Devil on the Shoulder of Queenpin's Main Character

The main character in Queenpin is the perfect example of a "good girl gone bad". I think it's pretty safe to say that everyone does things that they know are bad for them, but I think the main character in Queenpin develops a habit of doing this to the extreme.  Maybe it was somewhat related to always doing what was expected of her, and having had her future essentially laid out in front of her-- a pretty dull/stereotypical future if you ask me. It seems that from the moment the main character accepted the opportunity to join Gloria in her escapades, she dived right into situations that she logically knew to steer clear from. Gloria was adamant on the idea of never mixing business with romance. Naturally, the main character immediately begins to lust for the exact type of dude Gloria advised her not to associate with. Not only that, but she then allows him to bash her face in as part of the plan to get the money to relieve his irresponsible financial burden. I don't even think that the main character was so obsessed (let alone, in love) with Vic as she was with what he stood for. It's possible that this was supposed to be the effect of the novel, but I'm led to believe that if the main character were a real person, she would eventually become capable of committing all the same brutal acts as guiltlessly as Gloria.

More noir?

I noticed while flipping through Queenpin today that Abbott borrows my favorite quote from Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man in her dedication:

We found a table. Nora said: "She's pretty."
"If you like them like that."
She grinned at me. " You got types?"
"Only you, darling -- lanky brunettes with wicked jaws."

So, on that note, has anyone read any noir/hard-boiled novels outside of class that they enjoyed? The Hammett novels I've read don't really have the same psychological depth as most of the stuff we read in class, but are really gripping and fun nonetheless. And I just read Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me, which is Ripley-esque in that we experience the novel from inside the head of the murderous protagonist. Cool stuff! 

Savvy, cats?

For some post-semester reading I checked Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep out of the library and found this little gem in the beginning:

We talked a lot about the campy overuse of "baby" in works like Double Indemnity, but the heavy slang really works to create an atmosphere of exclusion, separating outsiders from insiders. I think that works well with the claustrophobia that seems to come with a lot of noir stuff -- that narrow, inescapable hidden crime world with its own lingo and behaviors. Like, unless you can use "shatting on her uppers" in a sentence, you can't be in the hard-boiled club.

Here's a much longer list of "gangster slang" in case anyone was interested: http://sginc31.narod.ru/humor/slang.htm

Thoughts on "Cotton Comes to Harlem"

I just wanted to make a post commenting on some random thoughts I have on Cotton Comes to Harlem.

First off, holy Hard-boiled!  I mean if a crutch of noir is to have a hard-boiled protagonist, then this novel is the epitome.  Here, we have two huge, hardy men who kick ass and take names.  One of them even has vicious acid-burns on his face, so you know not to mess with him.  There names are even Gravedigger and Coffin Ed, can you get more intense than that?!  However, these two characters lack that inner struggle that we saw in our other works.  Mentally, they really seem stable to me, besides their violent outbursts.  Unlike Dix, I believe these men and their violent tendencies come from their environment, not their personal struggles.  They aren't affected by any femme fatale character, they aren't stuck in the past or anything; they are just two cops in a rough area, much different from the other works.

I also wanted to make a comment on that small scene that has jazz.  It's a short little bit, but an intriguing one.  In it, both Gravedigger and Coffin Ed try to interpret jazz, but they can't.  To me, that speaks a lot about Himes's view of Harlem and the black culture there.  To me, he seems rather negative toward it. He shows this by having a novel filled with unlikable, immoral, conniving people and depicting the environment in a harsh light.  In that scene, the jazz is indescribable and all over the place, the two men can't decide why they like it or even how to take it.  I sort of think this is Himes making a comment of the black culture of american at the time and how unstable it is. Anyone think so?

Women in Cotton comes to Harlem

In all of the pieces of literature and movies we have examined this semester (with the exception of Queenpin) the female characters and femme fatales have portrayed as relatively conservative in both their dress and behavior. Even though a greedy cheating housewife in the 1940s/50s was considered to be the opposite of cultural norms for women, their depictions are hardly as lewd and their behavior is hardly as aggressive than the women who are portrayed in Cotton Comes to Harlem. Himes' descriptions of (almost ) sex scene are much more vivid than anything  we have seen in previous novels or movies. Maybe this was done because Himes was trying to exaggerate stereotypes to make the story more unbelievable or he was just into that type of stuff. But no other piece of work used the phrase "jiggling buttocks" multiple times to describe the actions of their femalescharacters.

Ripley Gets Bored Easily

I was reviewing a couple chapters in the The Talented Mr. Ripley when I noticed a trend in his behavior. When Tom's facades and costumes become of Dickie become so believable, he becomes bored with the people he is interacting with. This can seen in several instances in particular when Tom is being interrogated by the police and has exchanges with hotel employees. When the American detective is questioning him about Dickie, Tom becomes bored because he can not only predict the questions McCarron is going to ask him, but Tom has to remind himself to convey expressions of remorse, confusion, and naivete. I think his boredom also adds to his fascination with acting and trying to pretend to be others. Tom seems like the type of individual, because of his constant moving around from providence to providence, that cannot only stay in one place for an extended period of time, but remain the same person for an extended period of time. Once his costume has become so effective that acting like Dickie has become second nature, he expresses feelings of solemness and gloom. As a result he tries to shake things up by continuing to take greater risks, like forging signatures and flipping back and forth between identities even while interacting the same people.

Gender in Queenpin

When I began reading Queenpin, I thought to myself, "the author is going to beat the hell out of the idea that a woman will do this." Therefore, I assumed I was going to read a book where a woman struggles to do things because she is a woman.  However, I was pleasantly surprised.  This novel didn't really focus on the fact that the protagonist was a woman.  Yes, it was obviously made it known and few comments were made on it, but I honestly believe this novel would be almost the same if the protagonist was a man.

The only real focus I can think of that stressed the fact our narrator was a woman, was the focus on her looks.  In order to be in the business, she had to look the part, dressing sexy and sophisticated all the time.  I could be wrong, but I don't exactly remember another instance in the works we studied where our male protagonist needed to dress a specific way (except for perhaps Tom Ripley).  Other than that, the male and female protagonists we studied in class really aren't that different.  They all struggle in their ways and have their pressures.  Hell, the narrator in Queenpin even had her own "femme fatale" in Vic.  The narrator could have been a male and Vic could have been Victoria and I really don't see anything happening differently.  This is an interesting choice for the author to make, but It made me enjoy the novel more.