Al,
Re your comments below:
> Duhamel did not 'coin the term', Serie Noire. The
series was named
> by his friend, the poet Jacques Pr鶥rt.
Actually, in a sense, neither of them coined it. "Un serie
noir" already existed as a figure of speech in France,
translating roughly as "a run of bad luck." Hence the line
had a humorous double meaning, not only describing crime
fiction with a particularly dark tone or approach, but the
events that the characters in that fiction were going to have
to go through.
It was Duhamel, however, who set the parameters of the term's
meaning by choosing which books would be published under that
logo.
> 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.
Well, as you know, I've always maintained that hard-boiled
and noir were not mutually exclusive, and based that opinion
partly on the large number of American (or American-style)
hard-boiled mysteries that appeared under the logo in its
earliest years.
I've never read Cheyney (and very little of James Hadley
Chase, who also dominated the first 100 titles published
under the line). However, didn't Cheyney write a series of
spy novels called the "Dark Series," in which the first word
of each title was "Dark?" Maybe his work seemed darker in
French.
I hope so, because if even something as broad as "dark and
sinister" doesn't apply (and Richard Moore also suggested
this when the subject came up on an earlier occasion), then,
since there were "Serie Noir" entries which were not
hard-boiled either, we're left with virtually nothing that
distinguishes noir from any other kind of mystery.
> 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 interesting, because I quite agree with you about
David Goodis and, particularly, about Cornell Woolrich
(William Irish). In fact, Woolrich, precisely because he was
so adept at establishing and maintaining a dark, sinister
atmosphere, has always seemed to me to be the quintessential
noir writer. Moreover, many of the movies deemed definitive
examples of film noir, THE WINDOW, THE LEOPARD MAN, BLACK
ANGEL, and PHANTOM LADY, were all adapted from Woolrich's
work. To say nothing of DARK PASSAGE, from Goodis's
novel.
Did Goodis or Woolrich get published under the NOIR label
once the two lines were merged?
Interestingly, Gallimard had at least two other mystery
lines, SERIE DETECTIVE and another the name of which escapes
me, dedicated to more traditional mysteries including writers
Conan Doyle, Ellery Queen, and Margery Allingham.
JIM DOHERTY
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