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Noir
With impeccable skill, Robert Coover, one of America's pioneering postmodernists, has turned the classic detective story inside-out. Here Coover is at the top of his form; and Noir is a true page-turner-wry, absurd, and desolate.
You are Philip M. Noir, Private Investigator. A mysterious young widow hires you to find her husband's killer-if he was killed. Then your client is killed and her body disappears-if she was your client. Your search for clues takes you through all levels of the city, from classy lounges to lowlife dives, from jazz bars to a rich sex kitten's bedroom, from yachts to the morgue. "The Case of the Vanishing Black Widow" unfolds over five days aboveground and three or four in smugglers' tunnels, though flashback and anecdote, and expands time into something much larger. You don't always get the joke, though most people think what's happening is pretty funny.
You are Philip M. Noir, Private Investigator. A mysterious young widow hires you to find her husband's killer-if he was killed. Then your client is killed and her body disappears-if she was your client. Your search for clues takes you through all levels of the city, from classy lounges to lowlife dives, from jazz bars to a rich sex kitten's bedroom, from yachts to the morgue. "The Case of the Vanishing Black Widow" unfolds over five days aboveground and three or four in smugglers' tunnels, though flashback and anecdote, and expands time into something much larger. You don't always get the joke, though most people think what's happening is pretty funny.
192 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2010
29 people are currently reading
948 people want to read
About the author
Robert Coover
135 books378 followersRobert Lowell Coover was an American novelist, short story writer, and T. B. Stowell Professor Emeritus in Literary Arts at Brown University. He is generally considered a writer of fabulation and metafiction. He became a proponent of electronic literature and was a founder of the Electronic Literature Organization.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 114 reviews
September 2, 2021
The Gumshoe Game
You knew it was a set-up as soon as you walked into the room. Dark. Real dark. No windows. A clammy feeling. Very few verbs to be heard from the cheap Muzak; at least none with more than too syllables.
You’re a dick. Some cop said to be here. He’s a dick too. Only part-time. So you’re a bigger dick than he is. We should compare sometime. Mano a mano. If you get my drift.
What’s that sound? Someone’s at the door. If he’s packing, you’re screwed. Left the .22 in the car. Being a real dick is dangerous. Too close to death. And he’s a tough customer
What the hell! Tripped on something. Fell hard. Might have broke a tooth. And you not paying the medical premiums. What a jerk.
Oh shit here he comes. And you lying on the floor like a squashed avocado.
Light, blinding light. You’re looking right at it. Burning your eyeballs. Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. Whatever you want, you got it…
Disculpe, señor. Soy el conserje nocturno. Tengo que limpiar ahora. ¿Puedo preguntarte qué estás haciendo en el suelo del baño de señoras?
You knew it was a set-up as soon as you walked into the room. Dark. Real dark. No windows. A clammy feeling. Very few verbs to be heard from the cheap Muzak; at least none with more than too syllables.
You’re a dick. Some cop said to be here. He’s a dick too. Only part-time. So you’re a bigger dick than he is. We should compare sometime. Mano a mano. If you get my drift.
What’s that sound? Someone’s at the door. If he’s packing, you’re screwed. Left the .22 in the car. Being a real dick is dangerous. Too close to death. And he’s a tough customer
What the hell! Tripped on something. Fell hard. Might have broke a tooth. And you not paying the medical premiums. What a jerk.
Oh shit here he comes. And you lying on the floor like a squashed avocado.
Light, blinding light. You’re looking right at it. Burning your eyeballs. Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. Whatever you want, you got it…
Disculpe, señor. Soy el conserje nocturno. Tengo que limpiar ahora. ¿Puedo preguntarte qué estás haciendo en el suelo del baño de señoras?
July 20, 2014
3.75 stars rounded up.
My first Coover; and where to start? Well the title does give it away; it is an exploration of the Noir genre; send up, satire, tribute, a general culling of tropes. This is written in the second person which fits the type and the protagonist Philip M (M for Marlowe perhaps) Noir is suitably sleazy, drunk and beaten up on a regular basis. He has a smart secretary and a mysterious, veiled female client. The City is dreary, run down and mainly experienced at nights; there is a docks (obviously); there are corrupt police officers; there is a Mr Big; there are bars and eating houses that are suitably seedy; there are mysterious tramps; there are sultry singers who seem to find Noir irresistible. As well as playing with the genre I think Coover also indulges in a little teenage wish fulfilment; more of that later.
Coover, when it comes to creating ambience, words and sentences is clearly a craftsman. Much of noir is very cleverly done. It is difficult to work out timescales. The novel takes place over the period of about a week. Time is rather fluid and there are nods to Greek myth with the labyrinth underground where Noir spends a rather hazy amount of time. The plot itself is also rather hazy with plenty of gaps. However one of the characters does rather sum up the point of this technique:
“I have found, Mr. Noir, that if you make a story with gaps in it, people just step in to fill them up, they can’t help themselves”
Noir himself is not likeable; a concoction of cynicism, ignorance and the inability to detect himself out of a paper bag! He gets hit on the head and half-killed several times. The female characters all seem to want to put him back together and to bed him; and not just the real women. The scene with the mannequins just about sums up Noir:
“In the dusty penumbral light, there's an eerie sensuality about them with their angular provocative poses, their hard glossy surfaces, their somnambulant masklike faces, features frozen in glacial eyeless gazes. In short, not unlike most of the women you have known.”
The female characters vary between those who look after/mother Noir (Blanche), even to the extent of dressing and feeding him, and whores (some of them are caregivers as well when he has been beaten up). The little, though not unexpected, twist at the end just confirms that the female characters are the ones with warmth and intelligence. As always with Coover there is a caveat; the fate of Michiko, although only a minor character, sums up the objectification and possession of women with the subsequent abandonment and destruction once past youth and usefulness. I would like to see how he addresses gender over a series of books; the Noir genre was always going to be atypical I suspect.
There are a great many nods towards film; the mannequins are straight from a Kubrik film and the mirror shoot out from Orson Welles. The convoluted plot is pure Chandler. The review in the Spectator points out that the effect of Noir is very similar to the Robert Montgomery film “Lady in the Lake”. In the film Marlowe is effectively played by the camera. The effect here is very similar.
Summing up is difficult, partly because I think Coover is a writer who cannot be summed up in one book and this is tenuously the last in a trilogy; and he is playing serious and thought provoking games. What I haven’t decided yet is whether Coover in his exploring genres is just giving the impression of the flaws in the order of things and cracks in establishment, or is he putting those impressions into something more concrete in terms of ideas. I can’t assess that from one book. Reviews have tended to be positive and I have seen it described as Dieselpunk (whatever that is) and I can see it will attract fans of Noir fiction. I think I may have started at the wrong end of Coover’s work and as he is someone who has worked in many genres, judging from one alone is impossible.
My first Coover; and where to start? Well the title does give it away; it is an exploration of the Noir genre; send up, satire, tribute, a general culling of tropes. This is written in the second person which fits the type and the protagonist Philip M (M for Marlowe perhaps) Noir is suitably sleazy, drunk and beaten up on a regular basis. He has a smart secretary and a mysterious, veiled female client. The City is dreary, run down and mainly experienced at nights; there is a docks (obviously); there are corrupt police officers; there is a Mr Big; there are bars and eating houses that are suitably seedy; there are mysterious tramps; there are sultry singers who seem to find Noir irresistible. As well as playing with the genre I think Coover also indulges in a little teenage wish fulfilment; more of that later.
Coover, when it comes to creating ambience, words and sentences is clearly a craftsman. Much of noir is very cleverly done. It is difficult to work out timescales. The novel takes place over the period of about a week. Time is rather fluid and there are nods to Greek myth with the labyrinth underground where Noir spends a rather hazy amount of time. The plot itself is also rather hazy with plenty of gaps. However one of the characters does rather sum up the point of this technique:
“I have found, Mr. Noir, that if you make a story with gaps in it, people just step in to fill them up, they can’t help themselves”
Noir himself is not likeable; a concoction of cynicism, ignorance and the inability to detect himself out of a paper bag! He gets hit on the head and half-killed several times. The female characters all seem to want to put him back together and to bed him; and not just the real women. The scene with the mannequins just about sums up Noir:
“In the dusty penumbral light, there's an eerie sensuality about them with their angular provocative poses, their hard glossy surfaces, their somnambulant masklike faces, features frozen in glacial eyeless gazes. In short, not unlike most of the women you have known.”
The female characters vary between those who look after/mother Noir (Blanche), even to the extent of dressing and feeding him, and whores (some of them are caregivers as well when he has been beaten up). The little, though not unexpected, twist at the end just confirms that the female characters are the ones with warmth and intelligence. As always with Coover there is a caveat; the fate of Michiko, although only a minor character, sums up the objectification and possession of women with the subsequent abandonment and destruction once past youth and usefulness. I would like to see how he addresses gender over a series of books; the Noir genre was always going to be atypical I suspect.
There are a great many nods towards film; the mannequins are straight from a Kubrik film and the mirror shoot out from Orson Welles. The convoluted plot is pure Chandler. The review in the Spectator points out that the effect of Noir is very similar to the Robert Montgomery film “Lady in the Lake”. In the film Marlowe is effectively played by the camera. The effect here is very similar.
Summing up is difficult, partly because I think Coover is a writer who cannot be summed up in one book and this is tenuously the last in a trilogy; and he is playing serious and thought provoking games. What I haven’t decided yet is whether Coover in his exploring genres is just giving the impression of the flaws in the order of things and cracks in establishment, or is he putting those impressions into something more concrete in terms of ideas. I can’t assess that from one book. Reviews have tended to be positive and I have seen it described as Dieselpunk (whatever that is) and I can see it will attract fans of Noir fiction. I think I may have started at the wrong end of Coover’s work and as he is someone who has worked in many genres, judging from one alone is impossible.
August 19, 2014
[9/10]
She looked like trouble and the smart thing probably would have been to send her packing. But the rent has to be paid, you don't have enough business to turn down anyone. And besides, you like her legs. So, instead, even though you knew her story before you heard it, the inevitable chronicle of sex, money, betrayal (what the f__k is the matter with the world anyway?), you asked her to tell it. From the beginning, you said.
Welcome to the Case of the Vanishing Black Widow, Robert Coover's homage (of a sorts) to the genre made famous by the likes of James M Cain, Dashiell Hammett, Jim Thompson or Raymond Chandler. The intention is clear from the opening scene of the femme fatale entering the dingy office of the down on his luck detective ('... as though bringing on the night. Or dragging it in her wake.'), and more so from the writing on the glass door of said office: Philip M Noir / Private Investigations
What follows next is not exactly your typical crime novel. It does include all the classic genre tropes and hard-boiled idiom captured expertly, but the building blocks are jumbled together, realigned, examined from outside and turned inside out until the result is more of a distillation of the genre down to its essence (like a perfume) than an actual homage. For one thing, the timeline of events is non-linear and often (deliberately) confusing with characters dead in one chapter and active several pages later. The plot is rich in mysterious, unexplained occurences and potential suspects (read everybody). The violence is endemic with characters being offed almost as soon as you get to meet them. This struggle in the dark of the private detective to make sense of events as the number of dead bodies in the stories climbs higher and higher is not really unexpected. ( Nothing seems to make sense, but why do you expect it to? ) Chandler and Hammett are experts themselves at thoroughly muddling the waters before the final reveals at the end of the novel. With Coover, the mystery becomes a ritual dance with carefully coreographed steps and programmed music, as inevitable as an avalanche coming straight down the mountain towards you. Like the actors in the other Coover novel I've read earlier this year (A Night At The Movies) Philip M. Noir is caught in a rigid mechanism and can only move like a tram in the direction of the already laid tracks. These tracks being the genre conventions and the expectations of the genre fans.
