Re: RARA-AVIS: Hardboiled and Noir

From: JIM DOHERTY ( jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com)
Date: 22 Apr 2002


Jack,

Re your comment below:

> NOIR is fatalistic. You can see the protatonist's
> doom from the opening pages. It's mostly about
> people who were born to lose or those whose fates
> have undergone a reveral, which can be stalled
> but not stopped. Everything they do digs the hole
> deeper untill a bulldozer covers them over.

But there are plenty of noir stories, including many by Cornell Woolrich the "definitive" noir writer, in which the protagonist does NOT lose. You may have something about the character being in less control the outcome than fate (again this is often the case with Woolrich), but the outcome isn't always a tragic one. What IS always present is a dark and sinister atmosphere.

JIM DOHERTY

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