<<Not bad, if a little dated (Spillane and Macdonald
aren't exactly cranking 'em out, are they?) But Wooley gets
caught up in surface details. Certainly, it's hard to see
Archer as a ladies' man, for example, or Spade, the Op, or
most of Gores' DKA guys as borderline alcoholics. There are
plenty of ways to be hard-boiled that have nothing to do with
sex or alcohol. It's the core of the characters that makes
them hard-boiled or not, not their personal lives, fedoras or
trenchcoats.>>
Let me add that a lof of the best-known hardboiled characters
are not wisecrackers or even conversationalists. Think of
Hammet's Op, Gores's DK, Westlake's Parker, Hamilton's Matt
Helm, Johnson's Mongo, Ellroy's Dudley Smith, Block's Keller.
Some of these dudes are pretty quiet. Some are very polite
(like Dudley, that quintessentially well-bred and
warm-hearted Irishman). Some characters only manifest
themselves in action. That's hardboiled. The action and the
inner attitude, and the strength when under pressure, not the
talk.
We have all been misled by Chandler. He is such a towering
figure in crime fiction, and such a marvellous writer, that
we define hardboiled as Marlovian. I think it's time to get
away from that. For hardboiled, you don't need a Marlowe; you
don't even need a PI, or a good guy for that matter.
Regards, and sorry to ramble so much. It's hot'n humid,
again.
MrT
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