At 07:12 PM 17/03/2007, you wrote:
>Miker wrote:
>In a postmodern
>mystery novel, the mystery most likely won't
get
>solved, and if it is solved, it won't matter
to
>anyone. If it's a crime novel, nobody will pay
for
>the crime, but on the outside chance that
somebody
>does, it won't be the person who committed the
crime
>and, again, it won't really matter.
Overlooking your overlong, adjectival rejection of
postmodernism, which is revealing but not all that relevant
to this discussion, couldn't this summation apply to many
hardboiled and noir novels? Who killed the chauffeur in "The
Big Sleep" and does it matter? Not to Raymond Chandler,
apparently. What is the punishment in "The Postman Always
Rings Twice"? If there is any, it's not by the judicial
system. Does it matter? Who is punished in "Chinatown", the
criminal or the weak (okay, that's not a novel.) Does it
matter, in the sense that something is changed as a
consequence?
It's okay not to like post-modernism. I myself think the
philosophy defines things more as they are (as near as I can
tell) than as I'd like them to be. Still, it does seem to me
that the qualities you list are pretty close to the defining
characteristics of noir as well, which was my point.
Maybe it's the hardboil that's more to your liking, where
tough guys use their vernaculars to set things right?
Best, Kerry
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