The House on the Borderlands

What kind of marvelous choice can be made in a nation that no longer believes in anything?
—Robert-Martin Leisure (1781)

. . .for it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1872)


"Should the forms, places, and beings that captivate us the most be those that least reveal their secrets and best mask the course of our lives, as though each seduction unfolded on a screen where our rare reasons for existence would always come back into play? Perhaps we only like enigmas, but behind the evasion of tastes and colors, thought silently continue its wild advance; and sensitive blindness is ultimately the most surefire way to see and show.

My attraction to the roman noir began more than a decade ago. Being neither the only one nor the first to fall under the spell of these outdated books, I thought I could easily determine what it was about these books that captivated me. Year after year, I had to face the facts: the roman noir resisted my analysis as well as those of its’ specialists and fanatics. As divergent as their conclusions were, all of the analysts proved to be equally disappointing.

It took me a long time to realize that the roman noir. . ."