Boris Vian - Blues For A Wild Cat And Other Stories

 

Boris Vian was many things — novelist, poet, jazz trumpeter, engineer, translator, and member of the Collège de ’Pataphysique, a group dedicated to the science of imaginary solutions. But what’s often forgotten is that before diving headfirst into surrealism and absurdity, he walked the mean streets of noir — or at least, parodied them with brilliant venom.

His infamous debut novel I Spit on Your Graves, written under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan, was meant to mock the hard-boiled American crime genre — and yet, it worked almost too well. That duality—between love and critique, structure and chaos—is present throughout his short story collection BluesForA Wild Cat And Other Stories, a masterclass in bizarre, tightly wound narratives where logic is secondary to rhythm, and violence dances with irony.

In this collection, Vian plays games — with language, genre, expectations, and reality itself. The stories are short, punchy, and often end without warning, like a gunshot in the dark. Some border on philosophical fables, others on noir sketches turned inside-out.

One story might present a police interrogation that veers into dream logic; another might involve a crime that exists only in the mind of the narrator. There are murders, betrayals, bureaucratic absurdities, and characters that dissolve under scrutiny like shadows at dusk. But what ties them together isn’t plot — it’s tone: a sharp, jazzy dissonance that echoes the post-war existential mood.

Vian’s love of jazz is palpable in the way these stories move — syncopated, unexpected, full of improvisation. His language swings between streetwise and poetic, often in the same paragraph. There's a spontaneity in his voice that feels both reckless and meticulously constructed.

And then there's death. Nearly every story flirts with it. Whether literal or symbolic, death is never far from the surface — but Vian doesn’t treat it solemnly. Instead, he mocks it, courts it, plays with it like a child who doesn’t understand its finality. In that sense, his work feels closer to Kafka than Chandler — though he translated the latter and clearly absorbed something of the American crime aesthetic.

This is noir as seen through a cracked mirror: the trench coats remain, but the motives have melted. The detective might be insane, or dead, or invented. The femme fatale might be a metaphor. You don’t read Vian for resolution — you read him for the confusion that feels truer than clarity.

Of course, not every story lands. Some feel more like sketches or thought experiments than fully formed tales. But that’s part of Vian’s charm: he doesn’t pretend to follow the rules. He never did. He was a patafysician, after all — and rules were just material to be reworked into jazz riffs and literary pranks.

Bruges-La-Morte - Georges Rodenbach

Although I mostly focus on crime fiction here, I occasionally step outside the genre to explore dark, psychological works that share similar themes. Bruges-la-Morte is not a crime novel in the traditional sense, but its atmosphere of obsession, death, and emotional unraveling make it deeply compelling to fans of noir and psychological thrillers.

Few novels manage to so completely merge internal anguish with the external world as Georges Rodenbach's Bruges-la-Morte (1892), a haunting and melancholic portrait of loss, obsession, and spiritual decay. Often hailed as one of the quintessential works of the Symbolist and Decadent movements, this short novel offers an experience that is as atmospheric as it is emotionally claustrophobic.

The story follows Hugues Viane, a grieving widower who has moved to the somber, silent city of Bruges after the death of his beloved wife. For him, Bruges is not just a backdrop — it is a mirror of his sorrow, a city of still waters and dying bells, where time itself seems to have stopped in mourning. The emotional core of the novel lies in this fusion: Bruges becomes an extension of Hugues’ mind, a spectral city suspended between memory and death.

Hugues' mourning is not quiet acceptance, but a fixation bordering on madness. He preserves relics of his wife — most notably, a long lock of her golden hair — and seems to exist only to sustain her memory. His fragile reality is shaken when he encounters a woman who bears a striking resemblance to his deceased wife. Fascinated, he begins a relationship with her, not for who she is, but for who she reminds him of.

But this resemblance is only surface-deep. The woman, a stage performer, represents everything fleeting, sensual, and alive — the very opposite of the sanctified, idealized image Hugues holds of his wife. What begins as a kind of resurrection soon descends into obsession and disillusionment. When she ultimately attempts to steal from him — including the sacred lock of hair — Hugues reacts violently, strangling her with that very relic. In that moment, the symbolic and the literal collapse into one another: his grief, idealism, and rage manifest in a tragic reenactment of loss.

