Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: RARA-AVIS Digest V4 #235

From: JIM DOHERTY ( jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com)
Date: 23 Apr 2002


Marianne,

Re your question below:

> This is all very interesting. In view of, say,
> Jim's line, is it
> possible to argue that Jack Frost (RD Wingfield) is
> a hard-boiled
> anti-hero stuck in an old-fashioned cosy English
> village world?? Or is
> there something about the comedy, or the setting,
> that disqualifies him?

There are certainly HB crime novels with rural or small-town settings (RED HARVEST and SOLOMON'S VINEYARD come immediately to mind). Setting isn't the issue. Toughness and colloquialism is.

There are certainly humorous HB novels (Prather's Shell Scott novels and Latimer's Bill Crane novels spring immediately to mind, to say nothing of the Dan Turner series, though it's never been clear to me whether Bellem was kidding or just a lousy writer). Comedy's not the isue. Toughness and colloquialism is.

Haven't read Wingfield but, based on one of the TV episodes that aired over here on A&E, I'd say he's tough and colloquial, therefore HB.

JIM DOHERTY

__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Games - play chess, backgammon, pool and more http://games.yahoo.com/

--
# To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to
# majordomo@icomm.ca.  This will not work for the digest version.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 23 Apr 2002 EDT