Tuesday, January 31, 2023
Somewhere in Real Life Top Ten Greil Marcus mentions that there wasn't a 60's noir novel until Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice. I think that's probably true, and I think it illustrates how difficult it actually is to get noir right. It's a lot more than atmospherics. True noir is a clear eyed acceptance of the reality of American life, an acknowledgement that the promise of the New World, and particularly, although not exclusively, California, is always compromised by history.
I spent Sunday listening to Tom Verlaine and thinking about why noir is rare in rock and roll. I'm not sure, but I suspect that part of the reason is that rock and roll is mostly about redemption.
// posted by Bill @ 12:53 PM 
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