Le Polar a le vin triste
Why did the polar mostly choose alcohol which disrupts the senses, rather than wine which brings them out? In France, alcohol is a social ritual, shown as such in a kind of literature said to be realistic, like the polar. There are the “small glasses of white wine” of Chief Detective Maigret at coff...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Association Portugaise d'Etudes Françaises
2021-05-01
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| Series: | Carnets |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/carnets/12699 |
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| Summary: | Why did the polar mostly choose alcohol which disrupts the senses, rather than wine which brings them out? In France, alcohol is a social ritual, shown as such in a kind of literature said to be realistic, like the polar. There are the “small glasses of white wine” of Chief Detective Maigret at coffee-time early in the morning in many of Simenon’s novels. There is an extensive regionalist literature where wine-expert inspectors officiate between two wine-houses, overly focusing on their vineyards and their praises. In the roman noir, wine is rarely celebrated as a pleasure, and rare are the epicurean investigators, in the image of Fabio Montale, Jean-Claude Izzo’s private eye, who is able to harmonize dishes and wines. With the new polar, a literary sub-genre born from the ideas of 1968, carrying a strong social criticism, alcohol causes havoc in a society which is dropping out. Small country wines give way to strong alcohols, to cheap whiskies and bad brandies, to streams of beer. For the characters created by Hervé Jaouen, Boileau-Narcejac or Georges J. Arnaud, it is a double punishment: alcoholic decay, and the blurring of social bearings, the loss of moral values and the committing of a crime. Obviously, the polar does get maudlin when its characters drink. |
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| ISSN: | 1646-7698 |