Etienne Borgers writes:
<<
I can understand your feeling of noir in some
ambiance
of Simenon's mysteries; I personally think it's
more
"grayish", with a meaning like the word "grisaille"
in
French (word applied to climatic conditions for
gray
skies, as well as in a symbolic way to places or
moods, or even way of living- grayness maybe in
English).
>>
I am very happy to hear Etienne Borgers make this comment. A
little while back, I had occasion to make some spoken
comments about Charles Willeford, and I included a close look
at a passage from Burnt Orange Heresy that included the word
"grisaille." The word appears in chapter two; I won't quote
the lead-in or the paragraphs that follow (which loop back to
that word), but here is the description of Berenice Hollis's
scar: "The coccyx scar had changed from an angry red to gray
and finally to slightly puckered grisaille." The word is
heavily loaded. It has a local artistic context
(Figueras the narrator is an art critic), but seems to have a
lot of other energy surrounding it. The passage wraps up with
Figueras expressing outrage at Berenice's homemaking habits;
he states: "[O]nce I caught her pouring bacon grease into the
sink" (a great Willeford food moment), and I noted in my talk
that: "'bacon grease' seems to tap our mind's wandering
confrontation with that word "grisaille," [grizigh] which
seems to resemble both
"gristle"-suggestive of the stringy meatiness of bacon-and
the word "grease" itself." Now, we (non-French speakers) can
add Etienne's definition as well, which presumably Willeford
would think of too, having spent some time in France. The
definition of mood works well, and in the BOH passage, there
is reference to climate as well. Doug
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