JIM DOHERTY
> The thing to remember is that the list was of the
best
> characters from hard-boiled crime fiction,
not
> necessarily the best characters who were
themselves
> hard-boiled. I don't think Casper Gutman,
for
> example, could be described as a hard-boiled, but
the
> novel he appears in, THE MALTESE FALCON, is
certainly
> a hard-boiled novel, and Gutman is certainly
a
> marvelous character, so it was appropriate for him
to
> be have been nominated, and (if he won a place,
which,
> off-hand, I can't remember) to have been placed on
the
> final list.
>
Jim this is the second time you wrote you didn't think Gutman
was hard boiled. (BTW, he was tied for 71st with 5 votes.
Your Catechism-trained memory failed you this time.) As you
indicate the list was not called 'hard boiled characters',
but why do you think Gutman was not hard boiled? Does
somebody actually have to kill to be responsible for it? He
certainly is willing to give up Wilmer who he says was like a
son to him. Do you disqualify him because of his way of
speaking or his supposed upbringing? According to you be hard
boiled a person has to be colloquail. According to my
dictionary that is, " characteristic of or suitable to
ordinary or familiar conversation or writing rather than
formal speech or writing." Does that mean someone who is
educated and British cannot be hard boiled? As Jim Blue , I
think, wrote, your definition means Dorothy Gale is hard
boiled. I don't want to get into this debate again, but I
think your definition is hardly definitive. Mark
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