noirplusultra

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Man Who Ceased to Be. 5: The Bum

The Bum

The next day, a whistling Miller, corporative salesman and suburban denizen, commuted from his Suburban Paradise to the Business District. He noticed everybody around him, from his suburban neighbors to the people in the city bus, and then in the Corporate Plaza his corporate building was located at; everybody then, was just like him; sharply dressed in rather dark two-pieces suit with a tie for the men and high heels for the women, and below a choke of hair, faceless. None bore any facial feature on the perfectly smooth oval of their face. He felt comforted; he felt reassurance in his life’s prospects. At least, he had this feeling of belonging, something he had missed since that first day he was pushing the ooze out of his acne in front of a mirror. Even the model announcing a new brand of shampoo, on the giant advertising poster on the top of a building next to his, was faceless.

Miller was called in for his monthly review, and this time, he walked with confidence past the desks of his featureless colleagues, in his boss office.

This time the curtains were drawn up, the whole office bathed in the morning sunlight. As soon as he saw him walk in and sit, his boss beamed at him. As much as a featureless, perfectly smooth oval of a face can beam.

‘Miller, I have taken a close look at your progress those past few weeks. I want to command your dedication to address those issues. Your results show an outstanding effort, and I can tell, looking at you, to what length you were willing to go in order to blend perfectly in our corporation. I see a reborn Miller here, one who has understood being incorporated is not only a matter of waiting for the paycheck, but also to reflect himself the corporation. I am waiting for the deal you’re working on now to bring results pretty soon. But be assured that I am looking forward to request for a pay increase. I will also help you on your career’s progress, Miller, and thank you for all your efforts.’

When he left his boss office, Miller made a silent prayer his career path would not involve more than the cancelation of his facial features, but no, he had not noticed his boss had needed to lose any limbs to reach his corporate status. And as far as he was concerned, he had never seen or heard of a legless CEO or armless Chairman-of-the-Board.

As he walked out of the building, to join the crowd of faceless incorporated employees going back to their suburban homes, Miller could not help but see a character that brought a sensation of disgust. It was a bum that had set his working slot (as much as begging can be considered an occupation) next to the bus stop.

The bum was dirty, his clothes only tattered rags. He retained all his features; blood-shot eyes, broken nose, fat lips, beard. He was also smelly. On his chest he displayed a placard he had written himself in all caps:

WHY CAN’T YOU SEE ME?

Miller, corporate salesman and suburban denizen, never knew what happened to him. Instead of tossing some coins in the bum’s can, he just snapped, walked up to the bum, then started to punch methodically the man’s face. When the faceless cops came to pick a faceless Miller and finally dispatched him to the mental hospital, the bum was covered in blood, all his facial features smashed in, some of his teeth and shard of his bones on the knuckles of Miller.

Man Who Ceased to Be. 4: The GP’s Waiting-Room.

The GP’s Waiting-Room

A few days later, as he was sitting in his GP’s waiting-room, waiting to be taken in for his regular check-up, he started to browse through the pile of magazines on the small table out of boredom. He picked up Modern Man Magazine (The Magazine for Modern Men Who Mean To Be Modern). An article jumped at his eyes, literally. It was one of those articles focusing on the inner male narcissism (inner because all his life he had noticed women were allowed to display their narcissism outright, whereas men were expected to hide it only revealing it to their inner sanctum of a social circle, else they were

rated as gay, effete, or metrosexual). In this case, the article dealt at length of facial beauty. The article explained in no less than five pages, complete with pictures, that a male’s handsomeness, actually just as a woman’s gorgeousness, was so dependent on the symmetry of the eyes-nose axis. If both facial elements were symmetric, you were likely to be considered as being handsome, or gorgeous in the case of your wife, whereas dissymmetry called for a miserable aesthetical life to you, or your wife, from the point of view of the beholder. It amazed him at first that such a seemingly trivial plastic subject needed that many pages; it surely meant the importance, and assertiveness, of it.

