tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post1234845692833440445..comments2024-03-26T23:41:10.319+00:00Comments on Authors Electric: What is Tartan Noir? - Chris LongmuirKatherine Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17196712319655603442noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-67172488475604572442012-09-20T09:26:04.472+01:002012-09-20T09:26:04.472+01:00I agree, Myra. Tartan Noir seems to have become th...I agree, Myra. Tartan Noir seems to have become the catchall for Scottish crime. Interesting though!Chris Longmuirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02488093821886798927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-21388203920018387792012-09-19T20:37:02.988+01:002012-09-19T20:37:02.988+01:00An excellent post,Chris and very helpful in the wa...An excellent post,Chris and very helpful in the way it traces the origins of Tartan Noir.<br />I think your own books do fit into this genre -they are meaty and dark.But I wouldn't say cosy crime fits here at all-as a writer of cosy crime I think the 'noir' immediately excludes it. There is a difficulty at the moment in the broad crime genre as some readers think any crime novel set in Scotland must be 'Tartan Noir'which isn't the case.Myra Duffyhttp://www.myraduffy.co.uknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-26897393322983167632012-09-19T18:00:56.033+01:002012-09-19T18:00:56.033+01:00I reckon you fit neatly into the genre, Chris, and...I reckon you fit neatly into the genre, Chris, and anyway, you;'re right, it's a bizarre term and seems to encompass all sorts of disparate offerings. But this comment mainly gives me the chance to say what a thrill and a pleasure it was to sit in the presence of William McIlvenny. You know, because you were there beside me. What charisma, what honesty, what a writer! In my opinion he's way out ahead of the rest of the moderns, and there are some great ones amongst them.Bill Kirtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16345949773423764808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-55120161606511093692012-09-19T13:57:03.715+01:002012-09-19T13:57:03.715+01:00Lots of interesting information, John. I hadn'...Lots of interesting information, John. I hadn't thought about the film link.Chris Longmuirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02488093821886798927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-88310613933861361492012-09-19T13:00:31.677+01:002012-09-19T13:00:31.677+01:00Fascintating, Chris. Thanks
Fascintating, Chris. Thanks<br />julia joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09773900100240758504noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2429560125838989988.post-66947853610845813842012-09-19T08:52:54.093+01:002012-09-19T08:52:54.093+01:00Great to see Hogg's Memoirs and Confessions of...Great to see Hogg's Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner getting a mention here, Chris.<br />A fine book, deeply complex.<br />Hogg had a terrible effect on the publishers of his day too, his books responsible for bankrupting two of them, Goldie and Cochrane (and Cochrane bankrupted twice, both from publication of a Hogg book!)<br />If ever there was anyone who needed retrospective epub rescue...<br /><br />William McIlvanney got me started writing short stories in 1993 at Aberdeen Uni...he did a good impersonation to the 15 of us he was teaching one day, of when he came home to find Sean Connery's voice on his answering machine...leaving a message saying he'd loved Laidlaw and would like to play him on film...but that film never happened...<br /><br />Another important element of noir is the cinematic origin of the term...much has been made of the fact that the noir directors in Hollywood were, like Fritz Lang, straight out of Nazi Germany and a decade or more of oppression...these exiled film-makers then brought into the American culture a level of paranoia and darkness which, no matter the USA's social problems in the 1930s, didn't come near to reaching the level of horror seen during Hitler's rise to power.<br />So the American police, the legal system, business, family...all presented through a noir lens that showed America to itself, and perhaps made America and the world think it had a far darker underbelly than was really the case...because those noir directors were not really representing the USA at all, but were still channelling the demons of the country they had fled...<br />Then the noir vision seduced the world perhaps, taking on a life in UK cinema and crime fiction too...until, yes, Ellroy annointed Rankin with its long shadow-stain. <br /><br />Which is not to say that Scotland does not have its own genuine underbelly of course, as the self-educated Ettrick shepherd Hogg would have been the first to attest (in fact he was just about the first to attest!)John A. A. Loganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03613779477853664598noreply@blogger.com