----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave" <
davezelt@attbi.com>
> Frank "Dolly" Dillon from Thompson's 'Hell of a
Woman' fits the
> "screwed" definition, as does "Kid" Collins from
'After Dark, My Sweet'
> and to some degree Carl Bigelow from 'Savage
Night'.
Maybe, but psycho heavyweights Lou Ford and Nick Corey are a
step beyond
"screwed" and, for a definition to work, it can't have
exceptions.
> To me, literary
> noir, instead of the protagonist being "screwed" is
instead "doomed".
I prefer that. "Screwed" suggests there's a way out, whereas
"doomed" bears the genuine noir stamp of fatalism.
> The doomed aspect can be physical or
psychic.
But without psychic doom, there isn't any doom at all. Doom
originates in the mind. It's an attitude, a way of looking at
things, a noir pessimism. It may manifest itself in the
physical world, in the form of, say, a stalker, for example,
but the only relevant "noir" aspect in fiction is the
response - does the character carry on as normal (not noir)
or does he panic at the lack of police protection and assume
he's going to die (noir - real hardcore if there isn't a
stalker at all)?
> And just to confuse things even more, has anyone
here looked at "A
> Century of Noir" edited by Mickey Spillane and Max
Collins? I picked it
> up recently to plow through during a long flight,
and at most 10 of the
> 32 stories were what I'd even remotely consider
noir.
Most people seem happy to think of noir fiction as simply
meaning fiction with a dark content. Some of us, though, are
doomed to question, define and redefine. Our fate is sealed.
There is no escape. One thing's for sure: they're out to get
us with their sloppy word usage.
Al
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