He knew his eyes were a bit too close to each other. He also knew his nose was too big. How many times had he been reminded of both throughout his life, he could not tell. He had been called many names because of them. Short-eyes, big nose, etc. He did not wait to go back home to start on correcting this obvious affliction done to him by Nature. He pinched his nose from the tip up to the bridge, twisting it in a circular movement; when he was called in to see his GP, the latter thought at first he suffered from some sinusitis of some sort, until Miller told him reassuringly he was only in for his routine check-up.

The sensation as he erased his nose off his face through the next few days was not unlikely what he had felt when he had done his ears. He thought it surely had to be with the same cartilaginous structure of the bridge. The nostrils were first to disappear, a blessing, as they were covered with disgusting tiny capillary vessels, permanent witnesses of his past excesses. Soon, from his rather long and big nasal appendage, only a fleshy flat vertical line remained.

He waited on a couple of days only to go on with his eyes. The eyelids were very soft, he had always thought they were the same consistency of his penis’ foreskin, and at first he rubbed them off gently as he was somewhat scared he could rip into his eyeballs, and thus lose his sight. But it would not be the case. So far he had erased his ears, his nose, his mouth and his eyebrows, and yet, he was still able to hear, breathe, eat, talk, and frown. Reassured at the thought, he carried on rubbing his eyelids off with even more vigor and energy than before, and spread the movement to his rather dark circles, and crow’s feet.

Once he was finished with the last two remnants of his facial individuality, he contemplated his reflection that his mirror cast to him.

He was now completely featureless. His boss, his friends, Modern Man Magazine had all been right. There was no way now he could feel different or odd in the crowd. Every distinguishing detail had been taken off his face. It was a perfectly smooth oval now, making him one of the crowd rather than outstanding because of some aesthetical imperfections. It gave him a sense of security, of belonging.

Man Who Ceased to Be. 3: The Backyard

The Backyard

The next feature to fade off to oblivion from the face of Miller, corporate salesman and suburban denizen, was his mouth. This time it was an odd comment from some friends at a BBQ that triggered this virtual cancellation of his facial slit.

Mrs Miller had invited a dozen friends in their Suburban Paradise’s backyard, for their eleventh anniversary. The grill was full of sizzling sausage, pork chops, mutton chops, steaks.

A friend of his (although he was not sure if it was a friend of his or rather a friend of his wife or a mutual friend of his couple), noticed some smears on his shirt caused by the excess grease of the oil.

‘Miller,’ said this friend in a mocking tone ‘what a piggy you are, look at those stains on your shirt, I’m sure your wife won’t be too happy you load the laundry up, hahaha, look at you, that must be because of your fat lip, there’s some grease on them’ He laughed at his own joke.

To Miller’s dismay, his wife jumped at the occasion: ‘You’re right; I’ve told him his lips were fat, and it’s not only that. Have you not noticed he’s always making some disgusting noise when he eats? He always chews his mouth open, it’s positively disgusting, I hate mouth noises.’

Miller had never realized his eating manners could lead to such a fuss. But once the feeling of public humiliation had passed, he started to work on his mouth. It resulted to be an easier job than his eyebrows or his ears had been. He only had to rub it with the palm or the back of his hand to ensure its complete vanishing in a matter of days. Not even a slit was left where his two fat lips had been before. And funny enough, he could still eat (and breathe) even though there was no more opening to introduce the food or let the air in.

Man Who Ceased to Be. 2: At Work

At work

The answer to this existential question came to him just a few days later. It was the day of his monthly meeting with his manager, a face-to-face review of his work and sales performances. This was a routine event for any incorporated wage-slave like he was.

He had only been half an hour between the two mobile partitions of his desk (the kind that gives a seemingly individuality and intimacy to him and the other few scores employees on the open space) when a phone ring cut him off as he was touching unconsciously the barren arch of his former hairy eyebrow. It was his boss.

