> i'm leaning this way on the hardboiled, jack. i've
got a couple
problems
> with the "colloquial" thing. although most people's
attitude is
expressed
> thru talk, there are some who decidedly don't fit
the bill. i have a
hard
> time seeing people like dudley smith (as mario
pointed out), arkady
renko,
> or even doc mccoy, as being colloquial, but i see
all of them as being
hb.
> they are a minority group of people who adhere to
teddy roosevelt's,
> "speak softly but carry a big stick"
philosophy.
Pardon me but it seems to me that in this
hardboiled/colloquial thread we seem to be blurring the works
and the characters. I have absolutely no problem with "tough
& colloquial" as a description of hardboiled fiction.
When it comes to describing characters as hardboiled, there I
think the field is completely open to debate to the point of
where the debate could go on forever in circular formations.
And surely I'm not the only one who thinks of loyalty &
being "standup" as moral values? It seems to me that some
people are defining hardboiled in terms of a personal moral
code and that surely is something that will not be agreed on
by everyone- meaning I'm sure everyone has their own moral
code. To me, hardboiled as used in the context of a literary
genre is purely a literary term, not a state of moral
superiority achieved by modern day samurai and I personally
have no interest in the debate of who is or isn't hardboiled
and to what degree they are hardboiled. Is hardboiled fiction
just about hardboiled people? I don't think so, at least not
exclusively.Also, one of the things that attracts me to HB
fiction is the moral ambiguity, the sense that the world is
not just good guys & bad guys but people with varying
amounts of "good"/"evil" traits responding to a world that is
neither moral nor immoral but heedless of the individuals
within it - otherwise I'd stick to old Doc Savage stories or
their equivalent. Just my 2c worth.
Rene
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