You know plenty about being suck into stories that have already been told.
Every character in the story is familiar from classic novels and movies: the femme fatale, the Big Boss, the cynical piano player, the drug dealer who is also a snitch, the aggravating and probably corrupt cop, the philosophical bartender, the harlot with the golden heart, the voluptuous jazz singer, the Fat Man impeccably dressed, the cocky and trigger happy henchman, the mousy and efficient secretary, the drunk and available jailbait heiress, assorted thugs and victims, and so on. Coover delivers them mostly straight, with just a touch of absurd or over the top details to make the reader aware of the deconstructing game he is playing here. High end toy soldiers, extensive tattoos on a Japanese lady or specialty doughnuts introduce some jarring notes in the predcitable progress of the story.
If the story and the actors are easily recognizable, the one element that Coover liberates and twists in surprising directions is the scenery. This technique is also something I already noticed in 'A Night At The Movies'. You feel like you are moving in more than three directions, doors are opening on different chambers every time you return to them, streets and alleys bend backwards, cellars communicate across the town. The central element of the unnamed city is the ALLEY, just as the default time of day is the night.
The alley. You can't say it's your home away from home, having no real home to be away from, but you know it well. You've spent serious time in it. Have been mugged, chased, blown, asked for a light, beaten up, paid off, conned, dumped, supplied, scared shitless, given hot tips, shortchanged, shot at in here.
The city is alive and aware, as much a part of the story as the detective and his long list of suspects:
Here's the principle: The body is always sick. Even when it's well, or thinks it is. Cells are eating cells. It's all about digestion. Or indigestion. What in the city we call corruption. Eaters eating the eaten. Mostly in the tumultuous dark. It's a nasty fight to the finish and everybody loses. Cities laid out on grids? The grid's just an overlay. Like graph paper. The city itself, inside, is all roiling loops and curves. Bubbling with a violent emptiness.
Coover is an exuberant stylist, scattering words and images in wild associations, a poet freestyling with the genre building blocks, rearranging them in unexpected patterns. Through repetition and alliteration, we discover that 'noir' is a mood, a state of mind, an atitude more than a recipe for writing a succesful crime story:
dark, danger, depressing, destitute, desolate, deadly, downbeat, denial, deception, depravity, done for, dirty, dingy, drifting, black, night, shadows, sombre, evil, empty, frustration, frivolous, fear, ...
Here's an example of how the words come together to convey this mood indigo:
You are moving through pools of wet yellow light, surrounded by a velvety darkness as soft as black silk stockings, and it is not the light but the obscurity that is most alluring. The mystery of it. The streets are deserted and, as you turn into them, kissed by the drifting fog, they open up before you, the buildings seeming to lean towards you, stuttery neon signs wink at you overhead. Behind a steel chainlink fence in an empty playground, a child's swing creaks teasingly. Somewhere there's a melancholic sigh of escaping steam. It's beautiful to be walking down these lush wicked streets ...
I mentioned Italo Calvino earlier, because I like to look at Coover as the American equivalent of the Italian artist. Even if in his case the poetry is less whimsical and fanciful and more brutal, hard edged ( Bukovsky?). What made me think of Calvino and his novel "If On A Winter Night A Traveller" is the second person narrative common to both novels. Noir is written in this "YOU" mode from start to finish, a difficult balancing act on the part of the writer, but very effective for the reader (at leat in my case, since I noticed a few negative reviews for the book). I wondered why I have this reaction to experimental novels that refuse to follow established rules of plot and timeline. I believe it's because with this second person address the author is playing with me, making 'YOU' an active element of the reading experience: "I have found, Mr. Noir, that if you make a story with gaps in it, people just step in to fill them up, they can't help themselves." So You/Me end up completing the actual story in your/my mind, in between the written lines on the page.
Final verdict: a very good choice for fans of the genre who want to analyze and explore what makes a crime novel 'noir'. Approach with caution if you are not already familiar with the topic. I am in the first category because my dreams are sometimes made of stuff like this:
This is what you love. The gumshoe game. Played alone on dark wet streets to the tune of the swell and fade of car horns, sirens, the sounds of breaking glass, cries in the street, the percussive punctuation of gunshots and shouted obscenities. [...] You love your own bitter misery, your knotted depression. In short, you're a f__king romantic, Noir, as Joe the bartender likes to say. A disease you medicate with booze, needing a dose now.
Cheers!
She looked like trouble and the smart thing probably would have been to send her packing. But the rent has to be paid, you don't have enough business to turn down anyone. And besides, you like her legs. So, instead, even though you knew her story before you heard it, the inevitable chronicle of sex, money, betrayal (what the f__k is the matter with the world anyway?), you asked her to tell it. From the beginning, you said.
Welcome to the Case of the Vanishing Black Widow, Robert Coover's homage (of a sorts) to the genre made famous by the likes of James M Cain, Dashiell Hammett, Jim Thompson or Raymond Chandler. The intention is clear from the opening scene of the femme fatale entering the dingy office of the down on his luck detective ('... as though bringing on the night. Or dragging it in her wake.'), and more so from the writing on the glass door of said office: Philip M Noir / Private Investigations
What follows next is not exactly your typical crime novel. It does include all the classic genre tropes and hard-boiled idiom captured expertly, but the building blocks are jumbled together, realigned, examined from outside and turned inside out until the result is more of a distillation of the genre down to its essence (like a perfume) than an actual homage. For one thing, the timeline of events is non-linear and often (deliberately) confusing with characters dead in one chapter and active several pages later. The plot is rich in mysterious, unexplained occurences and potential suspects (read everybody). The violence is endemic with characters being offed almost as soon as you get to meet them. This struggle in the dark of the private detective to make sense of events as the number of dead bodies in the stories climbs higher and higher is not really unexpected. ( Nothing seems to make sense, but why do you expect it to? ) Chandler and Hammett are experts themselves at thoroughly muddling the waters before the final reveals at the end of the novel. With Coover, the mystery becomes a ritual dance with carefully coreographed steps and programmed music, as inevitable as an avalanche coming straight down the mountain towards you. Like the actors in the other Coover novel I've read earlier this year (A Night At The Movies) Philip M. Noir is caught in a rigid mechanism and can only move like a tram in the direction of the already laid tracks. These tracks being the genre conventions and the expectations of the genre fans.
You know plenty about being suck into stories that have already been told.
Every character in the story is familiar from classic novels and movies: the femme fatale, the Big Boss, the cynical piano player, the drug dealer who is also a snitch, the aggravating and probably corrupt cop, the philosophical bartender, the harlot with the golden heart, the voluptuous jazz singer, the Fat Man impeccably dressed, the cocky and trigger happy henchman, the mousy and efficient secretary, the drunk and available jailbait heiress, assorted thugs and victims, and so on. Coover delivers them mostly straight, with just a touch of absurd or over the top details to make the reader aware of the deconstructing game he is playing here. High end toy soldiers, extensive tattoos on a Japanese lady or specialty doughnuts introduce some jarring notes in the predcitable progress of the story.
If the story and the actors are easily recognizable, the one element that Coover liberates and twists in surprising directions is the scenery. This technique is also something I already noticed in 'A Night At The Movies'. You feel like you are moving in more than three directions, doors are opening on different chambers every time you return to them, streets and alleys bend backwards, cellars communicate across the town. The central element of the unnamed city is the ALLEY, just as the default time of day is the night.
The alley. You can't say it's your home away from home, having no real home to be away from, but you know it well. You've spent serious time in it. Have been mugged, chased, blown, asked for a light, beaten up, paid off, conned, dumped, supplied, scared shitless, given hot tips, shortchanged, shot at in here.
The city is alive and aware, as much a part of the story as the detective and his long list of suspects:
Here's the principle: The body is always sick. Even when it's well, or thinks it is. Cells are eating cells. It's all about digestion. Or indigestion. What in the city we call corruption. Eaters eating the eaten. Mostly in the tumultuous dark. It's a nasty fight to the finish and everybody loses. Cities laid out on grids? The grid's just an overlay. Like graph paper. The city itself, inside, is all roiling loops and curves. Bubbling with a violent emptiness.
Coover is an exuberant stylist, scattering words and images in wild associations, a poet freestyling with the genre building blocks, rearranging them in unexpected patterns. Through repetition and alliteration, we discover that 'noir' is a mood, a state of mind, an atitude more than a recipe for writing a succesful crime story:
dark, danger, depressing, destitute, desolate, deadly, downbeat, denial, deception, depravity, done for, dirty, dingy, drifting, black, night, shadows, sombre, evil, empty, frustration, frivolous, fear, ...
Here's an example of how the words come together to convey this mood indigo:
You are moving through pools of wet yellow light, surrounded by a velvety darkness as soft as black silk stockings, and it is not the light but the obscurity that is most alluring. The mystery of it. The streets are deserted and, as you turn into them, kissed by the drifting fog, they open up before you, the buildings seeming to lean towards you, stuttery neon signs wink at you overhead. Behind a steel chainlink fence in an empty playground, a child's swing creaks teasingly. Somewhere there's a melancholic sigh of escaping steam. It's beautiful to be walking down these lush wicked streets ...
I mentioned Italo Calvino earlier, because I like to look at Coover as the American equivalent of the Italian artist. Even if in his case the poetry is less whimsical and fanciful and more brutal, hard edged ( Bukovsky?). What made me think of Calvino and his novel "If On A Winter Night A Traveller" is the second person narrative common to both novels. Noir is written in this "YOU" mode from start to finish, a difficult balancing act on the part of the writer, but very effective for the reader (at leat in my case, since I noticed a few negative reviews for the book). I wondered why I have this reaction to experimental novels that refuse to follow established rules of plot and timeline. I believe it's because with this second person address the author is playing with me, making 'YOU' an active element of the reading experience: "I have found, Mr. Noir, that if you make a story with gaps in it, people just step in to fill them up, they can't help themselves." So You/Me end up completing the actual story in your/my mind, in between the written lines on the page.
Final verdict: a very good choice for fans of the genre who want to analyze and explore what makes a crime novel 'noir'. Approach with caution if you are not already familiar with the topic. I am in the first category because my dreams are sometimes made of stuff like this:
This is what you love. The gumshoe game. Played alone on dark wet streets to the tune of the swell and fade of car horns, sirens, the sounds of breaking glass, cries in the street, the percussive punctuation of gunshots and shouted obscenities. [...] You love your own bitter misery, your knotted depression. In short, you're a f__king romantic, Noir, as Joe the bartender likes to say. A disease you medicate with booze, needing a dose now.
