Among the myriad forms of crime fiction, Noir remains a perennial favorite. The genre rose to prominence in the 1940s, when writers like Raymond Chandler introduced their tough talking private eyes to pulp fiction. Noir shines a harsh, unblinking light on sex, violence and society. This is a dark view of the world, hence, Noir. Incidentally, “pulp” refers to the cheap, yellowed acidy paper used to print paperbacks more than the mass-produced fiction found there. Philip Marlowe, made famous by Humphrey Bogart in movies like The Big Sleep, epitomizes everything that makes Noir popular.
While purists like to distinguish between “hardboiled” and Noir, I suspect the distinction has largely disappeared since the salad days of pulp fiction in the forties and fifties. I’ve felt for some time that Noir was a genre whose time had passed, but I’m beginning to change my mind.
Noir usually features a hard, socially isolated protagonist, usually a detective, who has an eye for beautiful women and a magnetic attraction to violence. He usually ends up in bed with someone over the course of the story, and almost always gets beat up or shot before bringing the bad people to justice.
Noir is interesting in the same way of black-and-white film. Shadows, focus and lighting were more critical to the storytelling in those old movies. In Noir stories, the subtle glances and dark details tell the story as much as the detailed descriptions and expository dialog.
While Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler defined the genre through a set of critical elements, many contemporary writers have kept the tradition alive. My problem has been that the detective as a character is someone lost in the 1950s. Robert Parker’s Spencer and Loren Estleman’s Amos Walker seem bewildered and almost lost in the 21st century. Walker still drives a 70s vintage Oldsmobile.
It turns out, I’m wrong. The Scandinavians, of all people seem bent on reviving noir. It is somehow appropriate that noir should live on in the land of the midnight sun and endless winter nights. Stieg Larsson is largely responsible for this revival, although Henning Mankell was earlier with his angst-ridden character, Kurt Wallander. Lately, Jo Nesbø has been doing his part. His latest, Snowman, is receiving rave reviews.
I am more familiar with Larsson’s work than the others, and I can tell you it is very dark. The treatment his character Lisbet Salander receives at the hands of the antagonists and authorities is so hard to read, I wonder how anyone could bring themselves to write it, much less read. But after I got past that, he had a superb story to tell, even across three books.
So, I can only conclude that Noir is alive and well, lurking in the shadows. Whatever you do, don’t look back.
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