by Annette Ferran
The Postman Always Rings Twice
Number 98 on the Modern Library’s list
is a title familiar from its movie version, The
Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain. The novel came out in 1934, the movie in 1946, the grand era
of film noir, and the movie remains an important piece in the American film
canon. (It was remade, considerably less successfully, in 1981. If this were a
film review column, I would be tempted to expound on the mistakes made in
trying to translate the story into another era, not to mention the casting.)
At
the heart of the story are lust, misplaced passion, and deep festering
dissatisfaction feeding a fixation that can only lead to destruction of all
concerned.
These characters have lonely, isolated lives. They long for fulfillment
of an external variety, such as money, sex, and adventure. They want everything but what they
have. These elements comprise the fertile soil of the noir genre.
Just as the original film version is highly watchable, with its shadows and sweat, its hidden corners, its palpable waves of suspense, so too is the novel highly readable. The tension can sometimes cause the reader to forget to breathe, while the obsessed attitude of the two plotters and the obliviousness of their intended victim induce a nearly unbearable level of frustration mixed with anticipation. Whether it is possible to learn anything from this novel I don’t know. Perhaps this is why it is usually classified as genre fiction (one of only two genre works on the 100-book list). It is, however, possible to obtain a great deal of reading pleasure, as well as lessons on writing techniques, from this masterfully constructed story.
Just as the original film version is highly watchable, with its shadows and sweat, its hidden corners, its palpable waves of suspense, so too is the novel highly readable. The tension can sometimes cause the reader to forget to breathe, while the obsessed attitude of the two plotters and the obliviousness of their intended victim induce a nearly unbearable level of frustration mixed with anticipation. Whether it is possible to learn anything from this novel I don’t know. Perhaps this is why it is usually classified as genre fiction (one of only two genre works on the 100-book list). It is, however, possible to obtain a great deal of reading pleasure, as well as lessons on writing techniques, from this masterfully constructed story.
A
bonus pleasure I gained from the novel stemmed from the search for it. At my
local library branch I could not find the title on the shelves until a
librarian pointed me to the anthology section and a Library of America edition,
entitled Crime Novels: American Noir of
the 1930s and 1940s, which he obviously was also personally attached
to. With good reason: It is a
beautiful book, heavy and compact, elegantly bound, printed on thick creamy
white paper that is satisfying to the touch. After my self-assigned reading of The Postman Always Rings Twice, I read all of the other novellas in
the volume also, which included The Big
Clock and They Shoot Horses, Don’t
They, among others. Then I
returned to the library and checked out the book I’d spotted next to this one
on the shelf, the companion volume Crime
Novels: American Noir of the 1950s, and I read through that one, too. If
the Modern Library were to expand its list to 101 books, I would argue for
Chester Himes’ The Real Cool Killers,
from the 1950s collection, to make the list.
These
stories might not qualify as “real” literature, but they are serious and deep,
giving unusual insight into segments of the society usually overlooked. The
writers’ craft is expert and without the pretensions that literature sometimes
brings forth. There is some maudlin,
ridiculous, clichéd, trite, and/or sloppy genre fiction out there to be sure,
but the noir crime stories chosen by the Modern Library and by the Library of
America shine with quality. And,
for me, the serendipitous reading adventure I embarked on through the public
library and its fiction-loving librarian made the experience all the more
worthwhile.
Annette
Ferran lives in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and
works in Philadelphia as an editor for a medical publisher. She is also an editorial assistant
for 10,000 Tons of Black Ink, a
Literary Writers Network publication. She has a degree of dubious practical
use, in German, and is a lifelong avid reader of fiction and lover of lists.
She has had a few short stories published, most recently in RE:AL.