Cheers!
August 3, 2016
From the very first sentence You are at the morgue, Coover's choice of second person narration* hits you like a bullet & the pressure never really lets up because the YOU never leaves you: the reader is made a witness, an accomplice. How many thrillers employ that?! But it works in this highly stylised cinematic take on the private eye experience ( or rather "eyeing the privates"! ), involving the readers in its immediacy and as we walk the hazy landscapes of seedy bars, wet slippery alleyways, lush wicked streets, labyrinthine underground tunnels, menacing dockyard, the city as bellyache & so on, it becomes hard to separate Noir's disturbing dream world from its nightmarish reality.
Noir is very moody & atmospheric, kind of Sin City ambience & Coover really rocks it but the effect can get a bit hallucinatory, eg, that erotic dream sequence with the severed hand or that scene with the manikins, that's classic Coover!
Other highlights would include Michiko & her tattooed body, Noir in "a pair of pink silk panties with little flowers stitched on them", (mis)adventures with sex kittens, etc.
Noir would make a fantastic movie though the book itself tips its fedora to several classic moments in cinema.
As Robbe-Grillet turned the detective genre upside down in The Erasers, here Coover employs all the cliches of noir & makes them respectable with his brilliant writing. Highly recommended.
*************
Worth reading:
Robert Coover discusses Noir:
"Noir uses second person narration as opposed to the first person, a prevalent trait in hardboiled fiction. Was this decision a way to not only immediately envelop the reader in the murky world of our titular hero, Philip M. Noir, but to also subtly subvert the expectations of the reader?
Another part of that ongoing conversation was the 1980s/1990s Gerald’s Party/John’s Wife sequence. While the idea for Noir was still germinating, before it had partnered up with the as yet unwritten Ghost Town, I saw it vaguely as a possible third book of a trilogy, and as Gerald’s Party is in first person and John’s Wife in third, the idea of using the second person in the third story naturally occurred to me. But that was only a trivial formal reason that provoked a few lines and set the tone, and the use of it as part of a trilogy was soon abandoned. But the second person narrative idea stuck. Even if it’s only Noir talking to himself, the second person creates a compelling immediacy, a being-thereness that blurs the distance between narrator and reader, and I found that appealing and sometimes usefully disturbing. Noir looks out on the world -- seeking answers, understanding, needing to know -- through your eyes, and you, also a quester, look out through his. Somewhat like the occasional use of the subjective camera in noir movies, and it resonates with those movies’ frequent voice-over monologues."
http://www.bookslut.com/features/2010...
September 27, 2017
Nwah, Dahling!
A modest, if twisted, homage to the classic roman noir designed and recommended for (the titillation of) heavy-thinking undergrad philosophy students and Playboy readers
A Portrait of the Artist as a Culprit
Soon after you first hung up your shingle as a private dick, a beautiful woman, far out of your league, climbed the stairs in her high heels and knocked coyly on your door. You called out for her to come in, all the time keeping your feet on the desk, your hands clenched behind your neck, and your trousers on. After all, you hadn’t met her yet. The hall light formed a shapely silhouette on the glass panel in the door, which was soon followed by her entrance.
She sat down on the chair opposite you. It was lower than the chair you were sitting on. Her legs went right up to your expectations.
Mr. Noir, I’d like to speak to you about my husband. He’s been murdered.
When did it happen?
Last night. We had only just finished dinner. About eight. Then I saw a man in the garden, and my husband went outside to confront him. There were harsh words, and suddenly I heard a gun explode. My husband fell to the ground and was dead by the time I got to his side.
What did the killer do then?
He ran back up the path and straight out the front gate, which was open at the time. I can still hear the sound of his shoes on the gravel.
Did you recognise him?
No, I’d never seen him before.
You weren’t sure whether she was telling the truth, but it was too early in the conversation to discuss wills and insurance policies.
Did you get a good look at him? Could you give me a description of his face?
Yes. I think so.
You took down notes feverishly as she responded to your questions.
Wait here while I go next door. My partner is a sketch artist.
By the time you returned, she had gone, the only trace that she had ever been in your office was a bundle of C-notes on your desk. It would have been more than enough for you to take her out for a fancy steak frites dinner at Entrecote.
You showed your partner the notes you had taken and he commenced a sketch with effortless ease. He had worked for the police for 38 years before being forcibly retired after an indiscretion with a new female detective. He was experiencing some tough times and had asked you if he could sub-lease a room.
Despite his ease, a line of sweat trickled down your partner’s brow. Luckily, it fell on the desk to the side of his sketch, which remained pristine.
A clear portrait emerged quickly. It never ceased to amaze you how sketch artists can create something out of almost nothing. You looked back and forth from your notes to the sketch to your partner. It was a good likeness, but you couldn’t check it against your client’s recollection of the murderer, and you didn’t know when or if she’d be back.
Your partner wiped his brow with his handkerchief, and resumed working. Evidently, he wasn’t finished yet. He drew a gun, then he pointed it at your head, said I’m sorry it had to be you, and pulled the trigger.
A modest, if twisted, homage to the classic roman noir designed and recommended for (the titillation of) heavy-thinking undergrad philosophy students and Playboy readers
A Portrait of the Artist as a Culprit
Soon after you first hung up your shingle as a private dick, a beautiful woman, far out of your league, climbed the stairs in her high heels and knocked coyly on your door. You called out for her to come in, all the time keeping your feet on the desk, your hands clenched behind your neck, and your trousers on. After all, you hadn’t met her yet. The hall light formed a shapely silhouette on the glass panel in the door, which was soon followed by her entrance.
She sat down on the chair opposite you. It was lower than the chair you were sitting on. Her legs went right up to your expectations.
Mr. Noir, I’d like to speak to you about my husband. He’s been murdered.
When did it happen?
Last night. We had only just finished dinner. About eight. Then I saw a man in the garden, and my husband went outside to confront him. There were harsh words, and suddenly I heard a gun explode. My husband fell to the ground and was dead by the time I got to his side.
What did the killer do then?
He ran back up the path and straight out the front gate, which was open at the time. I can still hear the sound of his shoes on the gravel.
Did you recognise him?
No, I’d never seen him before.
You weren’t sure whether she was telling the truth, but it was too early in the conversation to discuss wills and insurance policies.
Did you get a good look at him? Could you give me a description of his face?
Yes. I think so.
You took down notes feverishly as she responded to your questions.
Wait here while I go next door. My partner is a sketch artist.
By the time you returned, she had gone, the only trace that she had ever been in your office was a bundle of C-notes on your desk. It would have been more than enough for you to take her out for a fancy steak frites dinner at Entrecote.
You showed your partner the notes you had taken and he commenced a sketch with effortless ease. He had worked for the police for 38 years before being forcibly retired after an indiscretion with a new female detective. He was experiencing some tough times and had asked you if he could sub-lease a room.
Despite his ease, a line of sweat trickled down your partner’s brow. Luckily, it fell on the desk to the side of his sketch, which remained pristine.
A clear portrait emerged quickly. It never ceased to amaze you how sketch artists can create something out of almost nothing. You looked back and forth from your notes to the sketch to your partner. It was a good likeness, but you couldn’t check it against your client’s recollection of the murderer, and you didn’t know when or if she’d be back.
Your partner wiped his brow with his handkerchief, and resumed working. Evidently, he wasn’t finished yet. He drew a gun, then he pointed it at your head, said I’m sorry it had to be you, and pulled the trigger.
March 20, 2023
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2022...
“Avanzas por charcos de luz húmeda y amarillenta, rodeado por una oscuridad aterciopelada tan suave como unas medias negras de seda, y no es la luz sino las sombras lo que resulta más atractivo. Su misterio.”
El término noir es como llamaron los criticos de cine franceses a un tipo de estética de películas americanas entre los 30 y lo 50 que hacia alusión a un cine sobre perdedores y antihéroes provenientes de la posguerra y de la Gran Depresión y que acababan involucrándose en el crimen, aunque hay que decir que normalmente no es tanto el crimen y la corrupción el objetivo de la historia sino la atmósfera de fatalidad que rodea a estos personajes, sus motivaciones y el cómo han llegado hasta ahí, que es de verdad lo esencial en el noir . Normalmente la ciudad, sus calles, sus rincones más oscuros son escenarios prototípicos que se repiten una y otra vez, lo que da excusa a que este tipo de cine se apropiara de la estética del claroscuro y del tenebrismo, así que la mayoría de sus historias transcurren de noche y sus personajes por supuesto cobran vida cuando el último rayo de sol desaparece.
"Los vínculos son probablemente ilusorios en un mundo tan jodido como éste."
¿Y por qué suelto este rollo en una novela tan literaria como ésta que nos ocupa de Robert Coover? Pues porque este cine noir llegó a influir totalmente en la novela de detectives,de los 40, tanto en lo que refería en atmósferas como en la sequedad de sus diálogos, tanto, que el noir cinematográfico y la novela negra y/o pulp de la época se mimetizaron y ya no sabemos hoy que fue primero, si el huevo o la gallina. Coover por tanto impregna esta novela de toda esta estética cinematográfica del cine noir más que de la literatura de la época aunque está clarísimo que la sombra de Philip Marlowe es muy alargada y está continuamene presente
"Cuando abriste la agencia, te imaginabas ocupándote de crimenes raros y complicados que resolverías con tino, [...].pero en realidad te contrataron sobre todo para seguir a esposas adúlteras y conseguir pruebas contra ellas Sabías menos de cuestiones sexuales que de asuntos detectivescos pero enseguida comprendiste qué pruebas conseguir. No eras tanto un detective privado como un detector de intimidades."
En Noir tenemos todos los clichés típicos tópicos de las historias del noir y de la literatura de detectives: Phil M. Noir (M. por Marlowe seguramente), un detective perdedor que no levanta cabeza, la viuda que aparece misteriosamente y le ofrece un trabajo aparentemente fácil pero que se va complicando con más de un muerto por el camino, el intento de resolución de un misterio que llevará a este detective a visitar los bajos fondos y muchos de los antros de la ciudad… clichés que se van repitiendo casi como una plantilla tanto de la novela negra como del cine noir. Sin embargo, Robert Coover de alguna forma deconstruye todo este edificio y lo convierte tanto en una suerte de parodia como de homenaje: parodia en el sentido de que hiperexagera todos estos clichés salteado con un tono irreverente y humorístico que hacen que esté género de alguna forma cobre una identidad propia, muy cooveriana, y homenaje porque Coover está continuamente homenajeando esa estética misteriosa, nocturna, inquietante que es la ciudad de noche, tema esencial en el noir.
