The first time I read Kafka’s The Trial, I was an undergrad — probably in my early twenties. I remember liking the novel, but not as much as some of Kafka’s shorter works, like “The Hunger Artist,” “In the Penal Colony,” or even The Metamorphosis. I likely wasn’t ready for Kafka-Writ-Large.
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Mailer as Novelist
Norman Mailer saw the responsibility of the novelist is a double-edged sword: he must posit an authoritative vision of structure in form and content, yet always be aware that “no authorities exist that have certain knowledge.” This places the novelist in an ethical and existential position of great responsibility.
The Web v. the Book
When I spoke at the Norman Mailer Society Conference in 2005, I was asked to discuss the position of literature and English Studies at the beginning of the twenty-first century, how the work of Norman Mailer fit into these cultural and intellectual trends, and recommend ways that the Society might continue to flourish in a still incunabular information age.
The Novel and the Order
Arguably, the dominant form of literature in the twentieth century was prose fiction, of which the novel was a titan, if not a god. Indeed, there is something god-like about the novel and its relation to western civilization’s sense of identity and order.
Faust, Mailer, and the Comfort of Evil
Lately, I’ve been feeling like Faust. You know, the guy who sells his soul to the devil to have experiences he otherwise would not have in his life of a scholar. Of course there are many differences between me and the legendary scholar, but, like Faust, in my striving for the ultimate meaning in the universe, the reality of of it often seems too, well, real.
Disruption
This week’s stories were Isaac Asimov’s classic “Nightfall,” Paul di Filippo’s “Phylogenesis,” and Tim Pratt’s “Impossible Dreams.” We’re still examining “convergence,” but this week I wanted to focus on the disruptions that sometimes occur when things line up in a certain way, occasionally be design, but more often by chance.
Dune and the Super Being
The problem with super beings is that they’re super, non-human. This is a problem. This entry looks at Frank Herbert’s epic novel Dune.
