Re: RARA-AVIS: RE : Lolita and noir

From: Richard Moore ( moorich@aol.com)
Date: 04 Feb 2007


The periodic debates on the definitions of noir and hard-boiled are child's play compared to the endless debates that could be had over what is funny and what is not funny. I respect the fact that you do not see the humor in Lolita that I recall enjoying. You are welcome to join the sizable group who consider me a little weird or, as they say downhome in Georgia, "turned funny." I have even been known to laugh out loud at irony.

We do agree that Nabokov was a genius.

Richard Moore

--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Patrick King <abrasax93@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Richard,
>
> I'm afraid the humor in Lolita was lost to me. I think
> Nabokov wrote it ironically, because of the hypocracy
> he saw as an immigrant in US society, but I don't find
> Lolita funny. Irony is certainly not LOL humor.
> Thompson's Recoil is a very ironic novel, as is
> Warren's All The King's Men, but neither could be
> considered actually funny. I think an argument could
> be made that Warren's novel is also "noir," but it may
> go beyond that genre. I think, personally, that Lolita
> is basically a noir novel composed by a genius.
>
> Patrick
> --- Richard Moore <moorich@...> wrote:
>
> > My apologies for being absent from this dialog for
> > days at a time.
> > It has been many years since I read LOLITA and
> > Cain's BUTTERFLY--
> > long enough that I don't feel comfortable being
> > hard-over on this.
> > My memory is that BUTTERFLY was more noir or
> > near-noir than LOLITA.
> > I do not believe that every novel wherein the male
> > lead is lured to
> > his doom by a female (regardless of age) is noir.
> >
> > Jailbait novels were relatively common in the first
> > few decades of
> > paperbacks. Some, such as several by Gil Brewer,
> > were noir. Many
> > others were backwoods comedy romps trying to catch
> > the Tobacco Road
> > audience and I wouldn't consider them noir novels.
> >
> > Perhaps my problem is that I have trouble labeling a
> > funny novel
> > Noir. As I recall it, LOLITA is a very funny novel.
> >
> >
> > On the other hand, I do believe a novel can be both
> > hardboiled and
> > funny.
> >
> > Just today I began reading a very funny novel I
> > learned about
> > through Keith Roberts' memoir (of sorts) LEMADY.
> > The book is DON'T
> > POINT THAT THING AT ME by Kyril Bonfiglioli and it
> > manages to be
> > both tough and very, very funny.
> >
> > Richard Moore
> >
> > --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "E. Borgers"
> > <webeurop@>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > I agree with Patrick.
> > > Especially for "Buttefly" which is really noir.
> > > Confusion here is that a lot of the "speakers"
> > consider noir as
> > as sub-genre or a sub-sub-genre, of mystery/crime
> > lit. It's not.
> > > Noir is wider than mystrery lit, and as I
> > advocated it here many
> > times, HB is just one of the sub-genre it included.
> > > Noir covers parts of gen lit, mystery,
> > humor...the list is long.
> > >
> > > A little bit as in the mathematical theory of
> > sets: it contains
> > sub-sets and intersects with other sets (genres or
> > type of lit) than
> > mystery/crime.
> > >
> > > Speaking of the origins, archaic forms, noir and
> > mystery/crime
> > lived togheter and influenced one another all along
> > the way.
> > > Even starting with the Bible...
> > >
> > > E.Borgers
> > > POLAR NOIR
> > > http://www.geocities.com/polarnoir
> > >
> > >
> > > Patrick King <abrasax93@> a 飲it :
> > > Thanks for your response, but why don't
> > you consider
> > > Lolita inparticular, and nymphette novels in
> > general,
> > > noir novels? What other genre do they fall under?
> > It's
> > > the same problem that involves many other noir
> > novels:
> > > the anti-hero falling under the sway of a female,
> > > leading to his downfall. The only real difference
> > is
> > > that the female is under 18-years-old, adding
> > another
> > > demention to the level of obsession and to the
> > > darkness of the story. Cain's Butterfly is
> > essentially
> > > this same problem, isn't it? Would you not
> > consider
> > > Butterfly a noir novel?
> > >
> > > Patrick King
> > > --- Richard Moore <moorich@> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I admire Nobokov's LOLITA but do not consider it
> > a
> > > > noir novel.
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
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