"...te encontraste caminando por charcos de sombra sin fondo, zarandeado por los típicos y helados jirones de niebla a la deriva. Una especie de peligrosa travesía por el país de los muertos, como alguien ha dicho. No te van las chorradas de ese tipo, pero sentías que tu propia condición mortal te traspasaba como la niebla nocturna y todo lo que veías te parecía más muerto que vivo."
Y lo mejor que es la auténtica vuelta de tuerca en esta novela de apenas cien páginas; la narración está construida en torno a la 2ª persona con lo cual Coover casi que convierte al lector en narrador, cómplice y en protagonista de toda la trama, que es la mejor manera de que el lector se mimetice en la trama, igual que en el cine noir más puro. Una novela estupenda de un autor totalmente irreverente al que no le importa saltarse las etiquetas establecidas y construir las suyas propias.
"Pero aunque la historia te resulte familiar y conozcas el final, es difícil escapar de ella. Como apearse de un tren lanzado a toda velocidad. Todo el mundo va en ese tren. Nadie es original. Estar obsesionado es como sobreactuar en un melodrama convencional mientras los demás actores, que han tenido suerte, hacen de simples figurantes. De modo que no se trata de la historia en que estás atrapado, como todo el mundo, sino una vez que sabes eso, de cómo vas a interpretar la obra. Tu estilo. Clase. Los pasos que des."
♫♫ ♫ Harlem River, Kevin Morby
“Avanzas por charcos de luz húmeda y amarillenta, rodeado por una oscuridad aterciopelada tan suave como unas medias negras de seda, y no es la luz sino las sombras lo que resulta más atractivo. Su misterio.”
El término noir es como llamaron los criticos de cine franceses a un tipo de estética de películas americanas entre los 30 y lo 50 que hacia alusión a un cine sobre perdedores y antihéroes provenientes de la posguerra y de la Gran Depresión y que acababan involucrándose en el crimen, aunque hay que decir que normalmente no es tanto el crimen y la corrupción el objetivo de la historia sino la atmósfera de fatalidad que rodea a estos personajes, sus motivaciones y el cómo han llegado hasta ahí, que es de verdad lo esencial en el noir . Normalmente la ciudad, sus calles, sus rincones más oscuros son escenarios prototípicos que se repiten una y otra vez, lo que da excusa a que este tipo de cine se apropiara de la estética del claroscuro y del tenebrismo, así que la mayoría de sus historias transcurren de noche y sus personajes por supuesto cobran vida cuando el último rayo de sol desaparece.
"Los vínculos son probablemente ilusorios en un mundo tan jodido como éste."
¿Y por qué suelto este rollo en una novela tan literaria como ésta que nos ocupa de Robert Coover? Pues porque este cine noir llegó a influir totalmente en la novela de detectives,de los 40, tanto en lo que refería en atmósferas como en la sequedad de sus diálogos, tanto, que el noir cinematográfico y la novela negra y/o pulp de la época se mimetizaron y ya no sabemos hoy que fue primero, si el huevo o la gallina. Coover por tanto impregna esta novela de toda esta estética cinematográfica del cine noir más que de la literatura de la época aunque está clarísimo que la sombra de Philip Marlowe es muy alargada y está continuamene presente
"Cuando abriste la agencia, te imaginabas ocupándote de crimenes raros y complicados que resolverías con tino, [...].pero en realidad te contrataron sobre todo para seguir a esposas adúlteras y conseguir pruebas contra ellas Sabías menos de cuestiones sexuales que de asuntos detectivescos pero enseguida comprendiste qué pruebas conseguir. No eras tanto un detective privado como un detector de intimidades."
En Noir tenemos todos los clichés típicos tópicos de las historias del noir y de la literatura de detectives: Phil M. Noir (M. por Marlowe seguramente), un detective perdedor que no levanta cabeza, la viuda que aparece misteriosamente y le ofrece un trabajo aparentemente fácil pero que se va complicando con más de un muerto por el camino, el intento de resolución de un misterio que llevará a este detective a visitar los bajos fondos y muchos de los antros de la ciudad… clichés que se van repitiendo casi como una plantilla tanto de la novela negra como del cine noir. Sin embargo, Robert Coover de alguna forma deconstruye todo este edificio y lo convierte tanto en una suerte de parodia como de homenaje: parodia en el sentido de que hiperexagera todos estos clichés salteado con un tono irreverente y humorístico que hacen que esté género de alguna forma cobre una identidad propia, muy cooveriana, y homenaje porque Coover está continuamente homenajeando esa estética misteriosa, nocturna, inquietante que es la ciudad de noche, tema esencial en el noir.
"...te encontraste caminando por charcos de sombra sin fondo, zarandeado por los típicos y helados jirones de niebla a la deriva. Una especie de peligrosa travesía por el país de los muertos, como alguien ha dicho. No te van las chorradas de ese tipo, pero sentías que tu propia condición mortal te traspasaba como la niebla nocturna y todo lo que veías te parecía más muerto que vivo."
Y lo mejor que es la auténtica vuelta de tuerca en esta novela de apenas cien páginas; la narración está construida en torno a la 2ª persona con lo cual Coover casi que convierte al lector en narrador, cómplice y en protagonista de toda la trama, que es la mejor manera de que el lector se mimetice en la trama, igual que en el cine noir más puro. Una novela estupenda de un autor totalmente irreverente al que no le importa saltarse las etiquetas establecidas y construir las suyas propias.
"Pero aunque la historia te resulte familiar y conozcas el final, es difícil escapar de ella. Como apearse de un tren lanzado a toda velocidad. Todo el mundo va en ese tren. Nadie es original. Estar obsesionado es como sobreactuar en un melodrama convencional mientras los demás actores, que han tenido suerte, hacen de simples figurantes. De modo que no se trata de la historia en que estás atrapado, como todo el mundo, sino una vez que sabes eso, de cómo vas a interpretar la obra. Tu estilo. Clase. Los pasos que des."
♫♫ ♫ Harlem River, Kevin Morby
December 31, 2020
3.5 estrellas.
Al comenzar a leer Noir me pregunté si la cosa iba en serio, ya que una reunión tal de tópicos de la novela negra a estas alturas solo puede ser resultado de la mayor ingenuidad o justo de lo contrario. Está escrita incluso con esa prosa desagradable y cínica del hard boiled, «el indecoroso trasero de la condición humana» en una página, «el repugnante bajo vientre de la existencia» en otra, y así más o menos en todas. Pero no lleva mucho tiempo darse cuenta de que Robert Coover no está precisamente por la parodia. Todo está muy bien elaborado y servido, y al poco estamos volviendo las páginas hechizados por la historia y las divagaciones etílicas de este detective, tan baqueteado el pobre que encima se llama «Phillip M. Noir». Ahí es nada.
Es casi imposible leer algo sobre Robert Coover sin enterarse de que era un autor postmoderno. Seguramente de ahí salen esa narración en segunda persona y la fragmentación temporal que desorienta al lector y le deja preguntándose de qué detective le están hablando ahora: del que tira de la historia en el momento presente, del que la está enmarañando unas semanas atrás o del que tropieza en sucesos que parecen cíclicos. No es que sirva de guía, pero ahí deja caer Coover el comentario metaliterario: «El problema de las tramas. Cuando estás metido en una, no puedes ver más allá del siguiente lío. Es como estar atrapado en dos dimensiones, sin acceso a una visión de conjunto».
Cuando oigo el término posmoderno aplicado a algo, me suele pasar como a mi gato con el olor a mandarinas. Quizás, gracias a Robert Coover, ya no salga corriendo con tantas prisas la próxima vez.
Al comenzar a leer Noir me pregunté si la cosa iba en serio, ya que una reunión tal de tópicos de la novela negra a estas alturas solo puede ser resultado de la mayor ingenuidad o justo de lo contrario. Está escrita incluso con esa prosa desagradable y cínica del hard boiled, «el indecoroso trasero de la condición humana» en una página, «el repugnante bajo vientre de la existencia» en otra, y así más o menos en todas. Pero no lleva mucho tiempo darse cuenta de que Robert Coover no está precisamente por la parodia. Todo está muy bien elaborado y servido, y al poco estamos volviendo las páginas hechizados por la historia y las divagaciones etílicas de este detective, tan baqueteado el pobre que encima se llama «Phillip M. Noir». Ahí es nada.
Es casi imposible leer algo sobre Robert Coover sin enterarse de que era un autor postmoderno. Seguramente de ahí salen esa narración en segunda persona y la fragmentación temporal que desorienta al lector y le deja preguntándose de qué detective le están hablando ahora: del que tira de la historia en el momento presente, del que la está enmarañando unas semanas atrás o del que tropieza en sucesos que parecen cíclicos. No es que sirva de guía, pero ahí deja caer Coover el comentario metaliterario: «El problema de las tramas. Cuando estás metido en una, no puedes ver más allá del siguiente lío. Es como estar atrapado en dos dimensiones, sin acceso a una visión de conjunto».
Cuando oigo el término posmoderno aplicado a algo, me suele pasar como a mi gato con el olor a mandarinas. Quizás, gracias a Robert Coover, ya no salga corriendo con tantas prisas la próxima vez.
May 12, 2020
Me enganche desde el principio, pero el que no esté dividido en capitulos lo hace un poco denso y el final no me quedo claro cual es la resolución del caso, como fueron los hechos y que buscaba el villano.
February 7, 2013
A Review Written in One Sentence.
Written with the rapid fire of a Tommy Gun, being fired long after the sun has gone in a dark and nameless city, streets and hidden unmapped alleyways, full of crooked cops, bums, whores, thieves, skimmers, pimps, hit men, pity criminals, career criminals, a city made for Noir, with its muted colors and rain, flophouses, dive and lounge bars with the same female singer nightly, pool halls, and hidden tunnels and passageways underneath the pavement, Robert Coover , much like Thomas Pynchon did with “Inherent Vice” tries his hand at hard-boiled noir fiction with “Noir”, more true to the genre then “Inherent Vice” (though “Inherent Vice” was so much then Pynchon doing noir , well surfing and surf music, a lot of pot smoking for one) what I mean is booth books are written by post modern masters ( for lack of better words ) writers who write in their own styles, and mix and mash many other styles, though Thomas Pynchon can go from many different styles in just a few pages, Coover a few in a every book, but this isn’t a comparison between two authors just they both wrote Noir novels around the same time, look just read the book, it’s a quick read that’s darkly comical, a wise cracking good time, or don’t read it what do I car, for some reason I could go for a donut right about now….
June 10, 2010
Have you ever finished a book and put it down thinking that you weren’t sure what exactly happened but that you kind of liked it? Such was my experience with Robert Coover’s Noir. Noir is nominally a mystery though it is surrealistic and amorphous one; much like a particularly vivid dream. This dream perspective is perhaps aided by second person narration that puts the reader in the drivers seat but neglects to provide them with steering wheel, gas pedal, or break.
