Antkind (Charlie Kaufman)

The first quarter was entertaining. The next two quarters felt aimless yet remained mostly amusing. I rode those out without trying to understand much. That's how I experience much media. Near the beginning of the final quarter I sensed some underlying order and quickly perked up. This sterner attention made the volcanic final quarter desperate. Despite the frustration I suppose I'm glad I tried to comprehend things near the end, as desperation beats nonchalance in life. I never expected everything would come together, but it seemed Kaufman began wrapping his chaos in some partial packaging. It seemed we zoomed out from the narrative sea to reveal macro tides. But alas, in that final quarter, one tide followed another in destructive interference. Kaufman shook the whole unit several times near the end, canceling any identifiable order. Lives and films bled together, and I don't mean in a mosaic of characters -- I mean in the several lives and films of one character. This is like if Philip Seymour Hoffman played every Caden in Synecdoche, and the film was far longer, protracting storylines that may not top the film's authenticity hierarchy yet are indistinguishable in authenticity.

Antkind was consistently funny. Its style of humor offered a buoy in the chaos, not just emotionally but rationally. It was the only consistent thing to which sanity could cling. It's also hard to feel affection toward something random, so I think the comedic voice will endure in my affection as the book's sole trusty character.

The comedic voice was profoundly sarcastic, aimed especially at Kaufman as an intellectual. I suppose this book is primarily intended for self-diagnosed intellectuals who don't take taking themselves too seriously too seriously. It was easy for me to relate to Kaufman thusly, which isn't surprising given his films' role in my formative years. Ego and humiliation fill them all.

What's missing from Antkind, relative to his past pursuits, is a genuine emotional core. He has written some gorgeous and empathetic moments before. The strongest thing I felt in Antkind was desperation, the most common laughter. Otherwise it was pretty desolate, desperate thing after desperate thing happening, punctuated often by comedy, washed in absurdity to the point of triviality. A senseless ache for humanity in a narrator incapable of connecting with any other humans.

It is a wonder Kaufman rescued the protagonist from insufferably pretentious to indomitably heroic and also insufferably pretentious. It's the intellectually elitist version of the Michael Scott transformation ("we need to start making him more likable") -- heroic via depthless spirit and good intentions. Kaufman (the character) admits B.'s role is the unbreakable butt of the universe's jokes. Sometimes it's heartbreaking. As such an actor B. experiences real depression, horror, pain. I do hope he lives to see himself backward, rising from every manhole in New York City, joining Calcium.

It's hard for me to read novels, so I rarely do. I've read more classics than contemporary. So it's hard to compare Antkind. I reckon it's original and inspired, and I know it's entertaining. I also know it's unhinged, flapping recklessly in some windy synapses. I suppose it contributes to literature, with a voice trumpeting through the storm. Is it worth its weight? I can't recommend it. It doesn't pay off, unless I'm tragically overlooking something. But I will keep it dearly on my shelf.

Updates 5/9/23:

A few days later I find it hard to move on. I look back at the mess like Lot's wife. I look back like Eurydice to make sure the book follows me into the daylight of post-Antkind life, worried I didn't capture enough of it. I rarely read big novels, so it gnaws me a little. I want better closure, cleaner analysis, peace. I want to justify all of the time I spent with it by carrying it with me, learning something profound or at least gaining a new lens. Antkind is over and I don't know what I gained, yet I don't want to leave.

I'm seeing numerous reviews emphasizing B.'s unlikability. That never bothered me, though as a type I'm fundamentally in concert with Kaufman, so B. can't really offend me. Hence my generous Michael Scott comparison, one of the most beloved TV characters of my lifetime. I have a big heart for B. He is tortured, quite literally. One reviewer called him Job-like. And he means well. His monologues are often hilarious and deeply relatable. Sometimes he even plays the straight man -- remember how good those moments were in The Office? In a twisted reality B. and Michael periodically transform into the sanest of them all.

From The Guardian:

    Where Kaufman's films are playfully mind-bending, they usually have real heart. But although Antkind is skippingly clever -- saturated with comic allusions, puns, linguistic inventiveness and wildly unfettered imagination -- it is sorely lacking characters you actually care about or any emotional narrative to cling to.

    This is what I was suggesting earlier, though more recently I was arguing I care about B.'s narrative... Maybe absence grows me fonder. I feel sympathy for B., even love in rosy retrospect, but nothing is emotionally coherent like the films. I daresay it isn't emotional at all, like the real laws of nature agnostic to human tragedy. That's compelling, although if I begin a long movie like Gone with the Wind, I expect some emotional rapture. Antkind frustrates any assumption of coherence. One chills oneself to brutal chaos.

Antkind may make more sense than I suppose, but I suppose it doesn't make great sense. I suppose Kaufman was content to connect concepts in a compelling manner, not necessarily a coherent manner. At least he connected some of the vastly disparate concepts. Sometimes that's enough -- tying up loose ends in an ugly knot. Those moments of connection get me through stuff like Inland Empire and Antkind, even if they don't ultimately add up. Kaufman delivers enough sense to excite a rational reader, not to satisfy.

    I'm not seeing any reviews claim to understand the book, so I'm increasingly confident that pursuing such understanding is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Thesis: Antkind never completes its circuit, but it provides meaty contemplation in an invigorating and original style. It showcases brilliance without executing brilliantly. It's mostly entertaining, ultimately unsatisfying, holistically admirable.

Updates 5/20/23:

Rereading, some things make sense. Calcium finds B. Barassini directs B's rememorying from early in the book. There are more connections than I fathomed, forgetting details in a slow reading. I may be done rereading now, so I've given up on full understanding. The Calcium revelation (stunning) suggests there's more coherence than I expected, but I still doubt it's satisfying. No online explanations jumped out at me -- I'm sure some exist, but if most reviewers claim incoherence, at least I know I'm sane.