Talk:Hardboiled

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Does anyone know- does the term derive from hardboiled eggs, or from boiled leather? -FZ 13:47, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Writing Style of the Article 2 Hardboiled prose 3 Name 4 Unsentimental?

[edit] Writing Style of the Article

The section on Noir doesn't read much like an encyclopedia-- in fact, it seems like there's a bit of too-clever-for-its-own-good writing in there. It is very clever indeed, but it doesn't belong in Wikipedia. 70.232.102.227 (talk) 04:26, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hardboiled prose

There's also a stylistic side of the concept "hardboiled":

It's not necessarily the hero, nor the story, that's hardboiled; it might be the prose itself. Nothing "soft" or superflous; only the essentials.

Thus, the term hardboiled is often applied to the writings of Hemingway and authors influenced by his style.

At least in Norway, this use of the term is known from the 1930s, long before crime fiction were recognized by the literary establishment.

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T.B.Hansen

[edit] Name

Any idea who coined the term, and when ? -- Beardo 07:18, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Excellent question. I recall coming across a verifiable usage that was very early, if not definitively the first. I'll try to track it down.--DCGeist 07:57, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

In his essay "The Simple Art of Murder" (1944), Chandler describes Hammett as "spare, frugal, hard-boiled" and his works as "hard-boiled chronicles" - http://facstaffwebs.umes.edu/drcooledge/engl324/images/Simple%20Art%20of%20Murder.pdf. Any advance on that ? -- Beardo 01:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unsentimental?

"Hardboiled fiction, most commonly associated with detective stories, is distinguished by an unsentimental portrayal of crime, violence, and sex." -- I think we might want to tweak the word "unsentimental" here. (I'm trying to make a somewhat subtle point here, so my apologies if I fail to do so.) It seems to me that the "hardboiled" genre falls into the romantic (as opposed to "rationalistic") artistic tradition.

From Romanticism: "... it stressed strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience, placing a new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, [and] horror ... Romanticism elevated the achievements of what it perceived as misunderstood heroic individuals and artists that altered society, and legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority which permitted freedom ... There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability in the representation of its ideas."

Since the romantic genre focusses on feelings ("sentiment") rather than on the rational, it seems to me that it's not correct to describe the hardboiled genre as "unsentimental" ("without feelings"). The modern police procedural genre has moved in this direction, but insofar as it is without emotions it is not "hardboiled" (it's just about bureacrats in forensics punching the clock).

My apologies to those who've read this far -- as I say, I'm rather belaboring the point here. -- 201.78.193.119 15:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I think your point about hardboiled fiction deriving from the romantic tradition is an excellent one—and the heart of your quote, "Romanticism elevated the achievements of what it perceived as misunderstood heroic individuals and artists that altered society, and legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority which permitted freedom," is exactly on point in demonstrating the connection. However, hardboiled fiction clearly embodies a significant deviation from the tradition that gave birth to it: it takes a cynical view of emotion (i.e., sentimental expression) and of claims that human behavior is rooted in sincere sentiment. The seminal detective protagonists of hardboiled fiction raise the suppression of emotion to an art form, and the characteristic "lean, direct" writing style likewise tends to deny access to the sort of "strong emotional" effects associated with classic romantic literature. This is not to say that the most renowned books in the hardboiled tradition fail to provoke a susbstantial affective response by the reader at their conclusion--many do, they just achieve it in a way very different from other genres rooted in romanticism. Best, Dan—DCGeist 21:54, 14 August 2006 (UTC)