--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, DJ-Anonyme@w... wrote:
<<But, personally, I find humor all over noir. Irony
seems to be a defining characteristic of modern noir (and
didn't you once make that claim, Mario, in asserting
Willeford was the first true writer of modern
noir?>>
I think I wrote that Willeford is a sort of postmodern
noirist -- there is a wink to the reader, who becomes an
accomplice. There is a difference between reading The Woman
Chaser as a pure drama of self-destruction --really believing
in the auto salesman and his predicament-- and reading it
with the awareness that it's half-parody. I read it as
half-parody, therefore I am an accomplice of Willeford's. The
author still manages to maintain the necessary tension, but
it's punctuated by his winks. For me, the biggest wink of all
is when the guy performs a sensual dance with his mother, to
Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra if I remember
correctly!
There are lots of these winks in The Burnt Orange Heresy; in
that case, the book reads to me as pure comedy, from the name
of Figueras to the vacuous and pretentious critical jargon he
spurts periodically.
Now I need to repair my frame.
Jacques Debierue
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 22 Oct 2004 EDT