He walked in his boss’s office (as in every other corporate building, his manager was the only one to enjoy this luxury on the floor; the sales reps had only six square feet room allocated for them) and was curtly offered a seat. As the curtains were drawn, his boss seemed to be withdrawn in the shadows; he could not make out his face as they spoke. They both skimmed through his productivity stats: total of appointments with customers, gross revenue on current deals, total current customers in his agenda, total on-going deals and so forth, figures and more figures, read up, read down, cross-read, analyzed. He heard himself being told his results were not corporatively satisfactory. He groveled in excuses: the big deal he was working on right now summoned all his energy; unfortunately, his customer had cancelled twice their appointments, one after the other; this explained why he had been unable to make any revenue this month. He agreed that actually, he had not brought any revenue in for the last three months now. But this was a long-term project, and if it worked out, the end results- and subsequent substantial income for the company- could not be expected before six months at least. All his attention was focused on this project; this too explained why he had not been able to add some new customers to his portfolio.

His boss waved his excuses off.

‘How long have you been working here now, Miller?’ He snapped ‘Three years? Doing the same job? How does it feel to be three years at the same position, in an ambition-driven, power-hungry corporative jungle, Miller?’

Miller thought that it actually felt good as long as his commissions were flowing in every quarter, to keep his social standing and his home and personal economy afloat, and his wife happily swimming at his side in this sea of suburban and corporate goodness. Which wasn’t happening for the last two quarters, though. He suspected this kind of answer would not be satisfactory to his boss either, would it?

‘That’s what your issue is, Miller,’ the voice of his boss came back to derail the train of his thoughts ‘you need to be ambitious Miller, you need to forget your self, you need to blend more in your environment, you need to strive to reach the top Miller; being happy with what you have is totally un-corporate, you hear? You need your customer to mirror in our corporation through you Miller, do you un-der-stand?’ His boss had stammered down his fist on the desk at every syllable.

Yes he did un-der-stand. He needed to drag the customer in not because of his personality but rather by displaying the values of his corporation. He needed to be the display window of his corporation. Where his customer could pick and rely to find any solutions to their own needs. A rep lacking ambition obviously did not urge the customer to choose them to help them strive for better.

‘I’m going to tell you something. You can do so much better. Even on your personal outlooks. Don’t get me wrong, you dress sharp, you look squeaky clean, all neat. But look here,’ his boss pointed at his head ‘your ears,’ Miller touched unconsciously his right ear, ‘yes your ears. They’re cauliflower ears. Now look, I know one doesn’t choose his afflictions, I’m myself a bit overweight, but still. Doesn’t it strike you that when your customer looks at your cauliflower ears; he’s liable to find the same crookedness in our corporation? You are the image of our company, do you think our company is flawed Miller? No, of course you don’t. Do something about it, fix up those ears; I’m sure your customer won’t jump on your appointments next time he sees your ears are normal, get it?’

He realized his boss was right. That was it; that explained the odd looks his customer team –the CEO, the CFO, the IT Director, the HR Manager- and a long list of other Officers, Directors, and Managers was unanimously casting at him; the suppressed smiles he had managed to catch.

It took him less than a month to fix his ears. He started rubbing them, one at a time, from the outer edge down to the lobe, in a spiral. He would do that every morning before going to work, and every evening when he was back home. If the sensorial pleasure was not exactly the same as when he had done his eyebrows not so long ago (or his pimples in their own time), still the rub warmed the side of his face, from his cheeks up to his temples, the pleasure increasing as his ears faded away. Further, once he reached the cartilage just above the lobes (that were gone only a few days before) the pleasure converted in a kind of pain that still procured some masochist bliss. Although he had reached the point announcing the coming disappearance of his hearing organs, and thus once again the vanishing of a source of self-inflicted pleasing pain, he went on till his ears had vanished; till they were replaced with a pair of fleshy lumps, similar to his eyebrows. Once he was finished with them, he was again at loss, as he had been once he had been finished with his eyebrows, as he had been once when he had quit smoking; this empty feeling inside, fidgeting and giddy, unable to know what to do once he was deprived of the nicotine, suffering bouts of cold sweat, suffering nightmares.

