Mark quoted Vicki:
If someone can really develop interesting character and
psychological depth, I wouldn't reject a book just because it
had an unexpected ending, but this doesn't happen very often.
What I want is something unpredictable, but seems to be the
only possible ending for the character when you think it
over.
*********** One of noir's greatest features is the
predictable ending that is also a surprise. It's accomplished
with irony. You know the protagonist is doomed and by God he
is, but you never imagined him going down the way he does.
You know where Frank is headed in Cain's The Postman Always
Rings Twice, but the fact that he ends up there for a crime
he didn't commit is wonderful. The protag in Gresham's
classic Nightmare Alley is doomed from the beginning by Freud
and greed, but how he ends up is one of the best pieces of
irony I've ever read. Willeford swaps femme fatales on the
reader in Wild Wives, an irony of style on top of
irony.
Whether by choice or lack of ability, most modern noir's
failure to produce significant irony dooms not only the
protagonist, but the novel as well.
miker
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 11 Nov 2005 EST