This is a post that really spoke to me! Poe may be considered the grandfather of noir in its proto form, as his Murders in the Rue Morgue featured murder as a centerpiece of a narrative and took a clinical view of the act. Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle heavily influenced Japanese writers (and some would argue continue to do so). Raymond Chandler admired Dashiell Hammett for his "unsentimental" approach to murder, and clearly we see in your short synopsis of Kuroiwa's Muzan that the pondering of the corpse lacks the sentimentality thatg make up other sub-genres of mystery. It sounds hardboiled. it sounds procedural. It sounds noir. I think it's no accident that Japan and France, two noir-loving countries, are also two nations with impeccable style. America has turned its back on noir: I've been told by many a literary agent that "noir does not sell". It's not surprising. It's too stylish, too cerebral. It's too bad. America gave birth to noir, and we, too were once a stylish country. I think when we descend into the cheap and the disposable, we lose our appreciation for more subtle forms of expression. Japan, as you said, and France, still read. We just stream videos. It's no wonder we went from the best-dressed place in the world to wearing sweatpants and dri-fit t-shirts everywhere. You have neen astutely pointing out that Taisho was a time of transition, and I think that a society in transition is one of the ingredients for noir: postwar America, Frsance in its Fourth and Fifth Republics, pre-statehood Hawai'i. Disillusionment comes from not keeping up with the times or moving too fast for them, and anyone who says they're coping at the right sped is living in denial. Well played, Sensei!
If that is true, that one ingredient of noir is a society in transition, then Taisho certainly fits. Kuroiwa had, like Yosano Akiko and her husband, as well as Kitahara Hakushu, an interest in Belle Epoch France -also a society in transition at the time!
This is a post that really spoke to me! Poe may be considered the grandfather of noir in its proto form, as his Murders in the Rue Morgue featured murder as a centerpiece of a narrative and took a clinical view of the act. Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle heavily influenced Japanese writers (and some would argue continue to do so). Raymond Chandler admired Dashiell Hammett for his "unsentimental" approach to murder, and clearly we see in your short synopsis of Kuroiwa's Muzan that the pondering of the corpse lacks the sentimentality thatg make up other sub-genres of mystery. It sounds hardboiled. it sounds procedural. It sounds noir. I think it's no accident that Japan and France, two noir-loving countries, are also two nations with impeccable style. America has turned its back on noir: I've been told by many a literary agent that "noir does not sell". It's not surprising. It's too stylish, too cerebral. It's too bad. America gave birth to noir, and we, too were once a stylish country. I think when we descend into the cheap and the disposable, we lose our appreciation for more subtle forms of expression. Japan, as you said, and France, still read. We just stream videos. It's no wonder we went from the best-dressed place in the world to wearing sweatpants and dri-fit t-shirts everywhere. You have neen astutely pointing out that Taisho was a time of transition, and I think that a society in transition is one of the ingredients for noir: postwar America, Frsance in its Fourth and Fifth Republics, pre-statehood Hawai'i. Disillusionment comes from not keeping up with the times or moving too fast for them, and anyone who says they're coping at the right sped is living in denial. Well played, Sensei!
If that is true, that one ingredient of noir is a society in transition, then Taisho certainly fits. Kuroiwa had, like Yosano Akiko and her husband, as well as Kitahara Hakushu, an interest in Belle Epoch France -also a society in transition at the time!