The Man Who Ceased To Be. 1: At Home

The Man Who Ceased To Be

At Home

Everything started with a sort of nervous tic. What had been a conscious little pinch of the fingers on the eyebrow had soon converted to an unconscious, impulsive twitch.

One day, he had started to scratch the skin of his arch, where his eyebrow started, because it felt itchy, just like that. It procured him the mixed feelings of pleasure and prickle.

In some way, it brought back to his sensorial memory the same sickly pleasure he had when he burst his pimples when he was a teenager. Now that he was passed his thirties, this little masochist sensual pleasure puberty had given him was long gone. Now, he was not missing wearing a marred masked, a face speckled with dark or yellowish purulent spots of course. No he missed the secret, narcissistic bliss of the visual and tactile exploration of his self, of the two-dimensional image reflected in the mirror. A sensation of pleasure he could compare in some wicked way to the nights he masturbated in his bed, hidden under the warm covers, looking under the dim light of a lamp at the glossy pages of the pornographic magazines he had stolen from his progenitor.

Like all the kids his age at school he believed it was a girl’s thing to look at one’s reflection in the mirror. At the end of the day pranks, sports, fist-fight, were manly activities; painting one’s face with colors, and talk fashion was for girls. Nevertheless, every evening, as soon as he reached home, he would stand in front of the mirror to observe the evolution or help the fading of his spots and pimples. Beyond the sheer exultation to make disappear, in its blissful hurt, the facial affliction, he secretly enjoyed infringing the rules of his social circle.

Now, a few years short of a couple decades on, he was in some way experiencing the same kind of twisted pleasure he had back then; he was not a kid with a face covered with pimples any more; he was a married man now, a salesman. One of thousand others that worked for the same corporation. His recognition was not based on the display of his penis in the shower after a football game now; or punching the face of a contender for the eyes of a nubile, mid-teen, mini-skirted girl her hair done in bunches for the matter.

His success, his recognition by his social circle (his family, his neighbors, his friends, his coworkers) laid now in his assets.

Those included his wife (a good-looking, refined, successful personal assistant in another corporation he had married half a dozen years ago); his luxury sedan of the year (with all the extras in the catalog: GPRS, mp3-DVD player, electronic and voice-recognition lock) he kept squeaky clean; his house with four bedrooms (including one en suite), two-and-a-half bathrooms, a house he had a mortgage on; the giant plasma screen they had in the master bedroom they could watch the games on Sunday (when they were still cuddling up and watching the games on Sunday, now a rare occurrence); a front and back yards he did mower carefully after the games and where they did organize barbecues for family or friends or coworkers or any combination thereof; trips to exotic places when they managed to synchronize their vacation slots (also getting more rare lately); perfect denture, splash of cologne, power-suits and patent shoes; a body toned carefully thanks to a lifetime membership in a gym.

Even his Xbox did not entertain him as much now as he was entertained standing in front of the mirror, feeling his three-dimensionality through the scratching of his eyebrows. It was a near sexual experience he could not feel in his professional or social life.

Unconsciously, the titillation of his sensorial pleasure jumped across his nose-bridge and propagated from the right to the left eyebrow. His wife noticed the twitch:

‘Quit scratching yourself you moron,’ she told him one fine morning, ‘you’re going to fuck your eyebrows up.’

He dismissed her observation as another of her bitter comments, those becoming increasingly more common lately.

Then one fine morning, as he was brushing his teeth, he realized how accurate she had been. Where only a few days ago there was still an abundance of hair, only a few red marks over a blank arch remained. He put his mind at ease thinking that after all, the marks were too tiny to be noticed. He licked the tip of his finger to smooth what was left of the hairs down to cover the naked parts, resolved not to give away to the nervous tic again.

