The best example of noir in "The Golden Cost" section would have to be "The Girl Who Kissed Barnaby Jones", for a number of reasons. First it was the most interesting story of the four. It keeps me reading. In this story we see a protagonist and femme fatale that fit the definition of noir. The femme fatale in this story, we can say is Cherie, a crazy lady who won't stop until she gets the job done right. Then we have Tate, who is the protagonist in this story. The one who knows most of Cherie's story and is seduced in to try to be an accomplish of a murder. "The Girl Who Kissed Barnaby Jones", fits noir best because from the beginning of the story we have a solid voice narrative, like in common noir. We get a good walk by of the whole story step by step, in orderly fashion that's understandable, in contrast to other stories. Tate gives us a good description of Cherie, the femme fatale to classify it as noir. In this we don't see Tate as an accomplish or in the killer's corner as in classic film noir, we see different; we see an approach to flee and not be illuminated or secured in. This quote showed how the story best fit the bill of noir, "I can feel the tension start to drain from my shoulders, and I put my weight back onto my feet just as I catch sight of a vaguely familiar, battered red corolla pulling into the lot and heading toward me, the face behind the wheel bearing down on mine, jaws clenched so tight they're bulging, and all I can think is how pretty she still looks"(298). Crazy lady!
The story that did not hit me as noir was "Kinship" because I did not find many elements of classic noir or neo-noir as described by given information. It was more of a story of someone just talking, telling a story. "Kinship" was a good story no questions asked, but this story had a plot that fit a description associated with something else; in a different categories. Or film.
Good job on ur blog. Being that I agree with your views on each of the stories I understood why you said what you said. I also thought The Girl who Kissed Barnaby Jones was the best example of Noir. From the femme fatale to
ReplyDeleteThe crime and etc. As far as Kinship, like you said, it seemed to represent a different type of genre and didn't have all the characteristics that a true noir novel would have. You express your thoughts very clearly and have good ways of interpreting things from the novels. Again, good job