Paint Your Wagon.
Lee Marvin hoofin' and croonin'.
Rare birds must appreciate that as Kafkaesque, surely.
Best,
Kerry
----- Original Message -----
From: Jack Bludis
To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, July 26, 2009 9:30 AM
Subject: RARA-AVIS: The Age of Kafka / Bram Stoker
Jacques suggested that we are living in the age of Kafka.
In some sense that it true, yet as much as I like Kafka's concepts, I'm not that thrilled with his plots. They are like recorded nightmares, a series of incidents neither rising nor falling in importance and not at all coherent -- although that may have been Kafka's point. Life is not at all coherent.
And, yes, Kafka is a noir as we can get. But aren't many recent noir novels a series of incidents with no particular ascending order with a climax? (Like waking up from a nightmare) Maybe that was Jacques point.
The best recent noir, I believe, are by female writers: Vicki Hendricks and Megan Abbott have begun to build a body of work. Christa Faust has one pretty good book.
If we look at the best seller list lately, it is quite possible that we are also living in the age of Bram Stoker, or Harry Potter all grown up?
The girls who learned to read Harry Potter seem to be reading vampires and the zombies. What are the boys reading?
I asked one of my adult sons and he observed that my nephews went from Harry Potter to video games.
Just some thoughts.
Jack Bludis
Read, read, read. Write, write, write.
http://crimespace.ning.com/profile/JackBludis
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