The narration elevates Noir to a novel that you don’t just read but one that you experience. The perverse and the beautiful collide alongside the serious and the ridiculous. It is a curious effect that often times makes the novel stirring, funny, and horrific; often all in the same seen. In one particularly lengthy scene Coover describes the use of a prostitute as a message board between two rival gang leaders as the two trade insults via tattoos adding new ones or modifying old ones. There is a certain perverse humor in a women who “ended up a tattooed from crown to toes with layers of exotic overwritten graffiti, a veritable yakuza textbook, slang dictionary, and art gallery, a condition that served her well in her subsequent career, once the museum, which claimed ownership of her, was paid off: she was worth a C-note just for an hour of library time.” Of course there is a certain amount undeniable horror to literal objectification, from person to art, a horror that is fully realized in her final fate (which I won’t spoil ‘natch).
Nothing in Noir has a real name. Everyone is more or less defined by the role they play in the story. Flame is a love interest. Rats is an informant. Blue is a policeman. This isn’t always the case and it isn’t always obvious though the cleverly named Fat Agnes (a play on ignis fatuus) is my particular favorite of the bunch. Even our title character, Phillip M Noir, is a kind of obvious choice; almost exactly what we would expect. Except not quite. That last a bit difficult to explain and I think I’ll leave it by saying that every is and isn’t exactly what they seem.
Time and place are nigh on malleable entities. The mystery elements of Noir have a distinct progression but it is a progression that obfuscated by constant shifts in time that frequently left me slightly confused as to when exactly we were. The city of Noir is, to borrow a bit from Stephen King, the apotheosis of every noir/hard-boiled city you’ve ever seen. As Coover illustrates in a particularly humorous passage (it involved masturbating in subway passages) a city that is both the coquettish yet unattainable lover, friend, and frequent opponent. A confusing mess personified yet strangely indifferent to our hero’s trials and tribulations. The city has a maze of alleys (prowled by a homeless one that Noir appeases by carrying offerings of trinkets, baubles and junk) the comprise a landscape all their own and is connected by a seemingly endless labyrinth of smuggler’s tunnels that go wherever you need them to go. All of this gives the setting a curiously mythic feel.
Noir is a singular novel familiar in its use of familiar tropes from hardboiled fiction and noir film countless readers and viewers have come to know and enjoy yet curiously alien in its simultaneously literal and symbolic characters, its solid yet shifting settings, its precise if disjointed use of time, and its mystery that is both resolved yet left open with half-asked questions whispering in the background. It was not an easy read, particularly since I’ve been really busy, but a surprisingly rewarding read that deserved more time and consideration than I have been able to give it. I will be keeping an eye on future titles from Robert Coover and while he is a bit outside of what I typically read I certainly enjoyed the challenge Noir offered.
The narration elevates Noir to a novel that you don’t just read but one that you experience. The perverse and the beautiful collide alongside the serious and the ridiculous. It is a curious effect that often times makes the novel stirring, funny, and horrific; often all in the same seen. In one particularly lengthy scene Coover describes the use of a prostitute as a message board between two rival gang leaders as the two trade insults via tattoos adding new ones or modifying old ones. There is a certain perverse humor in a women who “ended up a tattooed from crown to toes with layers of exotic overwritten graffiti, a veritable yakuza textbook, slang dictionary, and art gallery, a condition that served her well in her subsequent career, once the museum, which claimed ownership of her, was paid off: she was worth a C-note just for an hour of library time.” Of course there is a certain amount undeniable horror to literal objectification, from person to art, a horror that is fully realized in her final fate (which I won’t spoil ‘natch).
Nothing in Noir has a real name. Everyone is more or less defined by the role they play in the story. Flame is a love interest. Rats is an informant. Blue is a policeman. This isn’t always the case and it isn’t always obvious though the cleverly named Fat Agnes (a play on ignis fatuus) is my particular favorite of the bunch. Even our title character, Phillip M Noir, is a kind of obvious choice; almost exactly what we would expect. Except not quite. That last a bit difficult to explain and I think I’ll leave it by saying that every is and isn’t exactly what they seem.
Time and place are nigh on malleable entities. The mystery elements of Noir have a distinct progression but it is a progression that obfuscated by constant shifts in time that frequently left me slightly confused as to when exactly we were. The city of Noir is, to borrow a bit from Stephen King, the apotheosis of every noir/hard-boiled city you’ve ever seen. As Coover illustrates in a particularly humorous passage (it involved masturbating in subway passages) a city that is both the coquettish yet unattainable lover, friend, and frequent opponent. A confusing mess personified yet strangely indifferent to our hero’s trials and tribulations. The city has a maze of alleys (prowled by a homeless one that Noir appeases by carrying offerings of trinkets, baubles and junk) the comprise a landscape all their own and is connected by a seemingly endless labyrinth of smuggler’s tunnels that go wherever you need them to go. All of this gives the setting a curiously mythic feel.
Noir is a singular novel familiar in its use of familiar tropes from hardboiled fiction and noir film countless readers and viewers have come to know and enjoy yet curiously alien in its simultaneously literal and symbolic characters, its solid yet shifting settings, its precise if disjointed use of time, and its mystery that is both resolved yet left open with half-asked questions whispering in the background. It was not an easy read, particularly since I’ve been really busy, but a surprisingly rewarding read that deserved more time and consideration than I have been able to give it. I will be keeping an eye on future titles from Robert Coover and while he is a bit outside of what I typically read I certainly enjoyed the challenge Noir offered.
December 24, 2015
Well, let's start with the basics - the book is not misnamed, it is in fact a work of noir, starring you (oh, the book is in second person), a detective named Phillip M Noir (middle name undisclosed, I'm guessing it's the obvious one though), working on a case for an attractive yet mysterious widow. Pretty much all tropes of noir - both cinematic and literary - are present, typically to hyperbolic excess. The book revels in the black and white, heavily shadowed, visual motif prevalent in the noir cinema genre, and Coover's attention to detail throughout the book when in comes to light and shadow and the obscured is steady and precise.
Coover messes with time and chronology quite a bit through the book, and typically withholds information from the reader long after it has been narratively obtained (again, by you) - this leads to fairly pervasive confusion throughout the narrative on the part of the reader, who also happens to be the detective, which is appropriate, as Noir does not appear to be a very good detective. Additionally, the book frequently swerves into the fantastic and the unrealistic, again casting a haze over the narrative, almost as if it's envelopes in deep shadow.
Most importantly though, this was a great deal of fun - it is well crafted, absurd, obscene, and it kept me reading, enthralled, straight to the end.
Glad I've got more Coover on the shelf.
Coover messes with time and chronology quite a bit through the book, and typically withholds information from the reader long after it has been narratively obtained (again, by you) - this leads to fairly pervasive confusion throughout the narrative on the part of the reader, who also happens to be the detective, which is appropriate, as Noir does not appear to be a very good detective. Additionally, the book frequently swerves into the fantastic and the unrealistic, again casting a haze over the narrative, almost as if it's envelopes in deep shadow.
Most importantly though, this was a great deal of fun - it is well crafted, absurd, obscene, and it kept me reading, enthralled, straight to the end.
Glad I've got more Coover on the shelf.
May 30, 2010
Bound: SunPost Weekly March 11, 2010
http://www.sunpostweekly.com/2010/03/...
Noir Sung Blue
Robert Coover Gets with His Inner Gumshoe
JoHn Hood
You read a lot of hard-boiled fiction. Maybe even a little too much. The kinda little too much Cocteau called “just enough.” You cut your teeth on Chandler and Hammett and James M. Cain. Learned to crack wise through Mickey Spillane. You got your dark view of the world from Jim Thompson. Consider yourself an authority on Elmore Leonard. And you’ve spent a good chunk of a hard life alongside walk-alones like Travis McGee, Hoke Mosley, Harry Bosch and Elvis Cole.
You prefer alleys to main drags, suits to denim, highballs to beer. You speak fast, think once and never apologize, no matter how wrong they say you are. You’ve got swollen knuckles, a tin ear and a chip on your shoulder that’s been around so long it’s got a name.
When you heard word that Robert Coover had gotten with his inner gumshoe, you weren’t mad. In fact, you were pleased by the news. You saw that he called his experiment Noir, and you said “What else?” And when you got the book in your hands, you didn’t put it down until you’d reached The End.
You didn’t mind that the antihero’s name was Philip M. Noir because you know it comes from the best. You didn’t care that the bad guy was called Mr. Big, the alley cat was christened Rats, or that Noir had the hots for a dame named Flame. You were even somewhat charmed by the fact that “her lovers were called moths.”
You dug the stuttering neon, the puddled shadows, the holstered heaters. And you knew what was coming when the veiled widow showed up in need of a peeper. Tomorrow was gonna be black-and-blue, and you couldn’t wait.
In truth, the whole book is a bruise, punctuated by dead bodies, and it smarts. You wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. And since you too have been “sucked into stories that have already been told,” you already knew how hard would be “to step out of it.” But you also know that “it’s not the story you’re trapped in,” it’s “how you play it out. Your style. Class. The moves you make.”
You see that now, here, in Coover’s shady strut through the “dark damp night.” Just as you saw it then, in Chandler and Hammett and Cain. You recognize the “filthy, smoky, gloomy, rank” as if it were an old friend. You too have walked these streets, made these mistakes, lived these myths. And you will continue reading these stories until there are no more words.
http://www.sunpostweekly.com/2010/03/...
Noir Sung Blue
Robert Coover Gets with His Inner Gumshoe
JoHn Hood
You read a lot of hard-boiled fiction. Maybe even a little too much. The kinda little too much Cocteau called “just enough.” You cut your teeth on Chandler and Hammett and James M. Cain. Learned to crack wise through Mickey Spillane. You got your dark view of the world from Jim Thompson. Consider yourself an authority on Elmore Leonard. And you’ve spent a good chunk of a hard life alongside walk-alones like Travis McGee, Hoke Mosley, Harry Bosch and Elvis Cole.
You prefer alleys to main drags, suits to denim, highballs to beer. You speak fast, think once and never apologize, no matter how wrong they say you are. You’ve got swollen knuckles, a tin ear and a chip on your shoulder that’s been around so long it’s got a name.
When you heard word that Robert Coover had gotten with his inner gumshoe, you weren’t mad. In fact, you were pleased by the news. You saw that he called his experiment Noir, and you said “What else?” And when you got the book in your hands, you didn’t put it down until you’d reached The End.
You didn’t mind that the antihero’s name was Philip M. Noir because you know it comes from the best. You didn’t care that the bad guy was called Mr. Big, the alley cat was christened Rats, or that Noir had the hots for a dame named Flame. You were even somewhat charmed by the fact that “her lovers were called moths.”
You dug the stuttering neon, the puddled shadows, the holstered heaters. And you knew what was coming when the veiled widow showed up in need of a peeper. Tomorrow was gonna be black-and-blue, and you couldn’t wait.
In truth, the whole book is a bruise, punctuated by dead bodies, and it smarts. You wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. And since you too have been “sucked into stories that have already been told,” you already knew how hard would be “to step out of it.” But you also know that “it’s not the story you’re trapped in,” it’s “how you play it out. Your style. Class. The moves you make.”
