The Noir Genre

[davaidavai]

If I was writing a graduate thesis, I'd link the noir genre with spirituality.

It occurs to me that writers like Raymond Chandler are detailing a spiritual struggle. Chandler was a drunk, of course, and struggled to quit. His characters, heroes, however, live above that fray for the most part. They are islands of calm. They don't know who they can trust. Everyone has an alterior motive, is driven by a need, a desire, a fear. The detective sorts through these fears toward a resolution, toward a righting of 'karma' if you'd like to call it that. The detective is an agent of truth whose ways are not childlike.

I hope I am becoming more like the detective in Chandler novels and less like the supporting cast.