Noir, the word means black. The stories, that consider as noir, is full of the dark characteristics of human nature. In noir stories, there are lots of bloodsheds; corruptions, negative morality or moral corruptions, manipulations, drugs and gamling exist in the main theme of noir stories.
In the stories, in "The Gold Coast Section", The best noir story that describes the most of the feel of noir is, "The Girl Who Kissed Barnaby Jones". It is a story of a bartender "Tate" and a waitress "Cherie" she also is a struggling actress; that much we know in the beginning of the story, Tate gets a call from Cherie, that she needs some help. Cherie already killed someone before she murdered that guy. The readers do not know about the murder at that time, but later on the way, the author makes the readers to get in the murder scene, is really wonderfull. Manipullation is another aspect of noir that Cherie used to entrap Tate. Alcoholic Cherie is the one who we can call the femme fatale, which is a very important figure in noir stories. About Cherie Tate has a good description to introduce her clearly; that is-"We get guys all the time with crushes on her, some of them very young; they come in on a daily basis for months sometimes before they accept the fact that she's never going to respond to their devotion, and lots of them keeps coming.."(pg 289). Tate himself has a crush on her too. Cherie knows it very well and that is why, she tries to entrap him by getting the body out of the house where she killed him.
The story that could be classified as noir to me is "Kinship". This is a story about a half fillipino young man, who gets involved in a gang somehow, yet he has a deep feeling about his cousin and her disable son. The cousin Veronica is like his big sister, friend and mentor. The guy takes revenge on some guy who's son bullied Veronica's son. The bully's dad beats up her husband and that pisses him off the most and he kills him. The story is more like an emotional tragic story rather than a noir.
I am agree with you about The Girl Who Kissed Barnaby Jones novel, where Cherie plays femme fatale role. As you mention she knows that she is attractive to Tate and she uses that tool to drag him to the crime scenario.Regarding The Kinship, I am not quite sure if you wanted say that such novel cann't be classified as noir. Since you ended your comment saying that such is more tragic than noir.
ReplyDeleteSeems like we both like The Girl Who Kissed Barnaby Jones, written by, Scott Phillips. I agree with your conclusion that this story can definately be classified as neo-noir. Very interesting protagonist, and strange femme fatale. It seems like neo-noir, the main charaters get away. Still trying to get a definate distinction. Good job..
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