Al,
Re your comments below:
> Same question, Jim. And Mario already provided
some
> good examples:
>
> <<Many of Goodis's stories
> are not dark and sinister; rather, they
merely
> relate
> hopeless situations involving losers.
Likewise,
> Charles
> Williams's _The Hot Spot_ (one of the greatest
noir
> novels)
> is neither dark nor sinister. It is a tale
of
> compulsion
> and human weakness that leads to violence and
ruin.
> LIkewise, Willeford's _The Woman Chaser_ is
neither
> dark
> nor sinister. It is a tale of a barely
half-grown
> man's
> hysteria and its consequences.>>
I haven't read all of Goodis, THE HOT SPOT, or THE WOMAN
CHASER, but what I have read of Goodis, Williams, and
Willeford fits my definition of noir as I've defined
it.
I wasn't excluding them or ignoring them. I just wasn't
commenting on stories I was unfamiliar with.
> Also, "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" jumps
to
> mind. How about "Pick-Up"?
> Whittington's brilliant "The Devil Wears
Wings"?
> Much of Charles Williams's
> work? Bottom line, 'sinister' is a term
I'd
> associate more with Gothic or
> the modern psychological thriller than noir.
You
> said you'd looked for
> common traits, Jim. And you came up with 'dark'
and
> 'sinister'. Well, that's
> fine, and representative of what you've read.
Why
> not ask around and see
> what everybody else thinks? That way we'll get
a
> more comprehensive picture.
> You see, "Babe, Pig In The City" is incredibly
dark
> and sinister with crimes
> aplenty, but it all turns out fine in the end, so
it
> ain't noir (in my
> opinion).
Turning out fine in the end isn't what makes or breaks noir.
Of course things, in ANY crime story things won't turn out
right for everyone, not even in the most benign Agatha
Christie story.
Haven't seen BABE - PIG IN THE CITY, but isn't it in color?
Can't be noir (see the "all film noir must be B&W"
rule).
Seriously, though, ;ots of noir fiction ends badly. But lots
doesn't. And I'm not the one classifying those books and
films as noir. They were classified before I came
along.
Atmospherics that I have described as "dark and sinister"
strike me as the only common elements in the vast array of
crime fiction commonly (by others, not by me) described as
noir, so that's why I've called them the defining
elements.
> So, in the spirit of research... If I had only
one
> word to describe noir,
> I'd opt for bleak. A definition of noir that
doesn't
> include 'bleak' is
> always going to leave me unsatisfied, since
it's
> surely one of its most
> common characteristics. I don't think too
many
> people find noir terribly
> uplifting. I've certainly never read a
feel-good
> noir.
Does "bleak," as you're using it mean mean that it has to end
badly? That it can't have a "feel-good" ending?
If so, consider FAREWELL, MY LOVELY. At the end of the book,
reform seems to have taken hold (perhaps temporarily, but
time will tell) in Bay City. Laird Brunette can't run his
rackets with the same level of impunity. The murders have ben
solved. Red, the honest cop, has got his job back. Marlowe
wind up in the arms of the scrumptious Anne Riordan.
Now you may not consider Chandler noir. Fine. But I'M not the
one who classified him as noir. FAREWELL, MY LOVELY was one
of the first of Duhamel's SERIE NOIR offerings. The film
version, MURDER, MY SWEET, is routinely listed as one of the
seminal, definitive film noirs.
So there IS noir (perhaps not as you define, but as it's
commonly used) that leaves people feeling good, or at least
satisfied. There IS noir (perhaps not as you define it, but
as it's commonly used) that leaves the hero in a moment of
triumph rather than defeat. There IS noir (perhaps not as you
define, but as it's commonly used) that finishes on an upbeat
note.
And, at the risk of repeating myself, I'm not the one who
placed Chandler in the class of authors described as "noir."
Others did that long before I was ever born. I just tried to
see what it was that writers as disparate as Chandler, and
Goodis, and Williams, and Willeford, could have in common. I
found a very rough similarity in some of the atmospherics. I
described the atmospherics as "dark and sinister."
You may disagree that Chandler should be classified with the
other writers, but again, I wasn't the one who classified
him. I was attempting to define a form into which he'd
already been classified.
You may not agree that atmospherics ate the common element.
Fine. Then find another another common element, but, if
"bleak" requires a hopeless, downbeat ending, then "bleak" is
not it, because not all the stories commonly classified as
"noir" end that way.
Assuming you agree that atmospherics ARE the common element,
you may not find "dark and sinister" an adequate description.
Fine. Offer another one.
But don't blame me if "noir" is applied more generally than
you think it should be. The guy who coined the term did that,
not me.
JIM DOHERTY
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