Rodenbach’s prose, rich and poetic, is steeped in the language of decay and silence. There is little dialogue; the novel is more interested in moods, echoes, and spiritual paralysis. His descriptions of Bruges are as vivid as any character — a city “dying of its past,” wrapped in fog, filled with bells that toll not for the living, but for memory itself.

The novel’s inclusion of photographs of Bruges (in early editions) adds another layer of eeriness and realism — a literal haunting of image and text. Even without them, Rodenbach's Bruges feels visually present, almost tactile.

Bruges-la-Morte is not a comforting read. It doesn’t offer catharsis, only a kind of circular descent into obsession. But for those drawn to the darker corners of the human psyche — and to the beauty found in decay — this novel is a quiet masterpiece. It captures a soul unraveling, slowly, beautifully, fatally.

D.O.A. (1950)

Among the most distinctive and gripping entries in classic film noir, D.O.A. (1950) stands out with a premise so bold and unforgettable, it could only come from the shadowy corners of noir imagination: a man walks into a police station to report a murder — his own.

Edmond O'Brien delivers a sweaty, desperate, and magnetic performance as Frank Bigelow, a seemingly ordinary accountant who learns he’s been fatally poisoned with a radioactive toxin. With only days to live, he races through city streets, nightclubs, and office buildings trying to answer the question: “Who killed me, and why?”

This inversion of the classic murder mystery — where the victim solves his own murder before he dies — gives the film a breathless, existential energy. The story unfolds in flashback, starting with one of the most iconic opening scenes in noir: Bigelow’s solitary march through the halls of a police station, asking to file a homicide report — his own.

Director Rudolph Maté, a former cinematographer, brings a sharp eye for shadows, angles, and tension. The visual style is classic noir: tilted frames, crowded nightscapes, faces half-drenched in darkness. The camera is as restless as the dying man it follows, amplifying the film’s sense of dread and doom.

While the dialogue leans into hard-boiled tradition, the real emotional core lies in the horror of having no time — of being trapped not just by the walls of a mystery, but by a ticking biological clock. Frank Bigelow is already dead. He’s just chasing the truth before it’s too late.

In many ways, D.O.A. is a metaphor for noir itself — a genre filled with doomed characters clinging to meaning in their final hours. There’s no redemption, only momentum. No comfort, only motion. The film is relentless, cynical, and fatalistic — and because of that, deeply unforgettable.

Night Has A Thousand Eyes (1948)

Among the many film adaptations of Cornell Woolrich’s fiction, few manage to capture the dark inevitability and quiet despair of his world as effectively as Night Has a Thousand Eyes. This 1948 noir gem is more than just a tale of clairvoyance — it’s a meditation on fate, fear, and the futility of resisting what lies ahead.

Edward G. Robinson gives a haunting performance as John Triton, a man cursed with the ability to foresee future tragedies — and powerless to prevent them. The story unfolds with creeping dread as Triton foresees the death of a young woman, a vision that casts a long, paralyzing shadow over the characters' lives.

That woman is played by the luminous Gail Russell, whose beauty and vulnerability make her fate all the more affecting. Russell’s presence in the film is ethereal, almost ghostlike — and tragically, her real life would mirror the sorrowful tones of the story. Plagued by intense stage fright, emotional distress, and alcoholism, Gail Russell died in 1961 at the age of just 36, found alone in her apartment surrounded by empty liquor bottles and sleeping pills. Her death, like Woolrich’s fiction, was wrapped in silence, sadness, and shadows.

The film's atmosphere — enhanced by shadowy cinematography, a foreboding score, and Farrow’s tight direction — serves not only as a chilling thriller but as a faithful translation of Woolrich’s noir universe, where the line between coincidence and destiny is thin, and where beauty is often the prelude to destruction.

Night Has a Thousand Eyes remains, arguably, the most emotionally resonant and stylistically accurate adaptation of Woolrich’s writing. It’s a film that lingers — not because of shock or spectacle, but because of the quiet tragedy it carries in every frame, both on and off the screen.

L.A. Confidential (1997)

Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential is a masterclass in noir storytelling — sharp, stylish, and morally murky. Based on the acclaimed novel by James Ellroy, the film dives deep into the glitzy yet rotten heart of 1950s Los Angeles, peeling back the glossy surface of Hollywood glamour to expose a city dripping in vice, violence, and ambition.

