Fiction_L Archives Noir writing Dates: 5/3/01,4:26 PM  through  5/4/01,2:31 PM  (6 postings) Search for: Select one or more indexes to search: 2011-current     2009-2010     2004-2008    1995-2003    (Matches from each index will be displayed separately in the results page.) Return to May 2001 thread menu   |   Fiction_L Archives Menu

FROM: Jennifer Hance <[removed]@yahoo.com>
REC'D: 5/3/01, 4:26 PM

Hello all-
Just recently joined group. I was wondering, I read an advance copy of Desert Noir for
Bookbrowser (I write reviews under maiden name Jennifer Gwinn) and enjoyed it but I
really don't understand the genre Noir. I looked it up and only found references to old
films and they weren't too clear on what it was either. Can anyone provide information
on what to expect from a noir book? Are there alot of them out there?
Thanks,
Jenn
Belleview Public Library
Florida

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

FROM: "Smith, Jeff" <[removed]@marshall.usc.edu>
REC'D: 5/3/01, 4:57 PM

"I really don't understand the genre Noir. I looked it up and only found
references to old
films and they weren't too clear on what it was either. Can anyone provide
information
on what to expect from a noir book?"


This definition was written with reference to film noir, but might apply to
prose fiction as well:

"A seemingly average man leading a straight and narrow life meets by a twist
of fate a beautiful, seductive, morally bankrupt woman and in record time
falls helplessly entranced by her charm. This clever femme fatale uses her
sex appeal as a means to an end, and the end is money by way of murder. The
man blinded by lust is unaware of the woman's evil intentions and is soon
helplessly drawn into her web of deceit and murder which inevitably leads to
his demise."

You might also check out this web site:

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/4558/

If you scroll about halfway down, there's a section headed "Pulp Fiction"
that discusses the kinds of novels and stories that were the "roots of noir"
in the '40s.

Jeff Smith

FROM: Viccy Kemp <[removed]@cityofcarrollton.com>
REC'D: 5/3/01, 4:57 PM

Check the "Encyclopedia Mysteriosa" and "The encyclopedia of mystery and
detection" for some good working definitions.
To me, noir writing reflects the dark, gritty side of life. Lots of bloody
violence and rough sex. The genre was pretty much defined by Dashiell
Hammett, James Cain, Ross MacDonald and Raymond Chandler. There are a lot of
writers doing it these days, for example:
Andrew Vachss
James Lee Burke
Michael Connelly
Robert Crais
Dennis Lehane
James Patterson
John Sandford
James Crumley.
As always, some writers are better at it than others.
HTH
Viccy Kemp
The opinions are my own; the library wouldn't want 'em!



-----Original Message-----
From: Jennifer Hance [[removed]@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 4:16 PM
To: Fiction_L
Subject: Noir writing


Hello all-
Just recently joined group. I was wondering, I read an advance copy of
Desert Noir for
Bookbrowser (I write reviews under maiden name Jennifer Gwinn) and enjoyed
it but I
really don't understand the genre Noir. I looked it up and only found
references to old
films and they weren't too clear on what it was either. Can anyone provide
information
on what to expect from a noir book? Are there alot of them out there?
Thanks,
Jenn
Belleview Public Library
Florida

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

FROM: David Wright <[removed]@yahoo.com>
REC'D: 5/3/01, 7:15 PM

Noir is a pretty watered-down term these
days, thrown in to suggest a certain dark flavor
or gritty texture to the writing. Many
distinguish true Crime Noir as distinct from
Hardboiled detective fiction in the tradition of
Hammett and Chandler. Freed from even the weary
morality of a Marlowe or Spade, classic Crime
Noir fiction frequently adopts the point of view
of the criminal, be he (or rarely she) a hapless
suburbanite caught in a vortex of sexual or
criminal compulsion, or a thorough scumbag living
the hard life in a brutal world. The books are
one-off affairs, and the endings are never truly
happy. There's been something of a classic noir
revival of late, and writers like James M. Cain,
Edward Anderson, Cornell Woolrich, David Goodis,
Horace McCoy, Charles Willeford, and Jim Thompson
are back in print (although sadly, I think,
without their original fleshy cover art). If you
want to take a walk down the mean streets of
Noir, the Library of America's 2 volume Crime
Novels anthology is an excellent introduction.
Contemporary writers like Elmore Leonard,
Andrew Vachss, Carl Hiaason, and James Ellroy are
often referred to as neo-noir, in that they share
the down-and-dirty sensibilities and the amoral
ethos of their tough-guy forbears, but modern
noir tends to be both more graphic and more
humorous then its predecessors.
The reason its called Noir is that the
reputations of these largely forgotten pulp
writers was rescued by the French, who first used
the word to describe shadowy, German
expressionist influenced American Movie thrillers
of the late 40s, much of it based on works by
pulp writers.

