At 04:55 PM 29/09/2005 +0000, you wrote:
>Tim,
>
>I agree with you. Most of what's published these days
as "noir" is
>as you say, the world as a dark place. To me, a
better definiton
>would be to simply label these as dark crime
stories/novels. Most of
>the stories in the Century of Noir anthology fit the
definition you
>describe. So unfortunately the definition of noir is
slowly being
>watered down, and even more unfortunate, true
(traditional) noir is
>getting harder to find (and even harder to
publish!)
But you're not looking for noir in these stories Dave. By
your definition, you're looking for tragedy in dungarees. If
you don't accept noir as a genre distinct from tragedy, you
can't expect to recognize it when you come across it.
As for the notion that we have to accept the definition of
book reviewers and marketers that noir simply means "dark"
(and by that I think you mean, Tim, dark in atmosphere as
opposed to doomed) because that's what helps them sell books,
I don't accept that either. I go with your existentialists,
finding only chaos in the worlds of reviewers and marketers,
and so coming up with a definition of noir that makes sense
to me. Of course, as a noir-type person, I expect that my
attempts to explain my definition of noir is doomed to
failure, defeated primarily by the very human trait of
wanting to see light at the end of every tunnel.
But I do take Tim's point. I think a lot of current noir
writing falls into 2 categories- one being the usurpers who
take up some of the characteristics of noir, missing the
essential ingredient of doom. The other is to take the notion
of being doomed for granted, failing to acknowledge your
second point of the existentialists- that individuals make up
values and reasons to get them through life. Instead these
authors take the path that Kevin described earlier: if we're
all doomed there's no point in life so let's have a big
shoot-em-up. There's certainly ample evidence of that in
life, but there's even more evidence that when confronted by
the uncertainties of life, we're even less certain about the
alternative.
This is what is noir about Cockfighter. The protagonist
aspires to a set of values that have no meaning outside his
world, one that determines success primarily by a fight
between two animals running essentially on the basest of
animal instincts. It is a set of values that can only be
maintained with a lot of work done for no purpose other than
to try to make that particular set of values work, and the
strength of character to ignore the obvious consequences of
that work: that animals live and die pointlessly (the
chickens,) there's little to be gained (a loving cup and
maybe a few bucks,) and what little gain there is, is usurped
by a few corrupt, powerful individuals (who do nothing of
much value with it.)
Of course miker might say "that's just those guys," but I
think Cockfighter is meant as metaphor. I could be wrong, but
I think Willeford's point was that when confronted with death
and the obvious fact that we are all doomed to experience it
regardless of our accomplishments in life, most of us come up
with notions of honourability, dignity and further, try to
impose some element of decision making into the process. None
of these notions change the fact that death is the inevitable
end of life, and life is all we know.
Not that I ever get that right either, Kerry
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