On 1 September 2005, Michael Robison wrote:
: But assuming one would want to "be" noir, what would
a
: noir philosophy consist of?
:
: *************
: Existentialism.
It occurred to me today that maybe another axis of dividing
hardboiled from noir is that hardboiled tends to be
prescriptive while noir tends to be descriptive. That is, the
hardboiled stuff shows people who walk the mean streets but
are not themselves mean because they have morals and ethics,
and they are examples of good behaviour. (Well, maybe not
Mike Hammer.) The noir describes grim, sometimes brutal
conditions, people trapped with no control, and lessons to be
learned from it come not from following what is shown but
from avoiding everything that led the people into lives where
all they can say is: "I'm screwed." (Which makes noir sort of
proscriptive.) This fits in with the point I think we talked
about earlier, the attitude of the protagonist is key and can
change a book from one to the other.
I know little about existentialism. The most recent thing I
read that fits is Charles Willeford's existential western THE
DIFFERENCE, which I think fits the prescriptivist pattern. If
noir is descriptive, then it must be some sides of
existentialism, which gives a way to understand the world and
live in it. Existentialism may be the first to come to mind
when thinking of the noir world--they became popular in the
same time and place--but every other philosophy and religion
out there also provides rules for living in the noir world.
That's why we need them. But they give principles for
surviving and being good, they don't just describe.
Where this puts, say, Stark's Parker books, I don't know.
Certainly everyone can learn from his professionalism. It's
just too bad that he's a soulless professional thief and
killer. He's stoic, but he's no Stoic.
Bill
-- William Denton : Toronto, Canada : www.miskatonic.org : www.frbr.org
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