You see that now, here, in Coover’s shady strut through the “dark damp night.” Just as you saw it then, in Chandler and Hammett and Cain. You recognize the “filthy, smoky, gloomy, rank” as if it were an old friend. You too have walked these streets, made these mistakes, lived these myths. And you will continue reading these stories until there are no more words.
March 29, 2010
The whole book was like one of those really messed up dreams you have when you've got a killer cold and take one too many nyquils before going to bed. But, you know, in a good way.
March 21, 2018
I enjoyed the noir style of this with the familiar hip language & dry wit of a down at heel, grizzled PI. However I didn't see this as any different to a noir even though it purported to be deconstructing that. Yes there was a reflective metaphysical element, the PI really in search of himself, or the missing woman in his life, or in this case the ever-shifting city itself, which is referred to as 'she' and which he does make love to towards the end in a bizarre scene. The plot really doesn't matter all that, the case itself the same. Time is fragmented as the narrative jumps backwards and forwards, often in ways I couldn't follow.
In summary, I enjoyed the writing but not the story and didn't think it did anything remarkable or radical to the genre.
In summary, I enjoyed the writing but not the story and didn't think it did anything remarkable or radical to the genre.
August 4, 2010
If you don't already get why it's such a great idea to narrate in 2nd person a book whose main character is named Philip M. Noir, referring to the reader in voice-over as "you" throughout, then this clever little knot of Cuisinarted crime cinema convention, plot, and cliche may not be for YOU...sweetheart.
Read
July 24, 2015The Noir interview with Bookslut:
http://www.bookslut.com/features/2010...
http://www.bookslut.com/features/2010...
June 17, 2020
3.5 Stars
This book is marketed as a parody/deconstruction of the Noir genre. However, Noir has been parodied, deconstructed, appropriated, and twisted in so many different ways that something like this doesn't really stand out. I could be uncharitable and say this is due to literary types believing themselves to be above genre fiction and thus being out of touch when they try to do something like this.
However, the story is actually funny and entertaining. It seems like a mess in the middle, but it manages to tie everything together well in the end. The way it plays the Noir tropes, I could say this is a post-ironic reconstruction of the genre if I wanted to be really charitable.
This is my first by Coover. Probably not his best, but it still makes me want to pick up more by him.
This book is marketed as a parody/deconstruction of the Noir genre. However, Noir has been parodied, deconstructed, appropriated, and twisted in so many different ways that something like this doesn't really stand out. I could be uncharitable and say this is due to literary types believing themselves to be above genre fiction and thus being out of touch when they try to do something like this.
However, the story is actually funny and entertaining. It seems like a mess in the middle, but it manages to tie everything together well in the end. The way it plays the Noir tropes, I could say this is a post-ironic reconstruction of the genre if I wanted to be really charitable.
This is my first by Coover. Probably not his best, but it still makes me want to pick up more by him.
May 14, 2022
роман-кліше і зізнання в палких почуттях фільмам-нуарам. персонажі всі підкреслено кіношні, тобто нелітературні, а сюжет - круто зварений з типових ситуацій, фатальних жінок і недолугих чоловіків.
May 13, 2021
Ha! Lots of noir fun... if one had read a lot of noir detective stories and seen a lot of noir film. Right from the opening pages the tone is set for a Marlowe story, or a Bogart one, or a Cagney one, or a Stanwyck one. Crazy funny as the dimwitted detective bumbles his way into getting blackjacked day after day. For a sample: "Rats emerged warily out of the shadows. A scrawny unshaven grifter with a short gimpy leg, paranoid eyes, and a permanent sneer, carved there with a knife. It's the kind of face you'd be wearing if your face read the way you felt about the way things were." The wacky ending is classic.
January 15, 2016
Hay que ser muy inteligente para navegar sobre clichés y dar una lección sobre novela negra con la calidad que lo hace este autor
http://entremontonesdelibros.blogspot...
http://entremontonesdelibros.blogspot...
April 17, 2019
I wanted to like NOIR, but alas...
NOIR is an attempt at a hardboiled detective novel. Actually more of a very strange caricature of the genre, a takeoff. I’m not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, the prose is beautifully stripped down, stark, representative of the hard-boiled genre. The seldom-used second-person viewpoint pulls the reader into the story, right alongside protagonist Phillip M. Noir:
This is what you love. The gumshoe game. Played alone on dark wet streets to the tune of the swell and fade of car horns, sirens, the sounds of breaking glass, cries in the street, the percussive punctuation of gunshots and shouted obscenities. You nodded and your reflection nodded. [126]
And NOIR surely grabs with an opening like this:
You are at the morgue. Where the light is weird. Shadowless, but like a negative, as though the light itself were shadow turned inside out. The stiffs are out of sight, temporarily archived in drawers like meaty data, chilled to their own bloodless temperatures. Their stories have not ended, only their own readings of them. In your line of work, this is not a place where things end so much as a place where they begin. [9]
On the other hand, I found the story itself a bit of a jumbled mess. Early on you sense something is not quite kosher and realize the story is nonlinear -- past and present events are mixed up. Normally that in itself does not bother me -- I’ve enjoyed plenty of such novels (I love complex and experimental) -- but there was something about this one that kept me from ever connecting with the story. I had to force myself to see it to the end (I rarely give up on a book once begun). Perhaps I just wasn’t in a receptive frame of mind when I picked up NOIR, so I don’t want to be too harsh -- am I being too harsh? -- the writing itself was enjoyable (as opposed to the story taken as a whole). Perhaps I wasn’t deliberate enough. Maybe it was just a case of the wrong book at the wrong time?
By the end, I felt, why did I bother?
NOIR is an attempt at a hardboiled detective novel. Actually more of a very strange caricature of the genre, a takeoff. I’m not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, the prose is beautifully stripped down, stark, representative of the hard-boiled genre. The seldom-used second-person viewpoint pulls the reader into the story, right alongside protagonist Phillip M. Noir:
This is what you love. The gumshoe game. Played alone on dark wet streets to the tune of the swell and fade of car horns, sirens, the sounds of breaking glass, cries in the street, the percussive punctuation of gunshots and shouted obscenities. You nodded and your reflection nodded. [126]
And NOIR surely grabs with an opening like this:
You are at the morgue. Where the light is weird. Shadowless, but like a negative, as though the light itself were shadow turned inside out. The stiffs are out of sight, temporarily archived in drawers like meaty data, chilled to their own bloodless temperatures. Their stories have not ended, only their own readings of them. In your line of work, this is not a place where things end so much as a place where they begin. [9]
On the other hand, I found the story itself a bit of a jumbled mess. Early on you sense something is not quite kosher and realize the story is nonlinear -- past and present events are mixed up. Normally that in itself does not bother me -- I’ve enjoyed plenty of such novels (I love complex and experimental) -- but there was something about this one that kept me from ever connecting with the story. I had to force myself to see it to the end (I rarely give up on a book once begun). Perhaps I just wasn’t in a receptive frame of mind when I picked up NOIR, so I don’t want to be too harsh -- am I being too harsh? -- the writing itself was enjoyable (as opposed to the story taken as a whole). Perhaps I wasn’t deliberate enough. Maybe it was just a case of the wrong book at the wrong time?
By the end, I felt, why did I bother?
June 12, 2018
I fell behind in my reviews thanks to the impending end of SY2017-'18. I am currently working as a day-to-day substitute teacher & I get some of my best reading done at work. There is usually 30 minutes of independent reading time built into each school day & so I indulge while the children are reading. As the end of the school year approached, I found myself wanting to read more & type less before the opportunity closed.
I bought this on BetterWorldBooks.com simply based on its title & I was glad for its cut-rate cost. I didn't hate it & one star is harsh, but two stars would have been too many. This was a concept that was too clever by half. For one, noir detective crime is easy to parody & has been done much better than this. The fatal flaw, however, was the author's choice to flit between first person (singular) and third person (omniscient) narration. I was left feeling as though I had no idea as to who was talking that should never be the case. The case itself was not all that compelling, more like a meandering ramble that finally ran out of steam. I just read through it quickly & moved on. YMMV.
I bought this on BetterWorldBooks.com simply based on its title & I was glad for its cut-rate cost. I didn't hate it & one star is harsh, but two stars would have been too many. This was a concept that was too clever by half. For one, noir detective crime is easy to parody & has been done much better than this. The fatal flaw, however, was the author's choice to flit between first person (singular) and third person (omniscient) narration. I was left feeling as though I had no idea as to who was talking that should never be the case. The case itself was not all that compelling, more like a meandering ramble that finally ran out of steam. I just read through it quickly & moved on. YMMV.
April 19, 2011
When you read this book about Philip Noir, you really are going to get a hefty dose of literary type noir in the process. Let's take a closer look.
Philip Noir is a private investigator. Using the word 'sleaze' to describe him is the understatement of the millenium, but he's a hell of a compelling character. He smokes, he drinks, he spends an inordinate amount of time in the city morgue, he hangs with the lowest of the low, he sleeps on his office sofa or in rain-soaked gutters, he is a proud, and self-proclaimed, lecher, and an incredibly intuitive and competent investigator.
Out of nowhere, a mysterious woman, her face hidden behind a black veil, pays him a visit and hires him to investigate the death of her husband. She informs him his death was ruled a suicide, but she believes he was murdered, and that her life is also in danger. She provides him with a name on a piece of paper, a generous retainer and disappears into the night. He doesn't know her name, where she lives, or even her deceased husband's name, but is seduced by the dark and sinister feel of it all and takes it on. She meets with him in odd places at odd times--nothing pre-arranged--and continues to provide bizarre pieces of information about herself and her family, which only serves to confuse Noir further and propel him into more dangerous, and life-threatening situations. The lady ends up being murdered, and her body disappears. Then, the bodies of his friends and acquaintances start piling up--including the morgue attendant, all killed, of course, with his gun. Now, the cops are after him, he's not sure who can be trusted, and where the hell is the lady's corpse? He can't turn himself in and explain because what is there to explain? He doesn't know the lady's name, there's no body in the morgue, no record of her having been there in the first place, no witnesses to back up his claims of beatings he's received... His waking up with a headache in various gutters in the city is not exactly a novel occurrence. So, what is going on and where does he go from there? Guess what? I'll never tell! Go read the book!
Not trying to be mean here. Seriously, go read the book. It is SO amazing. One thing I do need to point out here though. When I first began to read this one, I got through maybe a chapter and a half and I put it down. I actually put it down for a couple of days because it put me off--annoyed me, really. Now, that was not because of the story or the quality of the writing or anything. It was because of the POV. This book is written entirely in second person POV, and if you aren't used to that, it can put you off, initially anyway. But the story begins in such a compelling way and draws you in from the start, so give it a chance. I picked it up again a couple of days later and sat down and read the whole thing in a little over a day. I couldn't put it down and didn't want to that time. You have to give it a shot.
Second person seems hard to follow at first, but you'll notice as you get further into it, that it doesn't stand out anymore and you don't focus on it. You end up feeling like the character has grabbed you by the hand and is leading you through the story and allowing you to see and experience everything he is the second he sees and experiences it. It's hard to explain, but take my word for it. If at first it puts you off, put it down for awhile, then go back and pick it up again and keep reading. You'll be so glad you did.
