At 12:16 PM 16/05/2004 -0700, you wrote:
>An atmosphere or a mood can give a sense of the
the
>"sinister," but devices like rain, and
moonless
>nights, a fog-shrouded streets, while evoking
the
>"sinister," are morally neutral.
Uh, no. Here is where you are very wrong indeed. Nights,
moonless or otherwise, and rain, fog-shrouded streets are
morally neutral. They are not sinister. If you don't believe
me, ask one. Sinister is an evaluation made by humans and
applied to moonless, rain and foggy night streets. And that
valuation implies evil, a moral determination.
>Human imperfection is arguably a part of every
piece
>of literature ever produced by human hand. It's
not
>ALL noir.
Nor did I say it was.
>The world may be corrupt, but trying to improve
it
>isn't a corrupt response. It's a hoeful
one.
I did not say the world was corrupt. I said humans were. The
world is what it is, like the moonless nights and the
fog-shrouded streets, morally neutral. Only humans would say
that the world is corrupt. That itself is a corruption. We're
not in a position to make such a decision.
>You seem to be getting way off the track here.
Rules
>are set up precisely because humans have a sense
of
>right and wrong. Rules are a way of defining
the
>behavior that allows us to live with each other in
a
>civilized way.
Yep. And we break them, even in their application. Can't live
with 'em. Can't live without 'em.
>Rules are broken because people are given the
ability
>to make choices, and some people make evil
choices.
>
>What all this has to do with the definition of
"noir,"
>as it's applied to crime fiction is a bit beyond
me.
Apparently so. You seem to think that evil (in addition to
the possibility of being wrong) is beyond you as well. But
noir deals with the fact that human corruption endures in us
as individuals as well as in our collective societies. Crimes
may be solved, but they will be committed again. Sometimes
they are not solved. Sometimes the people who attempt to
solve them commit additional crimes in the process. Sometimes
they commit those crimes while not seriously attempting to
solve the crimes they claim to be trying to solve. Sometimes
they, and we, are just fucked from the get-go, by maintaining
moral standards to which we can only aspire. But humanity
goes merrily along committing crimes (moral and otherwise,
individually and collectively) for our own enrichment.
>Well, duh! If it didn't endure, there wouldn't
be
>sequels.
That's one way of showing the endurance. Perhaps that's why
sequels, or character series are so common in the noir genre.
But other genres encourage the fantasy that human corruption
does not endure, or exist, or is not worth considering.
Romance assumes that all will be well if the one we love
loves us back. Gothic novels tended to put evil into certain
landscapes (though often this was a metaphor for human
corruption.) Westerns too, assume evil (if at all) is a
function of geography, though they quickly move beyond that.
Monster stories (vampire, mummies and other serial killers)
assume evil is not human, or super-human. War stories tend to
think that it is war that is dehumanizing, forgetting who
engages in the process, or that it is ennobling. Science
Fiction often features stories that forget about human nature
entirely. Of course, genres are not pure. Themes cross.
>If the definition of noir is that evil is not
totally
>eriadicated, than Agatha Christie is noir,
since
>there's always another murder for Poirot or
Miss
>Marple to solve in the next book.
Next book. But Christie views murder as some sort of happy
social accident done largely for the readers' entertainment.
Don't forget, too, that Christies often evoke dark and
sinister atmospherics. But world's a better place when the
crime is solved, in Christies' fantasies.
>The point is, others already MADE the
classification.
>And when they made it, it included a lot of
authors
>whose work was, in many ways, not all that
similar.
>PI stories, cop stories, criminal protagonist
stories,
>spy stories, "doomed, flawed hero" stories, and
even
>romantic thrillers. All I did was try to
identify
>what all thise disparate works had in
common.
>
>The term "noir" was already in use. I saw how it
was
>being used, to what it was being applied, and tried
to
>identify the common elements.
>
>As I said to Doug, I'm not the one doing
the
>reclassifying.
Never said you were. I may be reclassifying. Certainly there
is ample evidence of others who agree with your definition
(usually by those who don't care enough to argue about it as
we do). Still, possession of a dark and sinister atmosphere
is not adequate to define noir, as I see it.
And the debate is worthwhile. Many ideas have been raised
that would not have received consideration without it.
Best Kerry
------------------------------------------------------
Literary events Calendar (South Ont.) http://www.lit-electric.com
The evil men do lives after them http://www.murderoutthere.com
------------------------------------------------------
-- # Plain ASCII text only, please. Anything else won't show up. # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 16 May 2004 EDT