[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
Re: RARA-AVIS: Michael Collins/Japanese hardboiled fiction
On Wed, 29 Jan 1997 15:42:48 michael david sharp <msharp@umich.edu> wrote:
>E J M. Duggan writes:
>
>>Ah, but this is the 1990s, and 'noir' is a snappy term --- a loosely
>>defined catchall with some cache.
>>that you can already hear the poncey chat-show crowd with literary
>>pretensions
>>''Oh yeah, it's so Nu-wah in its am-be-yonce''
>>[well, maybe Tony Parsons, anyway]
>
>OK, perhaps. But, though I don't know Pronzini or his writing well, he
>doesn't seem too big on literary pretension, and I don't think his free
>use of the word "noir" in describing HB fiction is designed to impress
>anyone. The intro to the collection is acutally very no-nonsense, very
>helpful, and (as an English teacher I love this part) very clearly
>written. Recommended.
Yes, you're quite right to pick me up on this: on rereading the quoted
piece, I can see how I appear to have conflated my assertion, that there is
a pretentious aspect to the use of the term 'noir', with MDS's observation
on use of the term in the introduction to the Pronzini and Adrian
collection.
There are two distinct things here: first, the term has a certain currency
that puts it more readily in the mouth of Tony Parsons and those of his ilk
(apologies to non-UK readers), as well as contributing to the construction
of a marketing category (or perhaps, a cliche in paperback blurbs) in
popular fiction; the second is that, in the context it appears in the Bill
Pronzini/Adrian Jack collection, that is, in the mid 1990s, there is a
shift toward the interchangable use of noir/hardboiled. This may or may
not be a good thing. In light of the debate in this thread, I would
suggest that the interchangable use of the two is less than helpful (MDS's
earlier distinction is, IMO, incisive and valuable to our discussion and
conceptualisation)
.
But while there are those two distinct points to be made, Jack and Pronzini
are writing in a time when there *is* that slippage in terminology, and
while I would agree with MDS that the introduction to the collection
*Hardboiled* is a useful and well-written piece, it is ultimately [FLAME
SHIELD ON] an introduction to a popular fiction collection (albeit marketed
by the Oxford press only in hardback, for a middle class audience) and not
an analytical essay in a scholarly literary/cultural studies text.
OK, I've just been to re-read my copy of the intro to *Hardboiled*
(I was uncertain about what I'd written above/remembered about the intro)
It's pretty good intro. As a lecturer in Literary, Media & Cultural
Studies, I find too find it a useful piece and, like MDS I would highly
recommend it. However, I think I'm prepared to defend my statement above
on a number of grounds. The introduction is really too short to treat any
aspect of the area it covers with any depth or thoroughness; it's a *brief*
introduction to the area which serves also as an introduction to the
*collection* (it does both, btw, pretty well). The use of the definite
article in referring to *The Black Mask* or *Black Mask* is sloppy, without
any attention to the change in name in 1926. There is a tendency to
over-emphasise Shaw's role in fostering Hammett's contribution to *Black
Mask* (ie it appears they've read and believed Shaw's version, from his own
collection of *Black Mask* stories, which downplays credit to Phil Cody,
who first accepted Hammett's stuff, and without whose editorial judgement,
the so-called 'Black Mask School' would've been rather different).
For those who don't yet know the Adrian/Pronzini collection, *Hardboiled:
An Anthology of American Crime Stories* there are thirty-six stories,
spanning the period between 1925-1992. Obviously, there's a lot of good
stuff between the covers. It really is a super collection despite my minor
quibbles about the introduction. If however, the terms 'Hardboiled' and
'noir' *are* truly synonymous, why isn't *this* anthology called *Noir*?
Eddie Duggan
--------------------------
'If an orange is called an orange,
why isn't a banana called a yellow?'
Jim, *Taxi*
--------------------------
-
# RARA-AVIS: To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis"
# to majordomo@icomm.ca
[Archives] | [RARA-AVIS]