From the author himself, Robert Coover, in an interview about Noir: "The second person resonates with such familiar film noir techniques as the subjective camera, voice-over monologues, cities that speak to you, the mirrored double ('you talkin' to me?'), and it helps make the reader complicit in Noir's quest."
You sure got that right, Mr. Coover, it does indeed.
Philip Noir is a private investigator. Using the word 'sleaze' to describe him is the understatement of the millenium, but he's a hell of a compelling character. He smokes, he drinks, he spends an inordinate amount of time in the city morgue, he hangs with the lowest of the low, he sleeps on his office sofa or in rain-soaked gutters, he is a proud, and self-proclaimed, lecher, and an incredibly intuitive and competent investigator.
Out of nowhere, a mysterious woman, her face hidden behind a black veil, pays him a visit and hires him to investigate the death of her husband. She informs him his death was ruled a suicide, but she believes he was murdered, and that her life is also in danger. She provides him with a name on a piece of paper, a generous retainer and disappears into the night. He doesn't know her name, where she lives, or even her deceased husband's name, but is seduced by the dark and sinister feel of it all and takes it on. She meets with him in odd places at odd times--nothing pre-arranged--and continues to provide bizarre pieces of information about herself and her family, which only serves to confuse Noir further and propel him into more dangerous, and life-threatening situations. The lady ends up being murdered, and her body disappears. Then, the bodies of his friends and acquaintances start piling up--including the morgue attendant, all killed, of course, with his gun. Now, the cops are after him, he's not sure who can be trusted, and where the hell is the lady's corpse? He can't turn himself in and explain because what is there to explain? He doesn't know the lady's name, there's no body in the morgue, no record of her having been there in the first place, no witnesses to back up his claims of beatings he's received... His waking up with a headache in various gutters in the city is not exactly a novel occurrence. So, what is going on and where does he go from there? Guess what? I'll never tell! Go read the book!
Not trying to be mean here. Seriously, go read the book. It is SO amazing. One thing I do need to point out here though. When I first began to read this one, I got through maybe a chapter and a half and I put it down. I actually put it down for a couple of days because it put me off--annoyed me, really. Now, that was not because of the story or the quality of the writing or anything. It was because of the POV. This book is written entirely in second person POV, and if you aren't used to that, it can put you off, initially anyway. But the story begins in such a compelling way and draws you in from the start, so give it a chance. I picked it up again a couple of days later and sat down and read the whole thing in a little over a day. I couldn't put it down and didn't want to that time. You have to give it a shot.
Second person seems hard to follow at first, but you'll notice as you get further into it, that it doesn't stand out anymore and you don't focus on it. You end up feeling like the character has grabbed you by the hand and is leading you through the story and allowing you to see and experience everything he is the second he sees and experiences it. It's hard to explain, but take my word for it. If at first it puts you off, put it down for awhile, then go back and pick it up again and keep reading. You'll be so glad you did.
From the author himself, Robert Coover, in an interview about Noir: "The second person resonates with such familiar film noir techniques as the subjective camera, voice-over monologues, cities that speak to you, the mirrored double ('you talkin' to me?'), and it helps make the reader complicit in Noir's quest."
You sure got that right, Mr. Coover, it does indeed.
March 14, 2012
Noir is more novella than novel but it's a substantial achievement all the same. Coover spins his own wry, often absurd homage to the noir conventions and cliches of the late 1940s and early 1950s. There is a sense in which this is merely a postmodernist parody but Coover enjoys himself too much to descend to ridicule. He embraces the mise-en-scene of the dark and corrupt city in a typical tale of a washed up and busted down private eye pursuing the investigation that all he meets advise him to lay off and forget but, as PIs often demonstrate, behind the pulpy exterior is a white knight ready to chase down dragons and save the tender lady. Coover tells the tale in the second person, an interesting choice that slants the story somewhere south of normal. Coover has mastered the essence of great noir, the city at night, communing, as it often does, with idiosyncratic narration. Here's a taste:
IT’S A PERFECT NIGHT. WIND, RAIN, GLOOMILY OVERCAST, the puddled reflections more luminous than the streetlamps they reflect. Cars and buses crash heedlessly through the puddles, forcing you against the wet buildings and blue-lit window displays. You’re sucking on a fag, hands in your trenchcoat pockets, your posterboy face hidden behind the upturned collar, thinking about Flame’s betrayal, if it was one, about Blue’s dark machinations, the mysterious widow, her unknown whereabouts, about all the bodies you’ve left in your wake. . . . No light but for the dull yellow puddles spilled by streetlamps, the cheap rainbow glitter under stuttering neon signs advertising refuges long since shut down. Even when the sun is allegedly out, it never seems to reach back into these claustrophobic back streets, your streets, where you’ve so long plied your trade that sunnier ones now seem alien to you. You used to spend a lot of time, even when not on a case, chasing the black seam on the back of women’s stockinged legs through these streets, these streets and any others where they might lead you. Sometimes up creaky unswept stairwells into sad little adventures that rarely ended well. That was back when you were young and everything was interesting. Some days you would be so focused that all but the legs would disappear, and then they’d be gone, too, just the black seams scissoring along.
Coover also clearly understands what drives the private dick, the need for answers, to figure things out. It's demonstrated throughout the book. Here's a slightly larger taste of the reasons:
Gotta know, gotta know. It’s a genetic malignancy. Ultimately terminal. Blanche, who reads the Sunday papers, calls it the drama of cognition, or sometimes the melodrama of cognition, which means it’s a kind of entertainment. Solving crimes as another game to play; conk tickling, not to let it go dead on you. Murder providing a cleaner game than most. You start with something real. A body. Unless someone steals it. Is that what happened? Who would want it? And what for? Blackmail? Or did Rats snatch it to use as a stash bag? Happened on his turf. Is that why he was nabbed? But why that one in particular? There are bodies all over the city. Up over that drug store, for example. It’s a deranged town. A lot of guns but few brains, as someone has said. Did the widow have one in her little purse? Probably. Nested amid the bankrolls. Did she ever use it? If she had one, she probably used it. Put a heater in someone’s hands and it’s too much fun to pull the trigger and watch your target’s knees buckle. Did she use it on her ex? It’s possible. What isn’t? Taxis pass, their wipers flapping, but they all seem to be driven by guys in leather jackets with goatees and granny glasses. . . .
You’re sucking on a fag, hands in your trenchcoat pockets, your posterboy face hidden behind the upturned collar, thinking . . .
Great stuff.
IT’S A PERFECT NIGHT. WIND, RAIN, GLOOMILY OVERCAST, the puddled reflections more luminous than the streetlamps they reflect. Cars and buses crash heedlessly through the puddles, forcing you against the wet buildings and blue-lit window displays. You’re sucking on a fag, hands in your trenchcoat pockets, your posterboy face hidden behind the upturned collar, thinking about Flame’s betrayal, if it was one, about Blue’s dark machinations, the mysterious widow, her unknown whereabouts, about all the bodies you’ve left in your wake. . . . No light but for the dull yellow puddles spilled by streetlamps, the cheap rainbow glitter under stuttering neon signs advertising refuges long since shut down. Even when the sun is allegedly out, it never seems to reach back into these claustrophobic back streets, your streets, where you’ve so long plied your trade that sunnier ones now seem alien to you. You used to spend a lot of time, even when not on a case, chasing the black seam on the back of women’s stockinged legs through these streets, these streets and any others where they might lead you. Sometimes up creaky unswept stairwells into sad little adventures that rarely ended well. That was back when you were young and everything was interesting. Some days you would be so focused that all but the legs would disappear, and then they’d be gone, too, just the black seams scissoring along.
Coover also clearly understands what drives the private dick, the need for answers, to figure things out. It's demonstrated throughout the book. Here's a slightly larger taste of the reasons:
Gotta know, gotta know. It’s a genetic malignancy. Ultimately terminal. Blanche, who reads the Sunday papers, calls it the drama of cognition, or sometimes the melodrama of cognition, which means it’s a kind of entertainment. Solving crimes as another game to play; conk tickling, not to let it go dead on you. Murder providing a cleaner game than most. You start with something real. A body. Unless someone steals it. Is that what happened? Who would want it? And what for? Blackmail? Or did Rats snatch it to use as a stash bag? Happened on his turf. Is that why he was nabbed? But why that one in particular? There are bodies all over the city. Up over that drug store, for example. It’s a deranged town. A lot of guns but few brains, as someone has said. Did the widow have one in her little purse? Probably. Nested amid the bankrolls. Did she ever use it? If she had one, she probably used it. Put a heater in someone’s hands and it’s too much fun to pull the trigger and watch your target’s knees buckle. Did she use it on her ex? It’s possible. What isn’t? Taxis pass, their wipers flapping, but they all seem to be driven by guys in leather jackets with goatees and granny glasses. . . .
You’re sucking on a fag, hands in your trenchcoat pockets, your posterboy face hidden behind the upturned collar, thinking . . .
Great stuff.
September 26, 2012
I wanted to like Noir. Truly, I did.
I wanted to love it the way I love the books Coover is drawing on.
I love the hard boiled detective--my reading history will bear that out. I feel for the shamus, living case to case, job to job, waiting for that big break. Waiting for the break when the right dame with the right story two steps through the door. I'm fascinated by the conventions, and the way they're so frequently twisted, subverted, broken...
And then there's Noir.
You--the reader--are Philip M. Noir, down and out gumshoe. The Widow walks in, and though you don't know her face, you know her type. She wants you to protect her. You agree. But you can't find yourself. You don't know who killed your pal Fingers. You don't know how to find your way home. You don't know who Mr. Big is. You don't know how much of anything is true. You don't even know the hours your secretary works, or how long you've even had a secretary. You don't know how the Widow keeps finding you. In short, you don't know much of anything.
I don't think Coover is unfamiliar with the conventions. He hits a lot of the notes. He just doesn't play them well. Take Noir, the character: There's nothing likeable, let alone loveable, about his P.M. Noir... our Noir, since he makes the baffling choice to write in the second person. Noir, the character, spends most of his time being a creep, an idiot, or both. He can't focus on any task for more than a few minutes, gets lost with alarming frequency, can't remember who he's talking to or where he's been, and finds himself talking to shadows as often as people. He's a lecher, and not in that lovable hardboiled way, but in that creepy, sexual predator kind of way.
Having Coover's narration explain that I was the one doing these things was constantly distracting. Second person narration can be really interesting--read "Orientation" for example--but not when the author is telling me that I've done or feel things that fall so far outside of anything remotely possible.
It's like this all throughout the book. We have a peeper, and trouble boys, and Mr. Big, and the straight-laced doll working the front office, and the snitches... but none of them are particularly interesting. None of them are likable, none of them have enough personality to care about. They're props, at best, to push Noir around, throw him off track, or send him pinballing along a new path.
