George C. Upper III asks:
<<Do the vicarious experiences of noir heroes /
anti-heroes provide a release for the fear and pity, a la
Aristotle's Poetics, that we normally bottle
up?>>
Speaking of noir, I believe the vicarious experiece of noir
gives us a sense of relief in the sense of "but for the grace
of God
(nature/higher power/my own intelligence and/or intuition) go
I."
We see the coming demise of the noir protagonist. Most of us
would not do what he does and thus save ourselves.
In a rare noir work like "The Confession" we sense a vacuum
or psychotic twist--take your pick--in a person's
psychological make up, and we are thankful that nothing that
terrible has grabbed us.
<<works "mere" entertainment, in the sense of escapism?
Do they somehow inform us about the true nature of the world
in which we live?>>
We see human failing and know or hope we would never do that.
It somehow, I believe, reinforces our individual true
nature--or if we happen to be off kilter someplace, we
identify. "Yeah, go get
'em."
<<Or do we, perhaps perversely, wish we lived in a
world like those of our hard-boiled heroes?>>
Now, you're talking hard-boiled and not noir. For me,
absolutely. I would like to live "safely" in that world and
know I won't get killed, maimed or otherwise screwed
up.
I'm not sure that in the hardboiled world it is necessarily
perverse.
In the noir world? Yeah, that's pervese.
Jack Bludis
http://www.jackbludis.com
Shamus nominee for "Shadow of the Dahlia" Amazon.com / BN.com
/ MysteryLovesCompany.com
__________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine
Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
--------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite
Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page
http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/kqIolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rara-avis-l/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email
to:
rara-avis-l-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 29 Oct 2005 EDT