The story follows three LAPD officers — the idealistic Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), the brutal Bud White (Russell Crowe), and the savvy Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) — as they unravel a tangled web of murder, corruption, and media manipulation. What starts as a standard police procedural quickly spirals into something deeper: a meditation on power, identity, and justice in a world where everyone's wearing a mask.

The film's strength lies not only in its airtight script and labyrinthine plot but in its complex characters. Each man is flawed, each driven by ego, pain, or redemption. Their intersecting paths create a dynamic rhythm that builds steadily to a perfectly orchestrated climax.

Kim Basinger’s performance as Lynn Bracken — the Veronica Lake lookalike entangled in the scheme — adds an emotional counterweight. Her presence is both enigmatic and tragic, earning her a deserved Oscar win.

Technically, the film is stunning. Dante Spinotti’s cinematography captures the smoggy, sultry texture of post-war L.A., and Jerry Goldsmith’s jazzy score adds just the right amount of mood and menace.

Cornell Woolrich - Waltz Into Darkness

In the shadowy world of noir fiction, few novels strike as deeply as Waltz into Darkness. Cornell Woolrich, a master of dread and romantic doom, leads us through a slow, haunting descent into obsession, betrayal, and self-destruction.

Louis Durand, a lonely New Orleans banker, expects to marry a woman he’s never met — a hopeful escape from his solitary life. But when Julia arrives, she is not the woman from the letters. From that moment, their relationship becomes a dance — slow, intimate, and fatal.

Woolrich paints a world where nothing is certain. Is Julia sincere or a con artist? Is Louis naive, or willfully blind? The deeper they sink into each other, the more the lines blur between love and delusion.

The novel’s final act is both tragic and ambiguous. Louis suspects poison in the wine, yet he drinks. He chooses her, even knowing she may be the end of him. And Julia — does she love him at the end, or simply run out of lies?

Waltz into Darkness is noir at its most devastating: romantic, atmospheric, and laced with quiet madness. It’s about a love so absolute it becomes surrender — a death wish wrapped in silk.

Cornell Woolrich - The Black Curtain

The legendary crime fiction editor Otto Penzler has made the works of classic noir author Cornell Woolrich widely available at very affordable prices. One of these is The Black Curtain, a novel that starts off intriguing but soon turns into one of Woolrich's more stretched and logically questionable narratives.

The story follows a man named Frank Townsend, who suddenly regains consciousness in the middle of the street, only to realize he’s been suffering from amnesia for the past year. He has no memory of what happened during that time. Strangely enough, he returns to his wife and old job as if nothing ever happened — and here’s where the logical cracks begin to show.

Questions pile up: Why was his wife still waiting for him after a full year of unexplained absence? How did he just slide back into his job? I expected some kind of psychological help or a psychiatrist to step in — but that never happens.

Instead, we get a mysterious man tailing Townsend around the city. After a narrow escape and a break-in at his apartment, he and his wife flee. Townsend tells her to go to her mother while he tries to figure out what the hell happened during his “lost year.”

He ends up in a small town, hoping someone will recognize him. Eventually, a young woman named Ruth does. Through conversations with her, he learns — from a newspaper article — that during his amnesiac period he was apparently involved in a murder. A man was killed in the house where he worked under a different name. Ruth urges him to run, but he insists on proving his innocence.

They return to the house, where Ruth now works as a caretaker for the paralyzed grandfather of the murdered man. Also living there is a sick girl who never leaves her room. Townsend, now going by "Dan," hides in a storage room.

To keep things short: the widow of the murdered man, along with her brother, plan to set a trap and frame Dan and Ruth for a fake break-in gone wrong — a self-defense killing. The brother sends the widow to the police station to "report" the break-in in advance, planning to kill them before she returns.

But in a twist of poetic justice, the paralyzed grandfather, upon overhearing the plan, sets a fire. The smoke disables the would-be killer, police arrive just in time, and Townsend is saved. Tragically, Ruth is killed in the struggle. The widow is arrested, and in the end, Townsend returns to his wife.

Despite its many plot holes and coincidences, The Black Curtain is still a compelling read. It’s full of Woolrich’s signature mood: paranoia, dread, and dreamlike uncertainty. Still, I couldn’t help but feel like the author was working through his own issues — perhaps even alcohol-induced blackouts — and pouring them into the narrative.

It’s not his tightest work, but it’s classic Woolrich: messy, emotional, suspenseful, and strangely unforgettable. It was adapted into film noir Street Of Chance (1942) like many of Woolrich novels.