Kerry,
Re your comments below:
> "...in the end of a LOT of hard-boiled
crime
> fiction," but not all of it. I
> suspect not even in most of it, but why
quibble?
> Some stories are
> hardboiled and noir. The terms are not
mutually
> exclusive.
Okay, the we're agreed on that.
> Another lap around the track. It must be a
circular
> argument. My head is
> spinning. Point is, the trip is not sufficient
to
> remove the "If" from the
> beginning of your second sentence. Nor is the
"as
> I've always maintained."
If you start from a premise, then what follows logically from
that premise must, if the premise is correct, be the result.
You may disagree with my premise (of course, you'll be wrong
if you do, but you can disagree, just the same), but
disagreeing with my premise, that "noir" is not synonomous
with "tragic"
(in the literary sense), is not the same as saying that my
argument is circular.
> Well, I'd say it does. I'd argue it again, but
that
> just puts me on the
> same track as you, going in the opposite
direction.
The difference is I never said your argument was circular. I
said your premise was flawed. The reason I said your premise
was flawed isw because it WAS, in fact, flawed.
> Of course I'd agree with you that, loosely
applied,
> the term "tragedy" is
> useless within the context of crime fiction.
But
> literarily applied, as you
> put it, it is not. So we agree that not all
crime
> fiction has a protagonist
> that is tragically flawed.
Neither does all noir.
> Then that's what makes Duhamel's definition of
noir
> of little value when we
> try to understand what makes noir different
from
> other crime fiction. He
> used the term as a brand for marketing his
books.
> Fine, but as an able
> salesman, he could be relied upon to broaden
the
> meaning of the brand to
> encompass the products he chose to sell.
>
> Similarly "dark and sinister" is too broad. We
may
> reasonably say that any
> story that involves crime, especially
murder,
> employs dark and sinister
> atmospherics. Even Miss Marple dealt with
dark
> goings on in her little
> village. But Miss M was a good soul in a
positive
> environment that would be
> restored to good when the crime was solved.
Sam
> Spade, on the other hand,
> was uncertain of his values, which made his need
to
> enforce them that much
> stronger, and I'm not sure the world was a
better
> place when he was done. I
> doubt even that Spade was any better off. There is
a
> difference between
> these two protagonists, and it is more than the
fact
> that one was
> hardboiled (employing a colloquial style, I
think
> you said) and the other not.
So let me get this straight. Duhamel, who first coined the
term, got the term wrong? He was the first one to use it, in
fact he INVENTED it as a term for describing a particular
kind of mystery, but he got it wrong?
And "dark and sinister" is too broad? That's the first time
that particular criticism has been leveled against it in
awhile. Recently, the more common criticism has been that
it's far too restrictive.
If it is broad, that's why it serves as a good definition. It
not only includes the "classicly tragic" type of crime
fiction you've been talking about, but any other crime
fiction that is imbued with a dark and sinister
atmosphere.
It's simple, easy to remember, and applies to most (I would
maintain ALL) of the crime stories generally regarded as
coming under the "noir" umbrella. It includes the
ever-triumphant Mike Hammer as well as Cain's murderous but
sympathetic protagonists. Just as it did when Duhamel first
coined it as a marketing tool.
> No, I'm sorry, it means something more specific
than
> conflict. In
> crime-writing the bad guy has come into a
specific
> set of conflicts: those
> that involve the encoded rules set down by
the
> collective society in which
> he lives. Literature and life have many other
types
> of conflicts, but the
> defining conflicts in crime-writing are
criminal.
I think you missed my point here. What I said was that, prior
to Poe, there were certainly stories with bad guys doing bad
things (i.e. "committing crimes") that good guys opposed. For
that matter, crimes (or acts that most readers would commonly
understand to be crime) still occur in stories that are not,
strictly speaking, crime stories, per se, such as westerns
and science fiction.
After Poe, as crime fiction gradually comes to be recognized
as a separate, distinct genre, it takes on what you call "a
specific set of conflicts." I was only drawing an historical
distinction between stories with crimes (acts which
identified the villain and created conflict so that the story
could move forward), and crime stories (stories that fall
within a distinct, identifiable literary genre
post-Poe).
> Within that category are another group of
stories
> that have something else
> in common, such as not-so-good guys as
protagonists,
> or maybe sometimes
> nice guys as protagonists who can't handle
the
> conflict, can't redeem
> themselves or make the world a better place.
That,
> as I tell the folks at
> the bookstore, is noir. According to moi.
They may very well be noir, but they're not all there is to
noir. It's not that my defintion is too broad, but that yours
is much too restrictive and excludes far too much crime
fiction that clearly was included, and intended to be
included, when the term was coined.
And, returning to your earlier point, to assert that the
person who coined the term somehow used it incorrectly
virtually from the very first moment he coined it is to make
an argument that is so specious on its face that it barely
even requires a response.
> It's okay that we'd tell them different things.
I
> hope some day to enjoy
> the pleasure of meeting you as others on
RARA-AVIS
> have. Maybe we should
> talk about the weather?
Actually it's not. Presuming that I'm right and you're wrong
(always a safe presumption), you're giving them incorrect
information, when, if you just told them that it's a crime
story that has a dark and sinister atmosphere, and that's
really all there is to it, you'd be giving them correct
information.
And I rarely find the weather a sufficiently interesting
topic (though the Chicago winter this year was a real
bitch).
JIM DOHERTY
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