-David Wright
Seattle Public Library

--- Jennifer Hance <[removed]@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hello all-
> Just recently joined group. I was wondering, I
> read an advance copy of Desert Noir for
> Bookbrowser (I write reviews under maiden name
> Jennifer Gwinn) and enjoyed it but I
> really don't understand the genre Noir. I
> looked it up and only found references to old
> films and they weren't too clear on what it was
> either. Can anyone provide information
> on what to expect from a noir book? Are there
> alot of them out there?
> Thanks,
> Jenn
> Belleview Public Library
> Florida
>
>
__________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at
> great prices
> http://auctions.yahoo.com/
>
>
......................................................................
> Need to subscribe, unsubscribe, search the
> archives?
> Everything Fiction_L:
http://www.webrary.org/rs/flmenu.html


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

FROM: David Wright <[removed]@yahoo.com>
REC'D: 5/3/01, 7:26 PM

Oh, and if you'd like to read more about it, two
nice treatments are Geoffrey O'Brien's
'Hardboiled America: lurid paperbacks and the
masters of noir' and Woody Haut's two books -
'Pulp Culture: Hardboiled Fiction and the Cold
War' AND 'Neon Noir: Contemporary American Crime
Fiction.' There's also a nice brief essay in
volume two of 'Mystery and suspense writers: the
literature of crime, detection, and espionage.',
Robin W. Winks, editor.

-see ya, toots,
David Wright


--- David Wright <[removed]@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Noir is a pretty watered-down term these
> days, thrown in to suggest a certain dark
> flavor
> or gritty texture to the writing. Many
> distinguish true Crime Noir as distinct from
> Hardboiled detective fiction in the tradition
> of
> Hammett and Chandler. Freed from even the
> weary
> morality of a Marlowe or Spade, classic Crime
> Noir fiction frequently adopts the point of
> view
> of the criminal, be he (or rarely she) a
> hapless
> suburbanite caught in a vortex of sexual or
> criminal compulsion, or a thorough scumbag
> living
> the hard life in a brutal world. The books are
> one-off affairs, and the endings are never
> truly
> happy. There's been something of a classic
> noir
> revival of late, and writers like James M.
> Cain,
> Edward Anderson, Cornell Woolrich, David
> Goodis,
> Horace McCoy, Charles Willeford, and Jim
> Thompson
> are back in print (although sadly, I think,
> without their original fleshy cover art). If
> you
> want to take a walk down the mean streets of
> Noir, the Library of America's 2 volume Crime
> Novels anthology is an excellent introduction.
> Contemporary writers like Elmore Leonard,
> Andrew Vachss, Carl Hiaason, and James Ellroy
> are
> often referred to as neo-noir, in that they
> share
> the down-and-dirty sensibilities and the amoral
> ethos of their tough-guy forbears, but modern
> noir tends to be both more graphic and more
> humorous then its predecessors.
> The reason its called Noir is that the
> reputations of these largely forgotten pulp
> writers was rescued by the French, who first
> used
> the word to describe shadowy, German
> expressionist influenced American Movie
> thrillers
> of the late 40s, much of it based on works by
> pulp writers.
>
> -David Wright
> Seattle Public Library
>
>
>
> --- Jennifer Hance <[removed]@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Hello all-
> > Just recently joined group. I was wondering,
> I
> > read an advance copy of Desert Noir for
> > Bookbrowser (I write reviews under maiden
> name
> > Jennifer Gwinn) and enjoyed it but I
> > really don't understand the genre Noir. I
> > looked it up and only found references to old
> > films and they weren't too clear on what it
> was
> > either. Can anyone provide information
> > on what to expect from a noir book? Are
> there
> > alot of them out there?
> > Thanks,
> > Jenn
> > Belleview Public Library
> > Florida
> >
> >
>
__________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at
> > great prices
> > http://auctions.yahoo.com/
> >
> >
>
......................................................................
> > Need to subscribe, unsubscribe, search the
> > archives?
> > Everything Fiction_L:
> http://www.webrary.org/rs/flmenu.html
>
>
>
__________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at
> great prices
> http://auctions.yahoo.com/
>
>
......................................................................
> Need to subscribe, unsubscribe, search the
> archives?
> Everything Fiction_L:
http://www.webrary.org/rs/flmenu.html


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

FROM: "christine jeffords" <[removed]@hotmail.com>
REC'D: 5/4/01, 2:31 PM

>From: Jennifer Hance <[removed]@yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: "Fiction_L" <[removed]@maillist.webrary.org>
>To: Fiction_L <[removed]@maillist.webrary.org>
>Subject: Noir writing
>Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 14:15:59 -0700 (PDT)
>
>Hello all-
>Just recently joined group. I was wondering, I read an advance copy of
>Desert Noir for
>Bookbrowser (I write reviews under maiden name Jennifer Gwinn) and enjoyed
>it but I
>really don't understand the genre Noir. I looked it up and only found
>references to old
>films and they weren't too clear on what it was either.

"Noir" as a term was actually invented to descrbe the films ("film noir"),
which is probably why it's listed that way. To me at least, the term would
mean any dark, broody fiction (except horror, of course, which is a genre
all its own).
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

Return to May 2001 thread menu   |   Fiction_L Archives Menu

The Webrary® and Fiction_L are services of the Morton Grove Public Library "Webrary" is a registered trademark of the Morton Grove Public Library. All rights reserved. Copyright of Fiction_L postings belongs to their respective authors; postings may only be reused with the author's permission. Compiled lists (compilations of titles or authors from earlier postings on a particular topic) may not be reused for commercial purposes. To use a compiled list for non-commercial purposes, please credit "Subscribers of the Fiction_L mailing list." All other content is ©2012 Morton Grove Public Library, 6140 Lincoln Ave., Morton Grove, IL 60053-2989, (847) 965-4220.