Antkind - Charlie Kaufman

When someone tells you Charlie Kaufman has written a novel you experience a strange, spine tingly, heart jumbly, tummy trembly eruption of euphoric anticipation. Or you do if you watched in awe, Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Adaptation. Because you know that, even though screenwriting is a different ball game to novel writing it is still writing. And Charlie Kaufman is nothing if not a writer. So to get my hands on a limited edition proof was beyond my wild imaginings and believe me some of my imaginings can be pretty wild.

At over 700 pages this debut novel of Kaufman’s is a committed read. And to offer any kind of review or response is bordering on the futile because this is a book that you don’t so much read as experience. It’s like Kafka met William Burroughs for an acid and speed party. It’s surreal, insanely imaginative. 

You want a précis? Good luck with that! It defies summarising. I can give you the bare bones, but not the rolls of flesh and sinew that give the book its - oooooooomph.

The main character is B. Rosenberg, an erstwhile film critic who has hit a lean patch. Quite unexpectedly he chances upon a movie with a running time of three months which took 90 years to make. B. (note the initial, not a full name…. I did already mention Kafka, didn’t I?). B. believes it to be a work of supreme, artistic  importance which he feels compelled to show to the whole world. Only problem is the film gets destroyed bar one single frame. B makes it his mission to recreate that film. 

What follows is a tour de force  that truly defines the ‘creative’ of creative writing. The narrative is like some kind of Kerouacian spontaneous prose that is full of allusions to Kaufman’s films, and those of others, but more importantly the themes and images experienced in those films, from puppets to the manipulation of memory, themes that absorb Kaufman for the duration of the book. 

But don’t be fooled, for intertwined within the footings of a fiction are Kaufman’s philosophies on life, the world and his President. Kaufman is from the US. Need I say more? There are moments of pure hilarity, moments of jaw dropping admiration for a man who can hypnotise us with his words, create situations that have you wishing you could have a rummage around in his head for it is almost unbelievable that one person can come up with this sustained landscape of characters and situations.

And yet I am left wondering whether Kaufman is laughing at us all watching us trying to lap this all up and be prepared to proclaim his genius. Or is it just an intentional load of old twaddle? Maybe a bit of both!

My thanks to Matt at 4th Estate for this proof. My life will never be the same again!