Whoever Harrington is, naming Madame Bovary as one of the
"roots of noir" makes a sort of sense, I suppose, if a
certain unrelenting, finally ironic, attitude toward
materials is joined with scrupulous realism. Naturalism then
tightens the screws a bit, setting the attitude more firmly
and "refining" the method of approach.
Another root, I suppose, is the romance-quest literature--the
knight puzzling over the knots binding the maiden to the tree
at the beginning of The Big Sleep.
Somewhere in Rara-Avis' past, we've mused over the gothic as
a possible root too.
Feeling academic,
Bill Hagen
billha@ionet.net
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