But the itch and the resulting pleasure of his action to soothe it overcame his resolution; he kept scratching off his eyebrows. After a few weeks, they were completely gone, and were replaced by some kind of fleshy lumps. Fortunately, the tone was the same as the rest of the flesh, so it did not strike out as odd or contrasting aesthetically. He convinced himself anyone could hardly notice this incongruity. The feeling of itch went off with the last hairs he removed.

He felt empty for a few days; he did not know what to do with his hands and fingers now. They seemed odd, heavy useless things hanging down at his sides instead of coming up to his eyebrows. In some way, it was the same feeling he had had at the twilight of his puberty: when the last pimple had been pushed and split open, its ugly yellowish matter oozing out of his face and bursting out to the glass, that mark of un-beautification forever gone off his face, he had almost regretted it the moment it was done: what was he going to do without his acne? Fifteen years on, the same unknown question hanged over: what was he going to do without the itch in his eyebrows? He felt shallow, emptied out.

What is Noir fiction?

Anyone walking into a bookshop, anywhere in the world now days, will soon find themselves lost in the book market typology, duly printed by the publisher on the cover or back cover of the book.

A rather hermetic and often misleading classification: crime, thriller, mystery, hardboiled, detective, noir, etc.

To complicate it further, the bookshop owner mix quite candidly all the above in the same shelf or section labelled Crime in the UK & Ireland, Mystery in the U.S.

Let’s not blame him too quickly (after all he might come handy with suggestions and advice at times), whose only interest is to help the prospective buyer to find a book quickly (and buy it!), rather than ponder about a strict literary classification of his stock.

The future reader then, when they pick a crime novel, can choose between Agatha Christie and Charles Willeford for example. They usually follow some recommendation or the taste they have developed on their previous experience of the writer and their plots, rather than a conscious choice of literary genre.

Except for the thriller fiction, all the above labels are intended to classify specific genres that ultimately fall into two categories: the detection novel, and the noir novel. Despite their labeling differences, both categories share a common denominator though: the transgression.

Although detection fiction appears as early as the 6^th c. A.D. in China, and is often seen from 12^th c. AD on in many middle-eastern tales (Persia); in the Western Written World, the detection novel is really the youngest of the two categories, and is a literary consequence of the passage to modern thought in the 18th c. AD; The Age of Sciences- the starting point of modern rational thinking.

Actually we could say that the forefather of the later detective fictional genre, in its pioneer display of the modern problem-solving techniques, is Voltaire’s Zadig (inspired by Persian tales), whose main character suffer rather than profit from his logical mind. Instead of following prejudices, superstitions or rumours, Zadig analyses the data, and solves the incognitae by elimination.

With the passage from the Age of Sciences & Discoveries to The Industrial Era & Imperialism, systematisation of the analytic process develops: the detective novel historically starts in the Western World in 1841 with the publication of E. A. Poe’s ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ short story.

There appear for the first time some essential plot-devices of the detection or mystery fiction: the resolution of a problem through careful analysis of the clues -verbal or physical- its final explanation through reconstruction by the solver, and features the first locked-room mystery.

More narrative canons and plot-devices will follow with the passage of time, but the essentials of a good detection novel were born in the 19^th c. U.S.

The starting hook of a detection or mystery fiction is a puzzle to be solve that is offered to the reader. He will follow the main character(s) on his way to problem-solving and final resolution and explanation of the problem. Transgression there is the starting point of the book, and the goal is the understanding the whys and whos out of the whats and whens.

The transgression is always a criminal act, no matter its degree (murder, theft, blackmail, etc.); which usually sets the detective and mystery fiction in a law-abiding if not moral context. After all, the final goal is the correction of the initial wrong.

