November 2017 - Noir or Darkness

Noir and/or Darkness

November brings longer, darker nights and, perhaps, less than happy memories of Novembers past. Let us embrace the depths of this gloom by reading themes of noir or darkness. There are many classics of noir fiction and books about darkness in history. Make your choice and revel in the darkness that November brings.

Dark:



Noir:

I am going to use this challenge to get to some of the noir on my shelves. I am not sure whether to read The Black Dahlia or The Thin Man or maybe some other noir novel I find on my shelves.

I'll be doing noir. I've got most if not all the novels of Jim Thompson but I've only yet read The Killer Inside Me. And I've also got Paul Auster's New York Trilogy.

As always, I'll be looking to my existing TBR piles to combine RTT with ROOTing.

>3 CurrerBell: Those sound good. It's great finding books that have grown ROOTs that you can use for a challenge.

I love this theme! I'm not sure what I will be reading but I suspect it will be noir, I have a number in my TBR.

>5 DeltaQueen50: I thought that most of us would have something that fit, Judy. I think my choice will be noir as well.

I'm sure I have some noir on my shelves, as well as some true crime. Great category!

>7 Tess_W: Thanks, Tess. I think most of us LTers have some noir lurking in those shelves somewhere.

My shelves are very stark when it comes to true noir. However, I'm going to use a true crime here: The Suspect: A true story of love, betrayal, marriage and murder by Jenny Friel.

You may count me in too. I'll definitely be able to dig up something noir by then.

>9 Tess_W: That looks pretty dark, Tess.

>10 Trifolia: Good luck with the digging. There is plenty of noir out there so I sure you will find a good one.

I haven't read much noir. I'll be taking this opportunity to read James M. Cain's Double Indemnity.

>13 cbfiske: That looks like a good one, have you seen the movie?

No I haven't, though I've definitely heard about it. My husband's a classic movie buff. This will give us an excuse to sit down and watch the movie, too. Fred MacMurray in a very different kind of role. I've heard there are differences between the movie and the book. Looking forward to finding those out.

>15 cbfiske: That sounds like a great plan. So book first or film first?

>16 Familyhistorian: Tough decision. Maybe I'll leave it up to the library and see which I can get first. Of course, films are on the first floor and books on the second floor. I'll keep you posted.

>17 cbfiske: I hope you enjoy them both no matter which one shows up first.

Finished my "noir" early. I just read the true crime I had on my shelf. I'm sure I have some "better" noir but did not want to search for it and I had the true crime in the front of the shelf....

The Suspect: A true story of love, betrayal, marriage and murder by Jenny Friel. It was an average read of a murdered mother and wife that took place in Ireland in 1989.

>19 Tess_W: I hadn't heard of that one, Tess. Looks like it got mixed reviews. It sounds to be a depressingly familiar crime.

How is everyone doing with their noir reads? I haven't started reading anything for this theme yet because I just returned home today. I better get a move on and decide where to start!

I'm reading Patricia Highsmith: Selected Novels and Short Stories and so far I've finished Strangers on a Train and most of the stories. I'm currently about halfway through the other of the two novels, The Price of Salt (not sure whether that one's really "noir" but considering its lesbianism it would probably have been so considered back in the 50s).

>22 CurrerBell: Patricia Highsmith did write noir and, at the time that it was written, lesbians were probably considered lost characters - another noir requirement. So although it seems to be stretching it a bit I think we can consider The Price of Salt to be a noir novel in the context of the times.

I am dipping in an out of The Best American Noir of the Century as assembled by James Ellroy. I have liked all the stories so far, but the one I just finished was excellent. Called "Man in the Dark', published in 1952 and written by Howard Browne, whom I hadn't heard of before. He was a pulp fiction writer that eventually came to Hollywood and wrote scripts for TV shows like Maverick, Ben Casey, The Virginian and Playhouse 90. I have many more stories to go so I expect I will be reading this book on and off all month.

I'm reading Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South. I haven't gotten into it far enough to know what I think.

>24 DeltaQueen50: That sounds like a good noir book, Judy. How many stories are there?

>25 cmbohn: I'm a true crime reader and Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South sounds interesting but do you think it is a noir book?

>23 Familyhistorian: The Price of Salt may be the first lesbian novel with a "happy" (or at least hopeful) ending. I'd always thought Patience and Sarah was the first such, but TPoS predates P&S by some seventeen years.

Strangers on a Train is very definitely noir! It's quite Dostoevskian, a combination of Crime and Punishment and The Double. I've never seen the movie, but from what I've read of it I don't really want to. It looks like Hitchcock made major alterations to the book, watering it down for the sake of passing the contemporary morals censorship.

There are thirteen short stories in this anthology as well, perhaps not all of them really noir. I particularly liked "Two Disagreeable Pigeons" about two pigeons in Trafalgar Square.

>28 CurrerBell: Sounds like you are getting a good dose of noir this month. Keep up the good work!

There seem to be disagreements about the definition on what and what is not noir. I still have to find which book I will start with.

Wiki Update

Some of the wikis in use here at LT have been messed about by spammers so they are trying to fix the wiki's so that this can't happen. So for now we can't use them but once the problem has been solved, the editing buttons will be back and we can catch up with our posting.

