Hey, Jim,
Duhamel did not 'coin the term', Serie Noire. The series was
named by his friend, the poet Jacques Pr鶥rt.
Seems to me that Duhamel's definition (or description, if you
prefer), however interesting, is nonetheless a red herring.
From what I can gather, he was interested in procuring,
primarily, American hardboiled (or British copies of American
hardboiled) titles. "Dark and sinister" certainly doesn't
describe any of Peter Cheyney's work, not that I've read,
anyway. The phrase does, however, describe William Irish and
David Goodis. Describes them extremely well, in fact. I
mention them because Duhamel did coin the term S鲩e Blꭥ (which
Google translates as The Pale Series).
As far as I can gather, la S鲩e Blꭥ was established in 1949, a
year after la S鲩e Noire. 22 novels were published in the Pale
Series over the next two years. Of those 22 novels, two were
by David Goodis and two by William Irish. It would appear
that Duhamel didn't think Goodis and Irish were hardboiled
enough for la Serie Noire. Apparently this division confused
the public so the two imprints eventually merged into the one
big happy hardboiled/noir family under the Serie Noire
umbrella.
That's my take, anyway.
Goodis was pale. All that neuroses'll do that to a
fella.
Al
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, JIM DOHERTY
<jimdohertyjr@...> wrote:
>
> Mark,
>
> Re your comments below:
>
> "Jim never offered Duhamel's own definition in his
own
> words, though; instead, he employed
inductive
> reasoning to interpret Duhamel's definition.
Jim
> filtered the books down to the common elements
of
> 'dark and sinister.'"
>
> Since Duhamel never gave a definition, the only way
to
> derive one was to infer it by the common elements
of
> the books published under his logo. Those
common
> elements were, and are, a dark and
sinister
> atmosphere.
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