The reader gets his pleasure trying to solve the problem through the elements the writer drops here and there to be collected by the protagonist. The latter is usually a cop, a detective, a journalist, a living family member of the corpse (or with Enid Blyton, a group of thrill-seekers smart alecks in their early teens, with a pet dog.); any job or function that explains them nosing around. There’s plenty of dialogues and minute descriptions of the surroundings or characters; both elements provide the data the reader feeds on to solve the mystery along with the hero. The psychological portrait of the characters is very limited, if at all; some psychological characteristics might be offered for the problem-solver, but usually as external quirks or behaviours as perceived by the beholders.

. The dialogues and visuals give the reader the illusion of interacting with the plot and narrative through the detective (which is therefore, merely a tool, a shape the reader is supposed to fit in while keeping their separate minds); evidences, suspects, probable motives are constantly thrown at him lie bucket of water over a fire. But rarely will one be given a first row seat in the investigator’s mind, even in a 1^st person novel.

The investigator finds out the elements, he is the eyes, voice, hands of the reader who processes on his side of the page the findings as he reads along.

A good detection novel has to keep the reader with the delusion he has all the clues to solve the problem; but its final resolution has to come from the investigator (who thus ultimately claim back his ownership to the active role), with the reader unable to completely ascertain on the whos and whys. An example of extremely confusing detection novel on that matter are any Christie’s novels; there is absolutely no way the reader can find out anything unless he does as I did as a teenager, i.e. a bloody fig with it and straight on to the last ten pages after reaching the middle of the book. Then you read the second half and feel comforted that indeed, there’s no way you could have found the culprits or their motives (the bloody chandelier or the cup of tea filled with a deadly dose of arsenic do appear too early in the book to be considered as a riddle).

If you are able to find out whodunit (and why) before the last fourth of the novel, you are reading a very bad Detective fiction.

Although the term was coined as early as the late 18^th century (Romans Noirs were to the French what the Gothic Novel was to the British), the genre exist nearly since literature does, and in the Western Civilization as early as the Bible (people who believe the world was created 5,000 years ago in no more than six days by an Omnipotent, White-Bearded Force, and that Darwin is an heathen retard should be happy to read this); to quote Thomas De Quincey: ‘The first murder is familiar to you all. As the inventor of murder, and the father of the Art, Cain must have been a man of first-rate genius. All the Cains were men of genius. Tubal Cain invented tubes I think, or some such thing’ (On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts, 1^st paper, 1827.)

Genesis on how Man was kicked out of Eden (never to return till Kingdom Comes) is no less than the minute description of Adam path to transgression (Eva doesn’t count really; she’s just a Femme Fatale tarty sidekick.)

This is important to note since despite being misused as a literary genre, and consequently labelling its works as crime novels, the Noir fiction genre has existed since the beginning of western literature.

Modern day Noir label was coined as such in the late 1940s movie industry as Film Noir to describe a cinematic genre of 1940-1950s Hollywood films, rooted in the 1930s German expressionist film-making and the U.S. Hardboiled written fiction.

Because at the time the Hardboiled School embraced such diverse genres as the P.I. (Maltese Falcon, The Long Good Bye), crime (The Asphalt Jungle) or strictly social transgression (Cassidy’s Girl, The Postman Always Rings Twice), this led to the misuse and misconception of the term in the literary genre, to the day. Film Noir does deal with all the genres above, as long as it depicts as background a morally corrupt society, powerful sexual symbolism, brutality and realism, with a dash of cynicism; all in bleak realistic B&W shaded urban settings.

But as far as the literary genre is concerned, only the transgression plot-driven style should be considered strictly as Noir Literature; the other two belong either to the hardboiled detective genre, or the thriller.

Many Noir novels involve policemen, thugs or hard-core criminals, but doesn’t deal with the resolution and correction of an initial wrongdoing, but rather follow the path to doing a transgression act. Noir can not either be considered strictly as Transgression Literature (such as modern-days Palahniuk or Easton Ellis), as the transgression(s) is not a narrative element of the plot, but rather the culmination of the plot.

In the Noir novel, the reader identifies himself to a character in their way to the ultimate transgression. Thus the starting point of the novel is to understand the conditions (social pressure, personal feud, greed, etc.) that will force the protagonist in ultimately commit a transgressing act. Contrary to popular belief, this act is not necessarily a criminal one; it can also be acting against one’s moral values, social circle, or human condition etc.

