--- JIM DOHERTY <
jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Jack,
>
> Re your comment below:
>
> > Hardboiled has to do with attitude
and
> > follow-through--not with diction.
>
> Toughness is expressed by follow-through.
Attitude
> by
> diction. If you don't believe mem check out a
dandy
> private eye novel called THE BIG SWITCH and see
if
> it
> doesn't.
>
> JIM DOHERTY
Wanted to say that I agree with Mr. Doherty. It seems to me
there ought to be a distinction between "tough" and
"hardboiled". Well, there needn't be, I guess, but if you
don't make the distinction "hardboiled" doesn't end up
meaning much.
The example I always use is James Jones. FROM HERE TO
ETERNITY and THIN RED LINE are genuinely tough books, but I
don't think they're *hardboiled*. They just don't have the
"feel" of a hardboiled novel, a kind of beat down
sensibility.
Yes, "hardboiled" is attitude (a sort of beat-down realism)
paired with a tough, stripped down, cynical language that
reflects it. No, Bond isn't hardboiled. Neither is Thomas
Harris/Hannibal Lecter. While I don't think a hardboiled
protagonist *necessarily* must be from the lower class, I
think a sense of the lower class is necessary. The hardboiled
novel generally spans classes; it's part of the appeal.
All of this obviously doesn't make Bond or Lecter or whatever
counter-example anyone wants to cite bad -- not everything
that's good has to be hardboiled, for Pete's sake. And if
people don't want to think in these terms that's fine, too.
It hardly is a deciding factor on the most important
question, whether THE MALTESE FALCON is a good book or
not.
doug
===== Doug Bassett
dj_bassett@yahoo.com
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