--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Kerry J. Schooley"
<gsp.schoo@m...> wrote:
> At 10:15 PM 12/02/2005 -0700, you wrote:
>
> >Jack said, "As for Kafka? He is not only noir
'ish.' He's flat out noir
> >but with a fantasy twist."
>
> It may be redundant to say so, but noir is a
sub-genre of crime fiction.
> Forget that and the cat is so long out of the bag
that every kitten begins
> to look alike.
I disagree. Noir need not involve a crime. To be sure, there
must be something threatening, but it can be self-inflicted
or just in the head of the characters. The threat may be
anything, from a crushing bureaucracy that destroys dignity
and hope (as in Kafka's work) to drug- or alcohol-induced
fantasies that destroy the protagonist. Noir reaches quite
far. Dino Buzzati's masterpiece, _The Desert of the Tartars_,
is noir, as is Adolfo Bioy Casare's _Adventures of a
Photographer in La Plata_. There are no crimes, but the
atmosphere is ominous, and the doings, rummy all the way to
nightmarish.
> And while it may be Hard Boil that's working class,
noir too looks at the
> world, especially the exercise of power, from the
bottom up. Correct me if
> I'm wrong, but might not even Captains be
existentialists?
I don't think hardboiledness has to do mainly with class.
Hardboiled characters can belong to any social class.
Best,
MrT
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