First, I want to underline that if I dismissed the last works
of Dantec, the reason is not because he mixes genres. He just
could not control his writing anymore... But Duane pointed to
an interesting question. Not so simple to answer.
I must say that personally I think Behm just liked the
"supernatural" and a bit of fantasy and surreal things in his
stories. Even, a lot more of these things can be found in his
further writings, as in a few other novels than THE EYE OF
THE BEHOLDER. Seems to be like his writer inclination. I, on
the other hand think that this mix and surrealism...etc. is
probably more easily accepted in the French tradition for
genre lit. Inclusive noir and HB. However you will find
strong detractors there as well, because they do not think
fit mixing what should be "pure" realism (for HB, noir) and
surrealism. But they are not the majority.
During the last 15/20 years, it's a fact that quite a number
of French writers have chosen to introduce surrealism and
very dark noir humor in their novels which however are still
belonging to the HB/noir domain. Of course, it means that you
cannot consider HB/noir as a closed genre, as many still do,
to admit that these novels still belong there... Writers like
Nadine Monfils (she produced two exceptional novels in that
vein), Franz Bartelt, J-B Pouy (occasionally), Thierry
Jonquet (two or three novels), Daniel Penac (his Malauss讥
cycle of novels), Jean-Baptiste Baronian (especially in his
short stories) are amongst the best contemporary noir French
writers doing mix of genres. But they all publish this kind
of works in regular "policier" (= mystery ficton) imprints,
rarely by "fantastique" (branch of genre lit.close to
fantasy-SF- very popular in France) publishing houses.
E.Borgers HARD-BOILED MYSTERIES http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384
POLAR NOIR http://www.geocities.com/polarnoir
Duane Spurlock :
> "E.Borgers" <
webeurop@yahoo.fr> wrote:
>
> <<
> However, if you ask my opinion, Dantec became a
schizophrenic writer
> during the last 5-6 years, and, you're right,
Babylon Babies (1999
> in
> French) is SF . Unless you are attracted by literary
oddities, my
> friendly advice is to stay away from the book. Too
long, too much, too
> paranoid... and finally not much left after reading
it
> -but it had its supporters.
> It's a pity because Dantec was a gifted writer, and
his first novels
> are
> still worth to be read, but I do not think they were
translated: "La
> sirène rouge" (The Red Mermaid), 1993 - "Les racines
du mal" (The
> Roots
> of Evil), 1995. the second one was a big success; he
already mixed
> genres: noir and a bit of cyberpunk SF, but it was
balanced and
> interesting. Both were published by Série
Noire.
>
>
> In the post-EYE OF THE BEHOLDER novels by Marc Behm
I've read, he does a bit of genre mixing as well.
>
> Part noir, part dark fantasy.
>
> Behm has lived in France for many years, and I
wonder if this is just something he's picked up as part of
the
> French popular literary milieu, or is there a
"genre" of mixed-genre fiction that's popular in
Europe?
>
> - Duane Spurlock
> www.pulprack.com
>
>
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