I've been reading the thoughts concerning the definition of
Noir
for the last few weeks with rapt attention. The subject is
dear to my heart. And I wanted very much to throw my two
cents in, as I believe the discussion is a very important
one. If we don't know, and appreciate our traditions,
literary or otherwise, how can we preserve them from an
environment in the US that is so very hostile to art,
literature etc.
Someone mentioned the use of the Noir "label" as a marketing
tool,this is unfortunate, but is indicative of how advanced
capitalist society treats the arts. It tries to commoditize
them like everything else. And to a large degree it's been
successful. The end result is the Walmartization of the
novel. (And, also, I fear the beginning of the end of the
third person in the commercial novel.)
I agreed with much that has been said on the way to a
definition but there is one remark, very elegant idea (I
apologize for not noting who said it) but it was that noir
somehow went beyond the idea of tragedy especially the
classical idea of tragedy: being that a great person is
fallen by events, some of which are of his own making
etc.
I think this break with the old idea of tragedy came last
century as part of existentialism, modern notions of
psychology, and the new idea of alienation. All these
forces-- and others-- come into play as we start the 20th
century. And, I think all these forces take us to, and are
part of, the important works in the US that we agree form the
foundation for American Noir. Thompson et. al.
How did Doom get into the picture-- something that Classical
tragedy I don't think contains? Well I believe it was the
natural byproduct of the 20th century's great hope-- the
advent of modern notions of democracy sold to us by the press
etc., and subsequent realization that a lot of this talk of
Democracy was a lie. (Today 60% of the American people are
against the war in Iraq, yet Bush says we will stay.) This
feeling of Doom -- not death-- was produced by the First
World War, the birth of Fascism and finally Monopoly
Capitalism's war mongering during the Cold War, Vietnam
etc.
This whole thing is further complicated by the growth of the
science of psychology which is so obviously important to
Thompson with his creation of Lou Smith. So we have a duality
here: the individual is growing in consciousness during the
20th century and there is social progress, but at the
sometime wham, we're hit with forces that are so brutal and
disgusting to the human spirit that man sees Doom ahead. The
noir character goes right up to Doom and walks through it if
you will. That's what I believe Thompson and others did,
walked right up to it and held hope up against Doom's face.
You see Hope, I believe, has to be part of the equation
because it's in man's nature. You can not separate man from
hope, that's impossible. So in the end, ironically, I think
Noir is about a growth in human awareness/consciousness. I
think it means we have a chance. We have hope. It means we're
willing to face the ugly things in life and go on from there.
OK, so it was four cents.
kent
Dave Zeltserman <
davezelt@comcast.net> wrote:!)
>
> But you're not looking for noir in these stories
Dave. By your
definition,
> you're looking for tragedy in dungarees. If you
don't accept noir as
a
> genre distinct from tragedy, you can't expect to
recognize it when
you come
> across it.
>
I don't get your point, Kerry - I thought in my posts I was
making a fairly explicit distinction between tragedy and
noir?? Don't quite get the tragedy in dungarees reference
either.
Dave Z.
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