Re: RARA-AVIS: Skin River

From: Glenn ( sirinigar@yahoo.com)
Date: 07 Jan 2005


Thank you for the definitions and the welcome to the group. I like those definitions as well.

> Jim adds colloquial to
> the hardboiled definition because he sees it as a
> class- or street-oriented genre, so although James
> Bond and Sherlock Holmes may be tough as nails, their
> somewhat aristocratic airs keep them out of the
> hardboiled club.

Class or Street oriented genre. Yes definitely.

>
> Noir is more complex, I think. Some people on the
> list think it goes beyond just atmosphere, and must
> relate to the protagonist's state of mind, with fear
> and desperation being on the short list.

I can see that. To tell you the truth, some might not agree with this but, I use Jason Starr and Michael Ledwidge as a litmus test when I try to decide if a novel is noir.

> Some see
> noir as an extension of the pessimistic determinism in
> the early writings of American naturalists such as
> Jack London and Stephen Crane, and that the noir
> protagonist is doomed from the beginning.

Personally I think that Starr writes this type of character better than anyone else I've ever read.
  
>
> It's also fairly well accepted that the two genres are
> not mutually exclusive of one another, so a book can
> be both hardboiled and noir. In my experience, only
> rarely is noir divorced from hardboiled.
>
> miker

You're absolutely right. I really appreciate the time you took to respond to my post.

Thank you very much.

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