As I've learned from Rara-Avis, "noir" gets to atmosphere
(dark and sinister, as Jim D. puts it) and "hard-boiled" gets
to character (the tough outsider who adheres to his code,
maintains his dignity and even wins a few even as he takes
his lumps). So is it right to say that Chandler gives us a
hard-boiled protagonist operating in a noir world? If so, at
what point does the fact that Chandler's hero isn't himself a
noirish character - isn't dark and sinister - isn't a
desperate loser spiralling out of control and about to go
down for the count - change the contours and texture of the
world in which he operates - the world Chandler describes -
so that it becomes something other than noirish? There's a
nobility and romanticism and even an idealism in Chandler's
hero and his city that is ultimately redemptive ("I can't go
on. I'll go on") and so ultimately not noirish - despite the
atmospherics.
Steve
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