I don't see the question being whether or not a non-American
is "capable" of producing hard-boiled material, but whether
or not what is produced is unique or is it just hard-boiled
written by a non-American. Whether or not their contributions
are unique enough to designate it as Brit-HB, French-HB,
German-HB, etc., to create its own sub genre. And that
designation isn't limited to the author's nationality or the
location of the story, but that there is a cultural
uniqueness to the work that separates it from the others and
those written by Americans. If not, if it all falls under
"HB" then there's possibly a legitimate argument that HB is
an American genre with multi-national authors producing it.
It all does fall under crime fiction.
volente Deo,
Anthony Dauer Alexandria, Virginia
"... down these mean streets a man must go
who is not himself mean, who is neither
tarnished or afraid."
--Raymond
Chandler (1888-1959)
Banned by the Washington Post ...
http://www.adau.net/judas_ezine/
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
BaxDeal@aol.com
> Sent: Sunday, July 09, 2000 4:13 PM
>
> ultimately whether or not non-Americans are capable
of producing
> hard-boiled material goes back to our never-ending
discussion on
> what hard-boiled is.
>
> if it is indeed merely a question of prose, then
yes, the fact that
> Americanese tends to be clipped and slangy lends
itself to that
> argument.
>
> but if hard-boiled is the by-product of attitude,
and I for one
> am a strong proponent of this idea, then I see no
reason why even
> Martians can't produce decent
hard-boiled.
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