--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "gsp.schoo@..." <gsp.schoo@...> wrote:
>
> Dave, man, TRY picking up? Another case of books overfat with filler? Know what you mean though, but isn't that what noir is about--the "doomed" thing. Aren't we defeated by our own foolishness, by our illusions and sometimes, our allusions? It's not really noir if it's only "them" that's fucked, am I right?
>
No, it's got to be us that's fucked. Or close enough to us to hurt.
> What's with this neo-noir thing BTW? Have we agreed that noir itself is dead? I'm not fighting it. Pretty much thought No Country for Old Men summed it all up, myself. Put the old genre out of her misery, that did. After Stansberry called for defib, stat, have we agreed the nurses left the room? Cutbacks in the budget, probably. I'm just poking the corpse, unaccustomed as I am to crossing the line into concensus.
>
Cormac McCarthy does not prevent anyone from writing good noir books. I thought The Road was more noir than anything he's written, though, but if you add No Country for Old Men, you have a nasty package. But I don't think most noir writers today are competing in that same territory. Many write urban novels with urban (sometimes suburban) characters, and there is a lot to say about this fauna. Jason Starr did a real job on the fauna, a brutal job actually. After reading the book, I thought the job was necessary. You gotta bury certain things and certain ways of living. Jason, I'm not calling you a social undertaker but you came close!
Best,
mrt
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