Can any attempt at defining a complex concept _ever_ "get the
job done"? Perhaps the debate itself _is_ the point, not the
result of that debate.
Every posting that attempts to capture the elusive concepts
of noir and hard boiled reminds me of that quote attributed
to Mark Twain; Twain supposedly said that dissecting humor
was like dissecting a frog--you can do it, but when you're
done, both the joke and the frog are dead.
As far as my concept of noir and hard boiled goes-- Supreme
Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said (speaking in 1964
of pornography, not detective fiction), "I shall not today
attempt further to define the kinds of material, but I know
it when I see it."
~Marc
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