THE BIG HEAT helped me further define the noir genre for
myself on two accounts. A couple months ago I read Paul
Duncan's NOIR FICTION. His definition of noir requires a
protagonist that has lost control of himself and is powerless
to effect any significant change. Essentially he was
excluding most detective fiction from his definition and
embracing characters from Jim Thompson, David Goodis, James
Cain, and others. His argument was that the char- acters
couldn't be teetering on the brink of the abyss; they had to
be drowning in it. This corresponded with Mario's comment
that Hammett's work wasn't noir simply because it was too
tough. I was leaning towards this noir interpretation myself
until I read McGivern's book. But my brain tells me that THE
BIG HEAT is noir and Bannion, although how much control he
has is arguable, is definitely able to effect change. So I
have decided to disagree with Duncan's idea of the
requirements for a noir protagonist.
The other thing is the ending. There has been some question
as to whether a noir can end well or not. Many moons ago Jim
Doherty said that if a book is dark and sinister, it is noir
no matter whether the ending is happy or not. But then all
the noir I read ended in death or defeat, so I had to start
wondering. After reading THE BIG HEAT, I've decided that noir
can have a happy ending. For a long time now in the back of
my head I've had a really skeptical feeling about a genre
definition that requires a certain type of ending, and with
the wrong ending the rest of the book's leaning towards the
genre is negated. That seems limited, shallow, and
superficial to me. Literature sneers at unqualified Pollyanna
optimism. Like Charles Willeford said, "All great literature
is depressing." Seems to me that unqualified pessimism is
just as naive, even if it is more fashionable.
I found The Big Heat DVD. It's number one on the Netflix
queue now. At least until my daughter gets back on there and
rearranges all of hers back up to the top. ;-)
miker
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