear how others
here define "hardboiled."
I'm not so sure that characterisation is as central to the
genre as
Cynthia.
As far as some accepted key hard-boiled texts go (Chandler,
James M.
Cain) the characters are pretty crude stereotypes.
I think milieux and sensibility is more important in
contributing to the
'hard boiled-ness of a text. By this I mean the air of
corruption that
permeates the institutions of society (corrupt police force,
corruption
in other legal offices/officers, corrupt politicians). The
setting, I
think, is seamy: showing a view of and from the underside, or
from a
perspective that finds the corruption distasteful. This kind
of leaks
into sensibility--the writing conveys a distaste for
institutionalised
corruption.
There is also the tendency for the modus operandi of the hard
boiled
protagonist (not necesarily a private detective or cop) to be
similar
to/indistinguishable from the corrupt authority
figures.
The list enjoys some intermittent discussion of this topic,
but has
never (AFAIA) resolved it or reached a consensus. If we had,
we could
have put a definition in the rara-avis FAQ [There is no
rara-avis FAQ].
If you browse the archives you can see how we've tried, and
failed, to
define 'hard boiled' in the past.
ED
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