|
Hello Caleb,
I am admiring the honesty and directness of your post.
Somehow, I feel motivated to add to your comment about the absurd nature of the plot, and to your remark about Russian literature.
Myself, I am not distracted by the fragmentation of the plot in arcane irrational elements and episodes entwined with everyday details.
I am prepared to move away from objective representations of real life events. And to move to a mixture of reasonable real, chaotic real, and arcane, apparently absurd, more properly surreal. To help me in this acceptance is the familiarity, more so than with other stories with a similar approach to story telling, with the cultural background of the times in which that story was written.
In case you were interested, I can suggest to consult the brief but essential introductions offered by Wikipedia to Dadaism, Surrealism, Futurism and whatever else tickles your fancy.
Just to acquire an idea of what i am talking about, i would look up a famous Russian painting of that time. Malevich. Red Square: Painterly Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions. Btw it is at the centre of the thriller Red Square by Cruz Smith.
One last thing. Before continuing with the great Russian that you mention (to whom I would add Cechov), maybe you could try Solgenitzin, with One day in the life of Ivan Dennisovich, that is quite a nice little story. VBR
Beppe
|