Homme Fatal: "The Romantic Agony" by Mario Praz, A. Davidson (Trans.)

(Original Review, 1981-03-25)

Speaking of the femme fatale or fatale woman, she is hardly an invention of noir however automatically we identify the two. So much has focused on who and what Sam is, and what he is like, that Brigid's literary identity as opposed to her character and role in the plot get a little lost, which is exacerbated by our tendency to think of the archetype as inextricably identified with film noir. Brigid is an iconic femme fatale but the femme fatale is an ancient literary archetype, at least as old as Aeschylus' Prometheus is, for example Sophocles' Sphinx or Medusa.

Some more reading on Byronic Heroes brought up one influential study in Mario Praz's “The Romantic Agony”(1933). Praz is interested in the erotics of the Hero and discusses him as a 'cruel and fatal lover'.

Brigid and Sam are 'fatal lovers'. A clash of two archetypal characters. I will repeat what I said above. Hammett as reader and then writer did not have to have these kinds of characters explained to him. In his writer's mind they would exist as the very stuff of Literature distilled from reading Literature, but not necessarily exist as labels such as Byronic Hero, femme fatale or vamp, and yet he did label Satan. It may be hard to think of a mystery writer sitting down with such ideas, turning out something like a 'mystery' (medieval) as well as a mystery (modern), but I think it is well worth considering that he did. His femme fatale IS archetypal, can anyone deny it? She is The Belle Dame Sans Merci, Delilah, Lilith, the Sphinx, Morgan La Fey, Brigid O'Shaugnessy, Phylis Dietrichson, and many more. Dashiell Hammett did not invent the femme fatale, nor was his the last of them. Why should he not have made an homme fatal, a 'cruel and fatal lover' for her, and for his novel? In fact he certainly did. Although I would not say that the relationship makes a unidimensional cruel and fatal lover story because of what Brigid herself is, and also for the strong, ethical man Sam is, which is what saves him and damns her to what she deserves.

It is sexistly patriarchal though, harking ultimately back to the incredible bum rap that Eve got, and even her predecessor, Lilith, in Genesis. 1928 was still VERY much a man's world.

NB: Sorry dear editors and Author of this book. I don't speak French...

Intertextuality: "The Byronic Hero: Types and Prototypes" by Peter Thorslev

(Original review, 1981-03-20)

I have to admit that sometimes I use words rather loosely. For me it is ok to call something surreal even if it does not really refer back to the principles and ideas of surrealism. Likewise 'close reading' which I probably do not really do. But the more you pay attention to a text, in my view, and if it merits, in your own view, that attention, the more intensely you are to appreciate it, and still enjoy it too. I am rather old and over on the NYT Book Review I get frustrated and daunted at all those recommendations of what sounds like great books, but I know I literally don't have enough lifetime to read so many, and that for me there is a great deal to be said about lingering over single books and trying to think more about them as Literature than just popping another book into the hopper. As I said earlier in the comments, for me, often the book or author seem to choose me rather than me the book. It's not really close reading per se and involves me often in reading articles or even books, like the one I am reading now “Byronic Heroes: Types and Prototypes”. And also discussing things over on another review. I didn't really have a structural concept of Dark Heroes involving Satan and Will until someone forced me to try to organize it in my own mind, and again when someone said something, than the idea hit me like a falling beam. I am trying to rally myself to write about why I think it is right to read intertextually if not deconstructively (another word that I use very loosely). For me if you get a good idea, it's worth trying to track and pin it down, even if it turns out not such a great idea.

During many years I used to read Art Forum, and I realized that if the works of artists, great and small, REALLY was having the effect on viewers, or one me in particular, then we and they would be transcended human beings with vast cognitive and perceptual capacities, yet we clearly don't. That 'the implicate resonance of Dodo's brush marks sequentially harmonized with the viewer's eye movements across the intervening dimensional space of Dodo's virtually empty canvas ....' didn't mean anything but that people had trained themselves to write like that for page after page. I have no doubt that for the most part if someone had mixed up the articles no one would ever have known. But I did learn a lot about abstract and modern art and learned to, I hope, at least partially to filter out the meaningless bullshit and keep some of the illuminating (usually not using Art Forum as a source) and do it with an open mind. For example, reading Mondrian's own writings was hard, but worth it.

Anyway you won't lose anything reading Empson.