Where the mystery novel appeals on the reader’s taste to solve problems, the noir acts on their morbidity and dark pleasure for bad behaviour or evil acts.

The characters of a Noir novel are usually average joes or janes (most oftenly from a working-class background and flawed with vices), petty criminals, corrupt cops, drug-addicts, scumbags you name it, all usually unable to control their impulses.

The psychological description of at least the main character is generally extremely detailed (the narrative objective is to have the reader commit the transgression through the main protagonist, but with a keen understanding of his motivation to do so).

The dialogues are tools to unclose the characters personalities. The visual elements are employed to offer a bleak, a perverted and pessimistic vision of the surrounding world.

A good Noir novel enables the reader to project himself into the character’s mind in his ineluctable journey to a doomed outcome; and the reader has to empathise if not sympathise with the protagonist in his ultimate choice to commit his transgression act, no matter how heinous it can be.

If you are just finished reading a story and still clutch on the idea that Good and Evil are truly two opposite poles as Black and White, you just have read a very bad Noir novel.

Despites sharing the use of the Transgression as the key-element of the plot, the two categories couldn’t be more opposed in the morale perspectives they offer to its reader.

The detective fiction comforts us in the rightfulness of the law and justice being done through rational problem-solving; it entertains in making us believe that justice is done when a wrongdoing is corrected by a rightfully entitled representative. The detective fiction does not question the morality of society, it condones it. Even if the hardboiled genre is characterized by a morally corrupt society, the P.I. carries on the tradition of the individual rightfulness when all else fails around him.

Noir fiction, on the contrary allows us to question the moral principles or social order around. Inevitably the reader will question the standards through the character’s eyes, and agree on the morally incorrect or socially subversive choices he will make.

Keeping in mind those minute definitions, now reader you should be able to select quickly according to the kicks you get, and agree with me that the Noir novel still suffers of belonging to the despising terminology of the Crime or Mystery novel, at large.

Make no mistake, several authors have crossed the genres, for instance, Chester Himes’ Harlem Cycle featuring Coffin Ed Johnson & Grave Diggers Jones, are detective novels, despite its black humour and the absurdity so proper to its author. But the same Himes’ The Primitive, Cast the First Stone, Yesterday Will Make You Cry, are definitely Noir fiction.

Dashiel Hammett’s and Raymond Chandler have been abusively classified as Noir authors, they are not. They are the champions of the U.S. Hardboiled School (Chandler used to call it ‘realistic’), which is the correction of a wrong by a law officer or representative; the difference with more classic detective fiction genre it belongs too being the depiction of the corrupt surroundings or social environment that heightens the rightfulness of the hero, despite his flaws.

Paul McCain, David Goodis, Jim Thompson, Gill Brewer are strictly Noir writers; their works try to explain the transgression acts because of uncontrolled impulsions that do not fit in a morally uptight society (sex, greed, personal revenge), and its ultimate consequences for the perpetrator.

The Noir literary genre, although considered as having started in the U.S. literature of the first half of the 20^th century, should then encompass, following this strict definition, such precursor authors as the Scottish James Hogg (The Private Memoirs & Confessions of a Justified Sinner), R. L. Stevenson (Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde); Russian Dostoievsky (Crime & Punishment, The Demons), French Barbey d’Aurevilly (The She-Devils), Gustave Flaubert (Mme Bovary); in the last century, American William Faulkner (Sanctuary), French Camus (l’Etranger) are also representative of the same intents one finds in Thompson, Willeford, Himes, McCain, etc.

Hopefully someday, readers will have the pleasure to know they are reading milestones in the Human Condition Drama Literary Genre when they do read Willeford or Woolrich, and not some puzzle-solving delusional fiction in waxed moustaches or deer-hunter’s cap like Christie or Conan Doyle