Blog Entry #8

ASSIGNMENT ONE

In the short stories The Kidnapper Bell and City of Commerce the authors use iconic Los Angeles landscapes to give readers a sense of place and realism. 

In Kidnapper, the Los Angeles River is the central landscape of the story.  Jim Pascoe writes of the area around the river having lots of graffiti and being made from concrete (Pascoe 220).  It helps the reader to envision what the Los Angeles River really looks like; dingy, dirty, and as grey as the rest of the city.  The river itself seems to almost be a character of the story as more detail was given for the river than our protagonist. 

In Commerce, Nick, the protagonist of the story, describes the City of Commerce as “the most ironically named place in America, which is saying a lot.”  He goes on to mention how presently gambling has become far more important than actual commerce in out titular city, as evidenced by the “three thousand gambling billboards I saw a week” (Pollack 230).   Neal Pollack also writes of the freeways in and around Los Angeles and how bad the traffic is. 

            

            ASSIGNMENT TWO

            Out of “The Gold Coast” section of Los Angeles Noir I would say that The Girl Who Kissed Barnaby Jones was the best example of noir, while What You See is the most difficult to classify as noir.

            In The Girl we have our protagonist, Tate, who seems to be a typical “everyman”, swayed by Cherie’s, our femme fatale, good looks, “like half the guys who walk into Burberry’s, though, I have a great big boner with Cherie’s name on it” (Phillips 287).  Cherie has a problem and she needs someone to help, and she uses her seductive nature in an attempt to get Tate to help her.  Tate, after the seduction is over and finds out what Cherie’s problem is, wants no part of it.  This is atypical for noir.  The protagonist usually is willingly brought into the plot by the femme fatale.  Once Tate has an opportunity to escape, he does so readily.  In the end, though, he is brought down by Cherie, which likely leads to her capture as well.

            What You See, on the other hand, is a difficult story to follow.  Gabe, our “protagonist”, for lack of a better word, is clearly a slow thinker, perhaps even mentally challenged in some way, which makes the story unusual.  There is no real femme fatale, though his brotherly love for his friend, Marcus, causes him to work for Marcus, though the feeling clearly isn’t reciprocated by Marcus.  Marcus continually berates and tells Gabe to shut up.  Overall, I found this story to be more like an ordinary crime story, and a poor one at that.