At 10:07 PM 21/10/2004 +0000, you wrote:
>True humor (which is indeed redeeming, that is,
healthy) is
>incompatible with true noir. If the situation of the
doomed noir
>protagonist is made humorous, the reader may not
believe in it.
>Lose the accepted doom and noir can easily become
ridiculous.
>Somehow Willeford managed to mix the two, but he's
the
>exception. I would not say that humor has been an
element of
>noir from the beginning. Quite the
contrary.
How about all those Chandlerian metaphores?
"She was the type of girl to make a bishop kick out a stained
glass window."
True, we're usually talking what is called "black" humour
here, fittingly enough. (How about a debate defining black
humour?)
Humour that redeems, or at least is written with that
purpose, might better be called satire. Noir tends more
toward the comic. Banana peel stuff, but often self
depricating. You know, we send all these e-mails talking
about this stuff as if it makes any difference; as if we
weren't all going to die anyway. That kind of humour.
Kerry, who's trying not to go first.
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