We can resolve to be good. But when it comes time to measure our actions against a moral yardstick, we’re forced to decide just how pure a deed must be in order to qualify. Nobody’s perfect, after all. If we’re honest, even our whitest whites can look a little gray.
The writer goes on to assert that the aim of noir fiction, for the Christian, is to portray the pervasiveness of evil in the world. Quoting Otto Penzler, Bertrand notes that, in noir fiction:
“The noir story with a happy ending has never been written, nor can it be. The lost and corrupt souls who populate these tales were doomed before we met them because of their hollow hearts and depraved sensibilities.”
Penzler’s use of theological language here is interesting. The souls in noir fiction are “lost” and “corrupt.” They are “doomed before we met them”––predestined to damnation, so to speak––because of their depravity. The protagonists of noir fiction, then, are not champions of a moral order; if anything, they are its victims.
This presents an interesting dilemma for a publisher like Kalos Press. On the one hand, our goal is to present in literary form that which is true, and which the world needs to hear; such an implied function of noir fiction certainly meets that.
But on the other hand, our very name means "beauty" both in form and in function. Can such a portrayal be consistent with Kalos Press? Is there beauty in the dark, morally-ambiguous potrayal in noir fiction?
I believe there is, or at least there can be. Because, as the apostle John asserts, "The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome It" (John 1:5). Therefore, the beauty comes, not in the mere reflection of darkness, however accurate, but also in the promise of redemption in the midst of it.
What do you think? Is there a place for noir fiction in the publishing work of Kalos Press?
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