Jim Doherty wrote:>
> Presuming that you agree with my notion that
"noir"
> means a "dark, sinister atmosphere,"
Not intending to crank up an argument, I'm curious, Jim. I
recently reread an old short story by Manly Wade Wellman set
in the 1800s. A sea captain of a slave ship, in order to
avoid being caught with contraband slaves on board by a
British man-of-war, orders the slaves shacked to the anchor
chain. He drops anchor and the slaves go overboard with it.
No more evidence. Years later, back in the Carolinas in his
home, he is visited by the monstrous fish-eaten ghostly
carcasses of the slaves he sent overboard, who surround his
home and drive him mad.
It's possibly the darkest, most sinister atmosphere of
anything I've ever read.
Does that make it noir?
Jim Beaver
-- # Plain ASCII text only, please. Anything else won't show up. # 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 : 13 May 2004 EDT