>
>
>the notion that something that
>>would otherwise be hard-boiled or noir but for
its political focus is
>>fallacious.
>
>
>
>Yes, of course it is. The political focus actually
suggests noir,
>especially assuming the knowledge that power
necessarily corrupts. This
>applies to power in the very broadest, as well as the
defined, partisan, sense.
>
The issue is not whether a novel about crime is either noir
or
"political" (if that means an intent to point out social
injustice and galvanize people to deplore it and act to
reform the political entity). It is not open to question
whether or not noir novels (Thompson, Hammett, Chandler,
Goodis) deal with political issues. I wonder, rather, about
what might be called the novelist's "vision," or his/her
prevailing view of the moral and emotional orientation of the
characters to their culture. David Goodis' novels can be a
primer of political corruption (the disenfranchisement of
working class, and the way organized crime, the police, and
the political leaders of Phila. conspired against the
underclass in the industrial era). But there is no suggestion
of the major characters, victimized though they be by those
in power, improving their lot through concerted action
(although sometimes minor characters accomplish this). His
characters remain trapped in their own psyches, and reach a
kind of existential, stoic awareness of who they are and of
their fate. His vision, and reputation, is "the poet of the
losers." This is not "a political focus." I don't see
anything that would make Goodis a political novelist, and if
he were that, his noir vision would dissolve, wouldn't it?
And what about Chester Himes' Coffin Ed and Grave Digger
Jones? They feel that they must be as punitive as possible,
as the only way to keep order in Harlem. In _The Real Cool
Killers_, one of them says that it would be a different story
if New York politicians were at all serious about bringing
social justice to Harlem. They are not, so the duo have to
take the bitter hard boiled approach they do. Himes shows us
life as it is, and how it must be lived. That necessity has
political causes, but his books are not focussed on social
reform. Because if that, his Coffin Ed and Grave Digger
novels are, however deeply political, noir to the roots. If
Himes, Goodis, and the writers mentioned in this disucssion
believed in or advocated political reform, or if they were
dedicated to describing predatory conduct by the haves
against the have nots (in crime narratives) they would be
radically different works, that we might not think of as
noir.
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