On 12/20/06 12:21 PM, "JIM DOHERTY" <
jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com> wrote:
> T,
>
> Re your comment below:
>
> "Today, noir does not have a very definite
meaning;
> however, it is easy to see when something
_isn't_
> noir, which shows that, however hazy, it is a
robust
> concept and not a pure contraption of
critics."
>
> Finally common ground! It IS hard to pin down
the
> meaning of noir, which is why I've always opted for
a
> fairly generaly definition based on what seemed to
me
> the common qualities all fiction/film deemed
"noir"
> seemed to have.
>
> Similarly, though, it is, as you say, usually easy
to
> determine what is NOT noir.
>
This raises a different but related question in my mind. I
think people would agree that over time the meanings of words
change, definitions evolve. This seems to be the case with
the definition of noir. With other things I might applaud
expanding the definition to be more inclusive and more
accurately reflect modern society, but when it comes to genre
and subgenre definitions I wonder if this is a bad
thing.
For example, with the thriller awards last July I found
myself perplexed. Stuart MacBride¹s book Cold Granite while
a fantastic piece of fiction and something I¹d class under
noir myself was not what I¹d call a thriller. Others I know
expressed the same sentiment. This didn¹t stop me from being
delighted for him to be nominated, but end of the day it left
me completely confused at what exactly is considered a
thriller anymore, and that¹s a personal bugbear of mine
because where I live thrillers are not put in the
Œmystery¹ section of the chain bookstores they¹re put in
general fiction. Yet Bruen, MacBride, Kernick you¹ll find
them in mystery.
My husband just read Bust by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr and is
reading London Boulevard and he asked me what noir is. After
all the discussion here I¹m left saying I¹m not sure anymore,
but I always thought of The Wire as noir. Fundamentally,
anything can happen. It is what I would call dark realism
nobody is safe from a bullet, people don¹t turn a blind eye
to the bad stuff happening in the world. The Œheroes¹ are not
insulated and ensured safe passage.
Then I started thinking about books I¹ve thought of as noir
and realized this isn¹t true of many of them. We¹re going to
spend January mulling it over. Kevin just ordered a
collection of 30 Œfilm noir¹ classics.
Meanwhile, what I¹m wondering is whether people think the
definitions should be expanded, or whether they should be
narrowly construed and that we should have more subgenres
instead of blurring the lines. In part, I ask for a selfish
reason. I¹m on a panel in June discussing the blurring of the
lines between the subgenres, and I¹m wondering if expanding
the definitions ultimately results in watering them down so
much as to make them meaningless.
Thoughts? On list or off, most welcome.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 20 Dec 2006 EST