{"product_id":"noir-fiction-and-film-diversions-and-misdirections-hardcover","title":"Noir Fiction and Film: Diversions and Misdirections - Hardcover","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eLee Clark Mitchell\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe argument of \u003cem\u003eNoir Fiction and Film\u003c\/em\u003e is curiously counterintuitive: that in a century of hard-boiled fiction and detective films, characteristics that at first seemed trivial swelled in importance, flourishing into crucial aspects of the genre. Among these are aimless descriptions of people and places irrelevant to plot, along with detectives consisting of little more than sparkling dialogue and flippant attitudes. What weaves together such features, however, seems to be a paradox: that a genre rooted in solving a mystery, structured around the gathering of clues, must do so by misdirecting our attention, even withholding information we think we need to generate the suspense we also desire. Yet successful noir stories and films enhance that suspense through passing diversions (descriptive details and eccentric perspectives) rather than depending on the center pieces of plot alone (suspected motives or incriminating traces). As the greatest practitioners of the genre have realized, the \"how\" of detective fiction (its stylistic detours) draws us in more insistently than the \"what\" or the \"who\" (its linear advance). And the achievement of recent film noir is to make that \"how\" become the tantalizing object of our entire attention, shorn of any pretense of reading for the plot, immersing us in the diversionary delight that has animated the genre from the beginning.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLee Clark Mitchell, \u003cem\u003eHolmes Professor of Belles-Lettres, Department of English, Princeton University\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLee Clark Mitchell is Holmes Professor of Belles-Lettres at Princeton University, where he has served as Chair of the English Department and Director of the Program in American Studies. He teaches courses in American literature and film, with recent essays focusing on Cormac McCarthy, John Williams, the Coen brothers, and Edith Wharton. His recent books include \u003cem\u003eMere Reading: The Poetics of Wonder in Modern American Novels\u003c\/em\u003e (Bloomsbury, 2017), \u003cem\u003eLate Westerns: The Persistence of a Genre\u003c\/em\u003e (Nebraska, 2018), and \u003cem\u003eMore Time: Contemporary Short Stories and Late Styles\u003c\/em\u003e (Oxford, 2018).\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 256\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.9 x 9.1 x 6.3 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eIllustrated:\u003c\/strong\u003e Yes\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e February 25, 2022\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":61843291013490,"sku":"9780192844767","price":186.55,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0975\/6485\/2594\/files\/EOSBA8NC4H9780192844767.webp?v=1778456915","url":"https:\/\/shop.tecolotebookstore.com\/products\/noir-fiction-and-film-diversions-and-misdirections-hardcover","provider":"Tecolote","version":"1.0","type":"link"}