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Noir: A Novel (2010)

by Robert Coover(Favorite Author)

3.29 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1590202945 (ISBN13: 9781590202944)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

Overlook Hardcover

review 1: Coover's book is more a meditation on the style of noir than a work of fiction in the style of noir. Coover's stylistic gymnastics--the rapid clipped sentence style, the poise of making the book appear in the readers mind in black and white--override whatever coherency we might desire from the plot. What's more, Coover takes an experimental style and infuses it with the jokes, darkness, and sex we expect from a noir tale, which is to say that as readers we turn the pages. Further, Coover leads us through in the second person--a point of view I have a weakness for--while interrupting with first person accounts from various side characters. The magnetism of the book is not a race for the who dunnit? but more the way Coover ignores all the rules of plot and movement and keep... mores injecting us with 100 proof shots of pure noir juice.
review 2: I love Robert Coover's books and hard-boiled fiction, but I felt disappointed by Noir. It has a lot going for it, not least some good humour and twisting the form into the second person narrative rather than the first person and that works. Actually, it has some great jokes. But ultimately, the madness gets in the way of what should have been an excellent pastiche. So I liked it, but I much prefer The Public Burning or Gloomy Gus and the Chicago Bears, and I don't like American football. less

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