I would define noir as an inescapable doom, which if done
right creates a sense of dread (and possibly horror) in the
reader. With James M. Cain, his characters usually cross some
line in which there is no turning back. With some of Jim
Thompson's books, his characters are born broken. Their doom
is inevitable.
-Dave
-----Original Message----- From:
owner-rara-avis@icomm.ca [mailto:
owner-rara-avis@icomm.ca] On Behalf Of Al Guthrie Sent:
Wednesday, July 31, 2002 2:56 PM To:
rara-avis@icomm.ca Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: UK month
----- Original Message ----- From: "Joy Matkowski" <
jmatkowski1@comcast.net>
> > blight as well (then again I suppose serial
killer novels more
properly
> > belong to the horror tradition than the
h/b).
>
> > Apologies for the rambling nature of the above.
Any thoughts?
>
> Yes, thanks for the insight that serial killer books
belong in the
horror
> genre. It's so obvious once you say it, but this bit
of taxonomy never
> occurred to me.
John's actual words were "I suppose serial killer novels more
properly belong to the horror tradition than the h/b", which
is quite different from saying they belong in the horror
genre. Horror, at least my understanding of the term as it
relates to the fiction genre, requires an element of the
supernatural. Isn't horror without the supernatural simply
what some of us choose to define as noir ("dark and
sinister")?
Al
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 31 Jul 2002 EDT