>
>I wrote:
>
>In noir the characters are doomed regardless
of
>whether their behaviour is moral, normal, ethical
or
>otherwise.
>
>Miker replied:
>I don't agree. 95% of the characters are
doomed
>because of moral transgression. A very
small
>percentage are doomed by circumstances beyond
their
>control. Others simply aren't doomed. They manage
to
>extract themselves from the abyss at the
end.
I didn't expect agreement, of course, but I won't quibble
your figures. The fact that you agree that at least a small
percentage of the characters in noir are doomed by
circumstances beyond their control means that as a whole, in
noir the characters are doomed for more reasons than that
their behaviour is immoral or illegal etc.
I won't deal with the others who simply aren't doomed. In my
opinion, this is not noir.
We can also disagree over what constitutes immoral or illegal
behaviours and certainly the variations here have been
exploited by some very nasty characters in life and
literature, but our disagreement is not whether morality
plays a role in noir but the actual role it plays. You feel
that in noir characters (customarily the protagonists) are
doomed as a consequence of their immoral behaviours. I feel
that in noir characters are doomed by their circumstances,
decisions and ambitions to commit immoral, unethical and
illegal behaviours (or behaviour contrary to the stated
values of the collectives in which they live) and therefor to
live in a world of often violent conflict and
immorality.
If it is the immoral behaviour that dooms the characters then
presumably the doom follows and certainly a great many noir
novels punish their ne'er do well protagonists in the end. So
do a great many tragedies, satires, comedies, making this
definition of noir dubious at best, and we also have examples
of noir novels in which protagonists commit immoral and/or
illegal acts, but do not appear to be punished.
Spillane is a good example. Hammer is a killer. Killing is
immoral and, at times, illegal. Readers may feel that his
killings are just but there is no question that he is not the
designated authority to mete out the justice he does, morally
and, at times, legally. It is the fact that Hammer's
behaviour is immoral and illegal that provides the impact at
the end of I the Jury. But there's no consequence for
Hammer's immoral behaviour in I the Jury and little in the
series that follows. Hammer carries on killing and seems
quite pleased to do so. If the protagonist is doomed for his
immorality, then Spillane was writing hardboil, but not
noir.
On the other hand, if Hammer is doomed by his decision to
fight violence with direct violence, whatever his motivation,
he has doomed himself to a life of more violence, immorality,
criminality. This may not bother him, but it bothers many
readers. And his behaviour corrupts others around him. Pat,
the buddy cop who should uphold the law, makes excuses and
overlooks much of Hammer's illegal behaviour. And Hammer's
original concerns are not really addressed. There is no
shortage of nasty characters for Hammer to blow away as the
series progresses, just as there is never any shortage of
people to fill our jails. Some of these nasties may even be
drawn to commit more immoral acts as a consequence of the
challenge Hammer poses to them. This is noir. No way
out.
This is Lew Griffin, who, despite outward success as an
author and university lecturer, is constantly drawn back, by
circumstance and his own appetites to a life of violence and
addiction. Sometimes in the process he appears to locate
someone he's been looking for, but rarely and even more
rarely is he able to help that person overcome their problems
and then those victims go back to high-risk lifestyles that
put them in harm's way to begin with. It appears (as much as
anything is certain in Sallis' series) that Griffin is unable
to prevent his own son from falling into this pattern of
behaviour, repeating Lew's mistakes.
If I read Lethem correctly (Motherless Brooklyn, Fortress of
Solitude) he's describing how children are socialized into a
culture of corruption, by family and other institutions
before they've even had a chance to understand and make
decisions about right and wrong. Doomed from the get
go.
Certainly these issues go back to the beginning of our
civilization
(and probably civilization entirely) but I think noir is a
bit different from earlier approaches. It is not just about a
fascination with the dark side of humanity, or the
satisfaction of watching immoral people receive their just
desserts, though there are these things too. Maybe the Greeks
were more accepting of the human condition, but I think
Christianity and the literature since has been largely about
transcending civilization's problems and getting "back to the
garden." Problem is, if we're going to accept Eve as the
original femme fatale, I think we have to accept that we were
doomed by our nature before the fall itself. Noir is about
our inability, collectively and individually, to stop
behaving in ways contrary to what we believe, morally,
legally, ethically etc. We act contrarily to our own values,
that is, what we percieve in the long run to be our own best
interests and don't seem to be able to do otherwise. Often,
despite the evidence of free will, there doesn't seem to be
any choice. Other times it's bad decision making. Other times
it's a case of putting immediate interests against long term
interests- there are a whole bunch of reasons, logical and
otherwise and this is the turf where noir operates.
My opinion anyway, Kerry
BTW- while we're at it, couldn't persistence enacting
behaviours contrary to what we believe to be our own,
espoused best interests, be described as psychotic?
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