I'd say much more than "class, colour, money, education,
status and sex," the clashes that occur in noir and
hardboiled fiction are between the lucky and the unlucky in
life. Most stories concern someone who's been very lucky or
unlucky, and how their luck shifts and then shifts back.
Sometimes the shift occurs due to hard work and intelligent
planning
(Mildren Pierce, The Godfather), Or criminal activity
(The Grifters, Postman Always Rings Twice), but suddenly
something that looks like great good fortune fails, or a
gravytrain that looked like it would run forever is routed
out, or someone who's never had a bit of luck fianlly sees an
opportunity. Class, colour, money, education, status and sex
are really just the underpinning of the story. You could
reverse any of these in a well-written noir story, and still
have just as good a tale as long as the reversals of fortune
hold true.
Patrick King
--- Eric Chambers <
nqexile@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> A few interesting points here."Your more
hard-boiled
> and Nor stories
> usually take in place in less conservative
locales"
>
> I have never thought about it that way. A lot of
the
> fiction we are concerned with here involves
the
> juxtaposition (clashes?) between people of
different
> class, colour, money, education, status and
sex.Some
> of it takes place in very conservative
locales
> indeed.
> One sport that there are a lot of crime novels
about
> is horse-racing. Anybody know any in this
category
> you could define as hard-boiled or Noir. How
about
> the gambling and casino industry?
>
> Rugby ( correctly 'Rugby Union') and Rugby
League
> are both hard-played full-body contact sports.
Both
> are currently big money sports. Rugby Union has
a
> lot of tradition and prestige involved. Both
sports
> inspire a lot of passion.
> In other words I can't see any reason why
they
> wouldn't be a fitting subject area for Noir
or
> hard-boiled fiction. I don't know of any
though.
> What about Grid-Iron ( As we name American
football
> in Australia?) Anybody aware of any football
Noir
> or hard-boiled fiction?
>
>
> Charlie Williams"
cs_will@hotmail.com
> wrote,--- In rara-avis-l@
> yahoogroups. com, Steve Novak <Cinefrog@.. .>
wrote:
> > Anyone knows about crime novels with rugby
in
> them???...I know of
> one being
> > written at this time by a French author
and
> friend...but aside from
> that???
>
> Interesting question that had me wracking my
brains
> to no avail. In
> the UK at least, I suspect that rugby is way
to
> middle class to allow
> much dabbling in the murky waters of crime.
There
> are probably a few
> PD James or Colin Dexter-style investigations
that
> touch on rugby or
> its players, but that is because the mystery
is
> traditionally more
> middle class (like rugby). Your more
hard-boiled
> and noir stories
> usually take in place in less conservative
locales,
> and concern the
> kind of people who... well, don't care about
rugby.
> Actually I'm just
> talking about England here, not the UK. Rugby has
a
> different
> demographic in Wales, and rugby league (as in
This
> Sporting Life, as
> I recall) is staunchly working class.
>
> Thinking about it, I can't think of many
> sports-themed noir or
> hardboiled stories at all (boxing and
betting
> aside). Hey, maybe it's
> because teamwork and camaraderie keeps you on
the
> straight and narrow?
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Get the name you always wanted with the new
y7mail
> email address.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have
been
> removed]
>
>
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