Within pages of reading Rendezvous in Black, I was hooked by the prose and metaphors. It is so detailed and descriptive, and I can picture everything so perfectly. The book is suspenseful and definitely keeps me on my feet, so I'm interesting in seeing how it ends. A few of my favorite passages:
"The blinds were down over all the windows. There was a wreath on the door. It was raining softly, and the red-black, white-trimmed Georgian house looked cold and lonely. The drops falling from the trees that stood around it, more clearly and visible than in the open for they were held back and thickened by the screen of leaves that had no filter through, made the trees all seem to be weeping in unison."
"Several times he was on the point of succumbing, and his hypertensile nerves, like springs, would ricochet him back again through the surface of consciousness. Then at last he sank down into the murky waters of oblivion and didn't come up any more."
These passages contain very many noir images: rain, closed blinds, along with a lonely and alienated protagonist. This book seems a little off of the noir. The narrative is very surreal, and this book seems a little different than stereotypical noirs.
As for the plot of Rendezvous in Black, the protagonist is seeking revenge on the murderer of his fiance, which is a different concept than what we read/saw in Postman and Double Indemnity. This doesn't seem like the stereotypical noir, but more of a crime, revenge and suspense story.
If this is not yet a movie, it definitely should be!
I haven't started reading it yet, but the plot sounds like Woolrich's "The Bride Wore Black" with the genders swapped. I haven't read that either, but it most certainly is a movie, directed by Francois Truffaut and starring Jeanne Moreau. Worth checking out if you have the time.
ReplyDeleteI particularly liked this section of the first chapter on page 11:
ReplyDelete"no one knows where he comes from. no one knows where he goes. no one cares, much. its just another life, and the worlds so full of lives. he doesnt live where he used to live; they wouldnt have him there anymore...but you can always find him, down by the drugstore, down by the square..."
I really like Woolrich's writing. He makes his characters seem so ambiguous yet familiar at the same time. It is weird because I see each character as mysterious but I picture them in my head looking like the regular average guy.
Anent Maura's feeling that it should be a movie — I just got this email from a teacher at Illinois State whom I asked for advice on good ideas for teaching the novel, and it begins, "Hey Josh,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're teaching Rendezvous. I haven't done it for a few years, but my students always enjoyed it and wrote diverse papers about it. I'm using it again this spring in my film class. Students are going to make films about the various rendezvous."
How about that? I didn't even realize that "rendezvous" could be plural!
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ReplyDeleteI was just telling someone today that I love how this book is written. I'd say that my favorite line in the book was in the very beginning, when the narrator is describing how long Johnny and Dorothy had known and loved each other:
ReplyDelete"Sometimes it seemed they'd been waiting all their lives. Well, they had. Literally, no figure of speech. Because they'd first met, you see, when she was seven and he was eight. And they'd first fallen in love when he was eight and she was seven. Sometimes it does happen that way."
There's something about the tone the narrator uses, and I can't quite come up with a word to describe it. It's like it's not a narrator, but your best friend telling the story. You know, if you're best friend happens to be a bit of a gossip and likes telling long-winded story.