Jay,
Re your comment below:
"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."
So, if I understand you correctly, you're suggesting that if
a work, one that would otherwise be widely regarded as
hard-boiled or noir, either advocates political reform or
emphasizes predatory behavior by the upper-class against the
lower class, that advocacy or emphasis, all by itself,
transforms the work into something that is distinct from and
wholly outside of the category of hard-boiled or noir.
Why would it automatically do that? Why isn't the work simply
noir or hard-boiled that advocates political reform or
emphasizes certain predatory behavior on the part of rich
folks? Why should the mere presence of the advocacy for a
political reformation or the depiction of hateful behavior by
people with money, merely by that advocacy or that depiction,
take a work outside the parameters of noir or hard-boiled?
What is there about noir or hard-boiled that you believe to
be antithetical to the advocacy of a political position or
the depiction of a class of people?
I grant you that a hard-boiled or noir novel that did that
may very well be radically different from a hard-boiled or
noir novel that didn't, but surely the hard-boiled or noir
styles are broad enough to accomodate novels that are
radically different from each other, aren't they?
What makes you think otherwise?
JIM DOHERTY
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