A definition can't go so far from the original that the
definitive works no longer fit within the genre. When that
occurs you're not talking about the same genre any more.
Hammett and Chandler (among others) set the definition and
newer works don't redefine that as much as they interpret it
... the put it into the concept of the setting that its
written in and in the case of period authors show a truer
word than what the contemporary authors of a period could get
away with. The definition doesn't change ... it might expand
and it might adapt, but its roots remain the same. Eventually
you're going to end up with new genres and subgenres whether
you want 'em or not.
Genres to begin with are the manufacturings of book sellers
trying to market works and to place them within a bookstore
where their audience (customer base) can easily find them and
purchase them ... that and the sources of dissertations in
search of doctorates. That's not to say that genre's are all
the same, but just to put it into its perspective.
Books don't go into museums unless they're like the Gutenberg
Bible, but stories do become classics and in this case that's
what the definitive works have become ... classic hard-boiled
and noir. They make up the foundation, but they're no less
hard-boiled or noirish today than they were when they defined
the genre. Some newbies work can't change that ... it only
adds to the canon, it doesn't take away from it. A genre is
alive as long as someone's reading it not whether or not
someone is still writing it.
So what if a work is excluded from being labeled as
hard-boiled. It doesn't cease to exist does it? No, it's
still there to be enjoyed. Everything doesn't have to be
labeled "hard-boiled" to be good. You water it down too much
and you stretch the genre to the point of
meaninglessness.
And I like mothballs ... I like wool suits that smell of them
and cedar too. Embracing the new doesn't mean throwing away
the old ... the Sixties taught us Americans that.
-- volente Deo,
Anthony Dauer Alexandria, Virginia
"If you don't leave, I'll get somebody who will." -Raymond Chandler (1888-1959)
Hardboiled http://www.adau.net/judas_ezine/
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