At 02:58 PM 27/11/2006 -0800, you wrote:
>Kerry J. Schooley wrote:
>
>Transcendence is impossible, but that does not make
it
>any less appealing. That is another view of
the
>central human dilemma.
>
>***********
>Maybe you've got high expectations for
transcendence,
>but in the noir world, just getting out free and
alive
>with all your body parts is pretty close.
That'd be survival, a much different and notably fleeting
accomplishment. Additionally, most noir protagonists, even
those who survive their immediate circumstance, lose
something in the process: a job, self respect, a loved one, a
pot of gold, freedom to act. Often enough, too, it is the
scales from their eyes.
"Transcend," in my Canuck Oxford, is to "be beyond the range
or grasp of
(human experience, reason, belief etc.)" Call it living
happily ever after, or living for eternity, or somehow rising
above or existing indifferently to the human condition. To
have low expectations for transcendence is to deny it's
practical existence. Which, unlike any other literary form,
noir does.
Best, Kerry
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