“When you think Franz Kafka, what comes to mind? Mitteleuropean gloom, perhaps… What you don’t think of is standup comedy.” Two young comedians are staging a new version of Kafka’s The Trial to hit the London stage next month.
Kafka as Comedy
Art Spiegelman on Lynd Ward
At the Paris Review Daily, Art Spiegelman, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic memoir Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, recalls the influence of pioneering graphic novelist Lynd Ward in his introduction to Ward’s Six Novels in Woodcuts.
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“A signature strike leveled the florist’s”
“I’ve always referred to it as a troubled project in the sense that I’m trying to tell stories about people who not are here in a way to tell their own stories. I’m trying to speak about an environment I knew well, but I’m aware that I’m dealing with very dark material. I’m pointing out the irony of what we would wish for ourselves and what actually ends up happening.” Teju Cole on tweeting American drone strikes.
“The flamboyant misanthrope and the restrained one”
If you’ve ever had a successful friend you secretly envied and maybe even hated, you may be in startlingly good company: a new reading of an old letter between Groucho Marx and T.S. Eliot indicates that the “flamboyant misanthrope and the restrained one” shared exactly this kind of frenemyship. Unrelated: a short recording of Eliot reading “The Naming of Cats.”
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Neal Stephenson’s New Digital Novel
The New York Times reports on the launch of Neal Stephenson’s new serialized digital novel, The Mongoliad, complete with video, music, and user-profiles. (via AuthorScoop)
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Guilty As Charged
“Why do readers, those who are bereaved and those with happy families alike, love orphans?”
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Tuesday New Release Day: Baldwin; Lacey; Lim; Berman; Umrigar; Fierro
Out this week: The Last Kid Left by Rosecrans Baldwin; The Answers by Catherine Lacey; Dear Cyborgs by Eugene Lim; Perennials by Mandy Berman; Everybody’s Son by Thrity Umrigar; and The Gypsy Moth Summer by Julia Fierro. For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
Didn’t DFW try to teach his students that Kafka is funny?
Franz is hilarious, if you know what to look for. He’s the comic father of 75% of the comedians today, whether their mothers know it or not. Although The Castle is funnier than The Trial. But don’t wait for the punchline.