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Acquiring the basics of a noir education
Jul. 22nd, 2010 01:15 pm1. _The Third man_ (1949) by Graham Greene [etext http://bookyards.blogspot.com/2008/07/graham-greene-ebooks-and-related.html ]
This novella started out as a way of working out the story for the screenplay Greene wrote for the film noir "The Third Man" (1949) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Man
starring James Cotton and Orson Welles, one of my favorite films. This is one of the instances where I believe the film really is much better, and not only because the film is the perfect medium for a story which is full of shadows and misapprehended images (not to mention that the film has Orson Welles in a very brief appearance as Harry Lime but an appearance which, like Anthony Hopkins as hannibal Lector in "The Silence of the Lambs," colors every other perception of the rest of the film).
Greene does do many things extremely well, however, and the gothic roots of noir definitely show in the way the ruined city is equated to the corrupt ruins of an individual's moral sense. This grim but surreal sort of atmosphere has become very much a part of the works by such authors as Tim Powers, and for more on this linking of exotic but corrupt landscape with the psyche itself read this article on what the scholar refers to as "Greeneland"
http://www.dur.ac.uk/postgraduate.english/AndrewPurssellArticle.htm .
Also check out
"The Lives of Harry Lime"
http://www.archive.org/details/TheLivesOfHarryLime
a series of radio episodes starring Orson Welles which are a sort of prequel of Harry Lime's activities.
2. _The Fabulous Clip Joint_ (1947) by Fredric Brown [etext at
ManyBooks.Net http://manyb ooks.net/titles/brownfother09fabulous_clipjoint.html
and Munseys.Com http://www.munseys.com/book/27436/Fabulous_Clipjoint,_The ]
I'm trying to cover some of the classics of a noir/crime fiction education, and this novel along with another Brown novel, _Here Comes a Candle_ (1950), is mentioned frequently. This novel won an Edgar Award and is the first of seven novels in the Ed and Am Hunter series.
Ed Hunter is a young man in 1940s Chicago who teams up with his carny uncle Ambrose to solve the murder of Ed's father. This story is quintessential 1950s crime fiction complete with period slang, descriptions of jazz, and the tropes of classic noir before it was noir, not to mention more evil-hearted dames than you can shake a stick at. It is also, however, a coming of age story about a young man who finds out that things are rarely what they seem to be and that managing to hold on to your hopes and dreams is probably the hardest part of becoming an adult. This definitely belongs on the Crime Fiction 101 syllabus.
Also read: "THE ERLKING" by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
[The New Yorker, JULY 5, 2010 http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/07/05/100705fi_fiction_bynum ]
In part a story about how adults and children live in very different worlds, and in part a commentary about how insidious acquiring stuff can be, as addictive and self-destructive as fairy food itself.
This novella started out as a way of working out the story for the screenplay Greene wrote for the film noir "The Third Man" (1949) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Man
starring James Cotton and Orson Welles, one of my favorite films. This is one of the instances where I believe the film really is much better, and not only because the film is the perfect medium for a story which is full of shadows and misapprehended images (not to mention that the film has Orson Welles in a very brief appearance as Harry Lime but an appearance which, like Anthony Hopkins as hannibal Lector in "The Silence of the Lambs," colors every other perception of the rest of the film).
Greene does do many things extremely well, however, and the gothic roots of noir definitely show in the way the ruined city is equated to the corrupt ruins of an individual's moral sense. This grim but surreal sort of atmosphere has become very much a part of the works by such authors as Tim Powers, and for more on this linking of exotic but corrupt landscape with the psyche itself read this article on what the scholar refers to as "Greeneland"
http://www.dur.ac.uk/postgraduate.english/AndrewPurssellArticle.htm .
Also check out
"The Lives of Harry Lime"
http://www.archive.org/details/TheLivesOfHarryLime
a series of radio episodes starring Orson Welles which are a sort of prequel of Harry Lime's activities.
2. _The Fabulous Clip Joint_ (1947) by Fredric Brown [etext at
ManyBooks.Net http://manyb ooks.net/titles/brownfother09fabulous_clipjoint.html
and Munseys.Com http://www.munseys.com/book/27436/Fabulous_Clipjoint,_The ]
I'm trying to cover some of the classics of a noir/crime fiction education, and this novel along with another Brown novel, _Here Comes a Candle_ (1950), is mentioned frequently. This novel won an Edgar Award and is the first of seven novels in the Ed and Am Hunter series.
Ed Hunter is a young man in 1940s Chicago who teams up with his carny uncle Ambrose to solve the murder of Ed's father. This story is quintessential 1950s crime fiction complete with period slang, descriptions of jazz, and the tropes of classic noir before it was noir, not to mention more evil-hearted dames than you can shake a stick at. It is also, however, a coming of age story about a young man who finds out that things are rarely what they seem to be and that managing to hold on to your hopes and dreams is probably the hardest part of becoming an adult. This definitely belongs on the Crime Fiction 101 syllabus.
Also read: "THE ERLKING" by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
[The New Yorker, JULY 5, 2010 http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/07/05/100705fi_fiction_bynum ]
In part a story about how adults and children live in very different worlds, and in part a commentary about how insidious acquiring stuff can be, as addictive and self-destructive as fairy food itself.