>26 Familyhistorian: Meg, there are 39 stories in all (752 pages), and they include authors that are known for their noir and hard-boiled stories such as James M Cain, Jim Thompson, Cornell Woolrich, and Mickey Spillane, plus many more. It's a virtual who's who of crime and I am loving it!

27 - I'm not really sure. I'm going by the descriptor "Gothic South" but so far, it's not very gothic.

>30 DeltaQueen50: The spammers seem to be active on LT lately. They hijacked the end of Joe's last thread on the 75s and put in their own link in place of the usual continuance link.

>31 DeltaQueen50: That is a lot of stories, Judy, and lots of classic authors. Enjoy!

>32 cmbohn: Ah, Gothic is not the same as noir.

Wikipedia defines Gothic as: Gothic fiction, which is largely known by the subgenre of Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature and film that combines fiction and horror, death, and at times romance.

It defines Noir as: Noir fiction (or roman noir) is a literary genre closely related to hardboiled genre with a distinction that the protagonist is not a detective, but instead either a victim, a suspect, or a perpetrator. Other common characteristics include the self-destructive qualities of the protagonist.

Of course definitions vary for both genres which muddies the waters a bit.

The theme this month also includes darkness. Does it fit there?

>35 Familyhistorian: {Noir fiction (or roman noir) is a literary genre closely related to hardboiled genre with a distinction that the protagonist is not a detective, but instead either a victim, a suspect, or a perpetrator.}

??? That Wikipedia definition surprises me, because I'd include "hardboiled detective" (e.g., Sam Spade) in the noir genre. It's all how "hardboiled" it is. Dashiell Hammett, yes. Agatha Christie, no.

JMONSHO (just my own not so humble opinion).

I'm not sure how dark it is, but I guess it depends on how dark the motives of the killers are. The subtitle makes me think it might be pretty bleak, but again, so far it's just weird.

I read The Quiller Memorandum which was pretty dark. Back to the Cold War and a Nazi plot against Berlin.

>36 CurrerBell: The definitions on noir are all over the place, for instance, some don't include Hammett's Thin Man. I would include books with actual detectives in my own definition of noir, hard-boiled detectives of course.

>37 cmbohn: I hope it gets better.

>38 majkia: That sounds pretty dark. Interesting that the movie The Quiller Memorandum was based on the book The Berlin Memorandum. Is the book The Quiller Memorandum based on the movie?

Pomo noir. Post-modern noir. Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy. It's a book that requires rereading, because it loop back on itself, and maybe I'll get around to a reread eventually. 3½***, but I'd probably rate it lower if each of the three novellas weren't as short as they are, because after a little while that "pomo" stuff starts getting tedious.

>42 CurrerBell: It sounds quite convoluted. Kudos for having read it even the once.

Goat Castle is not what I would think of as dark, just rather sad. I'm not finished with it yet, but I'm finding it difficult to get through.

>44 cmbohn: That's too bad, it sounded like it had promise.

I have finished my Noir read of Best American Noir of the Century edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler and I was totally thrilled, scared, and captivated by this dark and twisty read. Some really great stories here and the authors range from those that wrote in the 1930s and 40's right up to some of todays leading mystery writers like Elroy Leonard, James Lee Burke and Tom Franklin. I know noir isn't everyone's cup of tea, but if you like your stories seriously dark, this is a wonderful collection.

>46 DeltaQueen50: That's dedication, Judy, at 752 pages. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Just a reminder to everyone, we have only gotten volunteers to host a month for the first 5 months of next year, please come and sign up for a month.

I read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Lots of darkness there.

>48 DeltaQueen50: What, next year planning already? I am still trying to get caught up with this year's threads!

>49 majkia: Was The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo good?

Jim Thompson, Recoil. Only other Thompson I've ever read is The Killer Inside Me. Recoil's far inferior.

>52 CurrerBell: It looks like Thompson wrote a few good ones. One of the reviews I read called Recoil a second tier book. The same review said that Thompson's good ones were The Killer Inside Me and The Grifters.

When I was looking for noir novels The Thin Man was on some lists, others said that it didn't fit the bill. I read it anyway because it is supposed to be a classic. I can see why movies were made with the Nick and Nora Charles characters but the novel would probably better as a screen play.

>54 Familyhistorian: Meg, I don't usually prefer the movie to the book, but an exception was definitely The Thin Man. Nick and Nora were much more likeable when being played by William Powell and Myrna Loy. I think the movies played up the humor and gave the story a lightness that came across well on film.

>55 DeltaQueen50: I read The Thin Man while channeling Powell & Loy, probably the best way to get through it, Judy. I remember seeing at least one of the movies and was expecting the book to be better.

I read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, which I chose to fit both the monthly theme of Noir and the quarterly time period of Napoleonic. The reader was fantastic! Still, I thought the thing would never end. A slog of SFF, which I thought I should read because I keep hearing it talked of on LT. There. Done.

>57 countrylife: Read it back at its first publication. I loved all the spoofing footnotes. True, it does run on a bit long. (If you like steampunk-with-footnotes, there's also the YA Bartimaeus trilogy.)

>57 countrylife: I picked up Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell due to all the warbling on LT but its size is daunting so I haven't cracked the covers yet. Good for you for using one book to fit two challenges.

>58 CurrerBell: I did see some posts about the footnotes being hard to appreciate in the audio version.