Antkind - Books Babb.no

720 pages

English language

Published Nov. 8, 2020 by HarperCollins Publishers Limited.

ISBN:: 978-0-00-831953-3

"B. Rosenberger Rosenberg, neurotic and underappreciated film critic (failed academic, filmmaker, paramour, shoe salesman who sleeps in a sock drawer), stumbles upon a hitherto unseen film by an enigmatic outsider--a film he's convinced will change his career trajectory and rock the world of cinema to its core. His hands on what is possibly the greatest movie ever made, a three-month-long stop-motion masterpiece that took its reclusive auteur ninety years to complete, B. knows that it is his mission to show it to the rest of humanity. The only problem: The film is destroyed, leaving him the sole witness to its inadvertently ephemeral genius. All that's left of this work of art is a single frame from which B. must somehow attempt to recall the film that just might be the last great hope of civilization. Thus begins a mind-boggling journey through the hilarious nightmarescape of a psyche as lushly Kafkaesque …

"B. Rosenberger Rosenberg, neurotic and underappreciated film critic (failed academic, filmmaker, paramour, shoe salesman who sleeps in a sock drawer), stumbles upon a hitherto unseen film by an enigmatic outsider--a film he's convinced will change his career trajectory and rock the world of cinema to its core. His hands on what is possibly the greatest movie ever made, a three-month-long stop-motion masterpiece that took its reclusive auteur ninety years to complete, B. knows that it is his mission to show it to the rest of humanity. The only problem: The film is destroyed, leaving him the sole witness to its inadvertently ephemeral genius. All that's left of this work of art is a single frame from which B. must somehow attempt to recall the film that just might be the last great hope of civilization. Thus begins a mind-boggling journey through the hilarious nightmarescape of a psyche as lushly Kafkaesque as it is atrophied by the relentless spew of Twitter. Desperate to impose order on an increasingly nonsensical existence, trapped in a self-imposed prison of aspirational victimhood and degeneratively inclusive language, B. scrambles to re-create the lost masterwork while attempting to keep pace with an ever-fracturing culture of "likes" and arbitrary denunciations that are simultaneously his be te noire and his raison d'e tre."--

6 editions

Rudi reviewed Antkind by Charlie Kaufman

Review of 'Antkind' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

I can't get this book out of my head. I went into it with high expectations, as Charlie Kaufman is my favorite screenwriter and I adore most of his movies. And I was in some ways not disapointed, as this book is very much Kaufman. It explores most of the themes that he already has spent a lot of time with in his other work: age, culture, memories, death, defying structure, ego, the passing of time, etc. But it is also an extremely silly book, and at times really hilarious. His movies often stares mortality and death straight in the eye, but this book is more like sketch comedy about it.

There's no real reason to trying summoning up the plot. It's often dream logic, even though there's always some form of coherence. But it's also made in a way that makes you go back to the start right after …

I can't get this book out of my head. I went into it with high expectations, as Charlie Kaufman is my favorite screenwriter and I adore most of his movies. And I was in some ways not disapointed, as this book is very much Kaufman. It explores most of the themes that he already has spent a lot of time with in his other work: age, culture, memories, death, defying structure, ego, the passing of time, etc. But it is also an extremely silly book, and at times really hilarious. His movies often stares mortality and death straight in the eye, but this book is more like sketch comedy about it.

There's no real reason to trying summoning up the plot. It's often dream logic, even though there's always some form of coherence. But it's also made in a way that makes you go back to the start right after you have read it, and I am sure it must reward a second reading more than most books.