RARA-AVIS: Origins of Noir--Notes on Charles Ardai's B'Con session

From: Bruce Makous ( bruce@brucemakous.com)
Date: 05 Sep 2005


At B'con, there was a fabulous session on "21st Century Noir" chaired by Charles Ardai, and featuring Sean Doolittle, Simon Kernick, Jason Starr, and Ken Bruen. It was really great. At one point, in talking about the origins of noir, Charles theorized that it goes back at least to Shakespeare, with King Lear, and possibly other Shakespearean works. Later, I suggested to Charles that Oedipus Rex was pretty noirish, and he made a great comment, suggesting that the Greeks felt their universe was determined by the gods, and when the literature suggests that the gods were acting completely arbitrarily or unjustly, as in Oedipus Rex, it created a noir universe. I would guess that there are parallels like the story of Job in Biblical literature, suggesting a pretty unjust God, and a noirish world.

Best, Bruce

Bruce Makous Author, Riding the Brand www.brucemakous.com

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