a historical fiction thriller set in 1938 Munich during Oktoberfest, aka the perfect bait for me, but it lacks a lot of the high-stakes drama and actia historical fiction thriller set in 1938 Munich during Oktoberfest, aka the perfect bait for me, but it lacks a lot of the high-stakes drama and action that it could've reached given the material matter....more
Also watched for it's adaptation premiering at the Venice film festival (Luca Guadagnino directing, Daniel Craig starring). Not the biggest fan of eitAlso watched for it's adaptation premiering at the Venice film festival (Luca Guadagnino directing, Daniel Craig starring). Not the biggest fan of either, both Burroughs and Guadagnino had the juice but couldn't fully squeeze....more
An interesting coming-of-age book I read to prep a review for its adaptation's Venice film festival premiere. This Prix Goncourt winner does a great jAn interesting coming-of-age book I read to prep a review for its adaptation's Venice film festival premiere. This Prix Goncourt winner does a great job at depicting the relationship between the lower-middle class and hard-core poor, as Mathieu calls it, and how race works in that mix. Two great theses working: post-industrial ruin pits disparate groups against one-another (the book and film both came soon after testy French presidential elections); and no matter how hard you try, and how much you don't want it to happen, you'll probably end up like mom and/or dad without achieving the Dream....more
We've come to the point in Kafka's legacy where the journey to find his influence is the point, not the writings that got us there.
In what should be aWe've come to the point in Kafka's legacy where the journey to find his influence is the point, not the writings that got us there.
In what should be a longish New Yorker or NYRB article celebrating one-hundred years of death, which the marketing team felt compelled to mention in back-to-back sentences introducing this text, Watroba provides a terse first-person memoir on her experiences visiting places that Kafka lived alongside surface-level readings of his writings. Her guiding question is: what made Kafka Kafka? Then she spends five geographical chapters and a coda avoiding an answer. Why? She argues that aesthetic analysis is fine, but it's more interesting to see how readers respond to his works. (No it isn't.)
One of her sub-arguments (as a value judgement not a categorical prefix) is that Kafka's culture and identity (Jewish?, Czech?, German?) should be de-valued while the identity of the reader of his texts should be valued. Is that not an obvious contradiction? But the chapters go on to do the worst of both worlds: lightly describing various Kafka readers in Europe and select parts of Asia as well as the bits of Kafka's bio that one can find on Wikipedia.
One aspect that could have been fleshed out for an engrossing perspective could have been a deeper historical and socio-cultural analysis of Kafka's manuscripts. Even though the Suez Crisis was referenced, Watroba doesn't go into how and why places like Switzerland and the declining British Empire became financial and literary preservation homes in the immediate postwar world, which is quite important and would have fit into the overall worldwide de-contextualizing Kafka as a human and writer thesis.
In short, this 'book' has a confused identity: in searching for Kafka through creating as much ambiguity as possible, Watroba likewise loses any concrete identity to what she's written....more
A multi-faceted collection of first-person testimonies and essays connecting the ongoing killing of Palestinian civilians with respect to its history A multi-faceted collection of first-person testimonies and essays connecting the ongoing killing of Palestinian civilians with respect to its history and context. It opens with brutal accounts from Gazans; one of the more bone-chilling (read until the final line) I'll include below.
This interview with Khalil Abu Yahia, a Gaza-based student, teacher, and activist for the Palestinian right of return, was conducted by Maya Rosen via WhatsApp voice messages, on 16 October. Rosen's last question for Khalil:
What is your message for the world?
"Don’t leave us alone. We are making history now. What would you like your children to read about you? That you justified this oppression? Or that you stood on the side of the oppressed people? Every single action counts. Don’t forget us. We are human beings who are losing our family members and our neighbors and our friends. If you believe in the equality and freedom of the Palestinian people, exert the maximum effort to ensure that your government stops supporting the colonial government. When every government boycotts this colonial system, it will be isolated. And that’s how it will end."
On 30 October, Khalil was killed in an Israeli airstrike....more
Loading...