But why should we care? None of it leads anywhere interesting, anyway. The case is solved, not through hard work or sheer force of will, but by random happenstance. Detective Noir couldn't investigate his way out of a wet paper bag. The case is "solved" when another character shows up and basically says "Well, this case is over now. Done." The plot isn't unraveled, it's just shoved to the side. We never know what was true and what was figment of imagination. We never know who set things in motion, or what the real case was. Of course, by the end, you may have lost your interest in the same way that Noir loses his way.
The humor was apparently lost on me, as well. If I were 14 I might have found the compulsively masturbating and ladies underwear gags funny, but I'm not, and they weren't. Is it supposed to be amusing that the private dick can't keep his in his pants? Men wearing silk panties two sizes too small is still hilarious? I thought we got that out of our system with Benny Hill. I'm not opposed to scatological humor, but this was just so stupid.
The plot--or what can be discerned of it (Coover has carefully buried it under layers and layers of Noir's hallucinations and confusion)--seems perfectly serviceable. Stripped of all the silliness, it might have been a fun read.
As it was, I found the whole experience rather tedious.
I wanted to love it the way I love the books Coover is drawing on.
I love the hard boiled detective--my reading history will bear that out. I feel for the shamus, living case to case, job to job, waiting for that big break. Waiting for the break when the right dame with the right story two steps through the door. I'm fascinated by the conventions, and the way they're so frequently twisted, subverted, broken...
And then there's Noir.
You--the reader--are Philip M. Noir, down and out gumshoe. The Widow walks in, and though you don't know her face, you know her type. She wants you to protect her. You agree. But you can't find yourself. You don't know who killed your pal Fingers. You don't know how to find your way home. You don't know who Mr. Big is. You don't know how much of anything is true. You don't even know the hours your secretary works, or how long you've even had a secretary. You don't know how the Widow keeps finding you. In short, you don't know much of anything.
I don't think Coover is unfamiliar with the conventions. He hits a lot of the notes. He just doesn't play them well. Take Noir, the character: There's nothing likeable, let alone loveable, about his P.M. Noir... our Noir, since he makes the baffling choice to write in the second person. Noir, the character, spends most of his time being a creep, an idiot, or both. He can't focus on any task for more than a few minutes, gets lost with alarming frequency, can't remember who he's talking to or where he's been, and finds himself talking to shadows as often as people. He's a lecher, and not in that lovable hardboiled way, but in that creepy, sexual predator kind of way.
Having Coover's narration explain that I was the one doing these things was constantly distracting. Second person narration can be really interesting--read "Orientation" for example--but not when the author is telling me that I've done or feel things that fall so far outside of anything remotely possible.
It's like this all throughout the book. We have a peeper, and trouble boys, and Mr. Big, and the straight-laced doll working the front office, and the snitches... but none of them are particularly interesting. None of them are likable, none of them have enough personality to care about. They're props, at best, to push Noir around, throw him off track, or send him pinballing along a new path.
But why should we care? None of it leads anywhere interesting, anyway. The case is solved, not through hard work or sheer force of will, but by random happenstance. Detective Noir couldn't investigate his way out of a wet paper bag. The case is "solved" when another character shows up and basically says "Well, this case is over now. Done." The plot isn't unraveled, it's just shoved to the side. We never know what was true and what was figment of imagination. We never know who set things in motion, or what the real case was. Of course, by the end, you may have lost your interest in the same way that Noir loses his way.
The humor was apparently lost on me, as well. If I were 14 I might have found the compulsively masturbating and ladies underwear gags funny, but I'm not, and they weren't. Is it supposed to be amusing that the private dick can't keep his in his pants? Men wearing silk panties two sizes too small is still hilarious? I thought we got that out of our system with Benny Hill. I'm not opposed to scatological humor, but this was just so stupid.
The plot--or what can be discerned of it (Coover has carefully buried it under layers and layers of Noir's hallucinations and confusion)--seems perfectly serviceable. Stripped of all the silliness, it might have been a fun read.
As it was, I found the whole experience rather tedious.
June 30, 2019
This is the third of Robert Coover’s books that I’ve read. Ghost Town is a real favorite. I have to admit I found The Origin of the Brunists tough sledding at times. I think this book fits right in between — like Ghost Town, it has that entertaining, disorienting loose coupling with even its own reality (not a fully broken coupling, just loose enough that you never really know where you stand), and it flows.
On its surface, Noir is the story of a private detective, Philip M. Noir, hired by a widowed client who is afraid for her life after the death of her husband. Mr. Big seems to be after her, and Noir as things unfold, as does the crooked cop named Blue. It gets tangled from there, but the tenor is set. The story is going to be as much about noir as it is noir itself — the characters are classic noir stereotypes, set in motion, but somehow akilter. Things will never be as they seem, as standard as the plot may look.
Coover tells the story in second person, as if to force you into the same world of not-quite-right that the protagonist, Noir, inhabits. The trick worked for me.
I enjoyed the story for its own sake, but, as with what I’m now thinking of as Coover at his best, it’s the double layering that makes it more than just an entertaining read.
It’s as if all the characters had been given noir backstories to study, backstories that are independent of one another, drawn from the noir central character repository. Then they were all assembled by Coover and put into action. The result is so noir it’s meta-noir, a noir telling of noir.
If you are a fan of noir, it’s a chance to take yourself and the genre a little less seriously and at the same time bathe yourself in it.
And the ending doesn’t disappoint. There’s mystery at the heart of the story, and, as mysteries often end in a neat typing up of loose ends, this one keeps trying to tie up its loose ends, but the ends just won’t cooperate.
On its surface, Noir is the story of a private detective, Philip M. Noir, hired by a widowed client who is afraid for her life after the death of her husband. Mr. Big seems to be after her, and Noir as things unfold, as does the crooked cop named Blue. It gets tangled from there, but the tenor is set. The story is going to be as much about noir as it is noir itself — the characters are classic noir stereotypes, set in motion, but somehow akilter. Things will never be as they seem, as standard as the plot may look.
Coover tells the story in second person, as if to force you into the same world of not-quite-right that the protagonist, Noir, inhabits. The trick worked for me.
I enjoyed the story for its own sake, but, as with what I’m now thinking of as Coover at his best, it’s the double layering that makes it more than just an entertaining read.
It’s as if all the characters had been given noir backstories to study, backstories that are independent of one another, drawn from the noir central character repository. Then they were all assembled by Coover and put into action. The result is so noir it’s meta-noir, a noir telling of noir.
If you are a fan of noir, it’s a chance to take yourself and the genre a little less seriously and at the same time bathe yourself in it.
And the ending doesn’t disappoint. There’s mystery at the heart of the story, and, as mysteries often end in a neat typing up of loose ends, this one keeps trying to tie up its loose ends, but the ends just won’t cooperate.
July 23, 2020
This Coover novel put me in mind of the first I read of his, The Universal Baseball Association…, which dazzled me with its metafictional magical-realism, the product of the protagonist’s own imagination as he played out his solitary fantasy baseball league (a la a version of dice and tabulated cards similar to Stat-o-Matic, which I, as a 12-year-old baseball nerd, played with father and brothers).
Noir dispenses with the pretext for the fantasy, and we’re immediately engaged in the fantasy world of a P.I. whose moniker is Phillip M. Noir, a not so subtle wink at Raymond Chandler. All the tropes and all of the stilted similes and metaphors of the genre are employed to keep things moving along, but it all circles back to his poorly paid secretary/girl Friday Blanche.
Much of this novel is savoring the language and the exploitation of the familiar fog of claptrap language used to represent the underlying seediness, corruption, and violence inherent in a world that would pretend otherwise. The tough guy talk is a crude and brusque romanticism, and our protagonist sees himself a lone knight, somewhat tarnished, fighting a dragon whose contours he can’t quite make out...
Noir’s multiple concussions point up the murkiness of his perceptions and the reliance on his intuitions, which ultimately, thanks to the patience/perseverance of his secretary, lead him back home. Noir’s adventures are an atavistic expression of frustrated domesticity, but the adventure nonetheless brings him full circle, and all will be well under the detective’s new shingle, Blanche & Noir (which, when the curtain is lifted—or the dreamy protagonist wakes—will probably lie in a quiet suburban neighborhood with white picket fences and families of 2.1 children apiece, where the father is nestled in his recliner with a newspaper, behind which arises an upswirling plume of a pipe).
Noir dispenses with the pretext for the fantasy, and we’re immediately engaged in the fantasy world of a P.I. whose moniker is Phillip M. Noir, a not so subtle wink at Raymond Chandler. All the tropes and all of the stilted similes and metaphors of the genre are employed to keep things moving along, but it all circles back to his poorly paid secretary/girl Friday Blanche.
Much of this novel is savoring the language and the exploitation of the familiar fog of claptrap language used to represent the underlying seediness, corruption, and violence inherent in a world that would pretend otherwise. The tough guy talk is a crude and brusque romanticism, and our protagonist sees himself a lone knight, somewhat tarnished, fighting a dragon whose contours he can’t quite make out...
Noir’s multiple concussions point up the murkiness of his perceptions and the reliance on his intuitions, which ultimately, thanks to the patience/perseverance of his secretary, lead him back home. Noir’s adventures are an atavistic expression of frustrated domesticity, but the adventure nonetheless brings him full circle, and all will be well under the detective’s new shingle, Blanche & Noir (which, when the curtain is lifted—or the dreamy protagonist wakes—will probably lie in a quiet suburban neighborhood with white picket fences and families of 2.1 children apiece, where the father is nestled in his recliner with a newspaper, behind which arises an upswirling plume of a pipe).
April 13, 2021
As much as we would like to take the pulp novels of yesteryear and dash them to the gutter as snuff porn with thin characters and garbage writing, there are some talents that have graced the pages of pulp and created masterpieces that were worth much more than the paper they were printed on. Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, John LeCarre, Patricia Highsmith, and Stieg Larsson are just some of the writers that moved the pulp press to literary art. Coover, a wordsmith whose work is constantly rocketing his linguistic acrobatics high in the stratosphere, has had a lot of flirty fun with the genres our literary and cultural diaspora. Pulp is no different. Coover penned a pulp novel about a private dick who is completely unaware of his self-referential life written into existence by his creator. As he is beaten up, chased, practically drowned in water (and whiskey), it is his job to get to the bottom of a sketchy disappearance that he becomes wrapped up in firsthand. Of course, with every Coover masterpiece, it is in the telling of the tale rather than the tale itself where the magic blooms for his audience. This was no different – a fun romp with absolutely astounding writing that will evoke a gasp every few sentences if you’re paying attention.
May 27, 2018
I just love this kind of thing. Pitch-perfect parody of a detective story, except it's written in the second person, there are the kind of metafictional nods you'd expect from Coover where the protagonist recognises he's in a story of some kind, and the landscape shifts and alters as he makes his way through the dreamlike city. There's a fractured timeline that is complex but makes sense and that is built around the constant repetition of the standard hard-boiled tropes.
January 2, 2014
I have no idea what I just read.
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