While related to and frequently confused with hardboiled detective fiction—due to the regular adaptation of hardboiled detective stories in the film noir style—the two are not the same. Both regularly take place against a backdrop of systemic and institutional corruption. However, noir fiction (French for "black")  is centred on protagonists that are either victims, suspects, or perpetrators—often self-destructive. A typical protagonist of noir fiction is forced to deal with a corrupt legal, political or other system, through which the protagonist is either victimized and/or has to victimize others, leading to a lose-lose situation. Otto Penzler argues that the traditional hardboiled detective story and noir story are "diametrically opposed, with mutually exclusive philosophical premises". While the classic hardboiled private detective—as exemplified by the creations of writers such as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane—may bend or break the law, this is done by a protagonist with meaningful agency in pursuit of justice, and "although not every one of their cases may have a happy conclusion, the hero nonethless will emerge with a clean ethical slate." Noir works, on the other hand,whether films, novels, or short stories, are existential pessimistic tales about people, including (or especially) protagonists who are seriously flawed and morally questionable. The tone is generally bleak and nihilistic, with characters whose greed, lust, jealousy, and alienation lead them into a downward spiral as their plans and schemes inevitably go awry. ... The machinations of their relentless lust will cause them to lie, steal, cheat, and even kill as they become more and more entangled in a web from which they cannot possibly extricate themselves.Author and academic Megan Abbot described the two thus:Hardboiled is distinct from noir, though they’re often used interchangeably. The common argument is that hardboiled novels are an extension of the wild west and pioneer narratives of the 19th century. The wilderness becomes the city, and the hero is usually a somewhat fallen character, a detective or a cop. At the end, everything is a mess, people have died, but the hero has done the right thing or close to it, and order has, to a certain extent, been restored. Noir is different. In noir, everyone is fallen, and right and wrong are not clearly defined and maybe not even attainable.Andrew Pepper, in an essay published in The Cambridge Companion to American Crime Fiction, listed the major thematic commonalities of noir fiction as “the corrosive effects of money, the meaninglessness and absurdity of existence, anxieties about masculinity and the bureaucratization of public life, a fascination with the grotesque and a flirtation with, and rejection of, Freudian psychoanalysis.” Eddie Duggan discusses the distinction between hardboiled and noir fiction, claiming that "psychological instability is the key characteristic of the protagonists of noir writing, if not the key characteristic of the noir writers themselves".Eddie Duggan (1999) "Writing in the Darkness: The World of Cornell Woolrich" Crime Time 2.6 pp. 113–126. Similarly, Johnny Temple, founder of Akashic Books, observed that noir fiction tends to be written by "authors whose life circumstances often place them in environments vulnerable to crime."
While related to and frequently confused with hardboiled detective fiction—due to the regular adaptation of hardboiled detective stories in the film noir style—the two are not the same. Both regularly take place against a backdrop of systemic and institutional corruption. However, noir (French for "black") fiction is centred on protagonists that are either victims, suspects, or perpetrators—often self-destructive. A typical protagonist of noir fiction is forced to deal with a corrupt legal, political or other system, through which the protagonist is either victimized and/or has to victimize others, leading to a lose-lose situation. Otto Penzler argues that the traditional hardboiled detective story and noir story are "diametrically opposed, with mutually exclusive philosophical premises". While the classic hardboiled private detective—as exemplified by the creations of writers such as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane—may bend or break the law, this is done by a protagonist with meaningful agency in pursuit of justice, and "although not every one of their cases may have a happy conclusion, the hero nonethless will emerge with a clean ethical slate." Noir works, on the other hand,whether films, novels, or short stories, are existential pessimistic tales about people, including (or especially) protagonists who are seriously flawed and morally questionable. The tone is generally bleak and nihilistic, with characters whose greed, lust, jealousy, and alienation lead them into a downward spiral as their plans and schemes inevitably go awry. ... The machinations of their relentless lust will cause them to lie, steal, cheat, and even kill as they become more and more entangled in a web from which they cannot possibly extricate themselves.Author and academic Megan Abbot described the two thus:Hardboiled is distinct from noir, though they’re often used interchangeably. The common argument is that hardboiled novels are an extension of the wild west and pioneer narratives of the 19th century. The wilderness becomes the city, and the hero is usually a somewhat fallen character, a detective or a cop. At the end, everything is a mess, people have died, but the hero has done the right thing or close to it, and order has, to a certain extent, been restored. Noir is different. In noir, everyone is fallen, and right and wrong are not clearly defined and maybe not even attainable.Andrew Pepper, in an essay published in The Cambridge Companion to American Crime Fiction, listed the major thematic commonalities of noir fiction as “the corrosive effects of money, the meaninglessness and absurdity of existence, anxieties about masculinity and the bureaucratization of public life, a fascination with the grotesque and a flirtation with, and rejection of, Freudian psychoanalysis.” Eddie Duggan discusses the distinction between hardboiled and noir fiction, claiming that "psychological instability is the key characteristic of the protagonists of noir writing, if not the key characteristic of the noir writers themselves".Eddie Duggan (1999) "Writing in the Darkness: The World of Cornell Woolrich" Crime Time 2.6 pp. 113–126. Similarly, Johnny Temple, founder of Akashic Books, observed that noir fiction tends to be written by "authors whose life circumstances often place them in environments vulnerable to crime."
D
fiction
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fiction