Comments on: William Kentridge’s “Nose” http://www.theasc.com/blog/2010/05/24/william-kentridge%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%9cnose%e2%80%9d/ John Bailey's thoughts on cinematography and artistic expression Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:12:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: Ben http://www.theasc.com/blog/2010/05/24/william-kentridge%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%9cnose%e2%80%9d/#comment-204 Ben Wed, 26 May 2010 07:03:41 +0000 http://www.ascmag.com/blog/?p=1505#comment-204 Just read the Nose for the first time (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Nose_(Gogol/Field) ). The translation is a little suspect, but things never seem to arrive in English very well if they started out in Russian. But, translation issues aside: the story really is a wonderful little plaything, with absurdity and comic collision rolling around in every paragraph. It's weird and wonderful, how absurdist literature really is the best method for commenting on any contemporary political or social climate. Somehow, straight criticism of oppression (and repression) never really zings the way that totally absurd and comic fictional inventions are able to. Gogol's story is a great example of this (so is Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, set in a changed but still insane Russia). I haven't read a good example of absurdist contemporary American commentary in a while, but now I'm on the look-out for it. Something extraordinary is waiting to be written about the USA's most recent flat-on-its-face financial collapse. Hopefully it already has been. Just read the Nose for the first time (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Nose_(Gogol/Field) ). The translation is a little suspect, but things never seem to arrive in English very well if they started out in Russian. But, translation issues aside: the story really is a wonderful little plaything, with absurdity and comic collision rolling around in every paragraph.

It’s weird and wonderful, how absurdist literature really is the best method for commenting on any contemporary political or social climate. Somehow, straight criticism of oppression (and repression) never really zings the way that totally absurd and comic fictional inventions are able to. Gogol’s story is a great example of this (so is Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, set in a changed but still insane Russia). I haven’t read a good example of absurdist contemporary American commentary in a while, but now I’m on the look-out for it. Something extraordinary is waiting to be written about the USA’s most recent flat-on-its-face financial collapse. Hopefully it already has been.

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