Reflections between literature and music

Charlie Kaufman – Antkind (2020, published in Italy by Einaudi in 2023)

God, I love Charlie Kaufman! I love his surreal, off-kilter, grotesque world, so far removed from any logic, and blah blah blah. Words aren't necessary here, it's better to just watch the films he's directed and/or written, starting (to name the essentials) with the epoch-making "Being John Malkovich" (1999). From there you can move on to the classic "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2004), then plunge into "Synecdoche, New York" (2008), the point of no return for an author who manages to brilliantly depict the labyrinths of the unconscious and its obsessions. Then comes the dazzling stop-motion of "Anomalisa" (2015), a prelude to "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" (2020), his most recent turn as director in a film as underrated as it is packed with everything a lover of visionary cinema could crave.

In 2020 there's also a new surprise: Charlie Kaufman writes a novel, "Antkind", a massive tome of more than seven hundred pages. And so one dreams on of further forays into the paradoxical, delivered with taste and irony, stretching across countless pages capable of depicting who knows what cubist goings-on. The wait for a translation is long, but in 2023 Einaudi steps in and publishes it under the title "Formichità". It's essential to seek it out and give it the spotlight it deserves, because anyone who loves his work will be utterly delighted by it. And this isn't a couple of hours spent watching a film, but days and days (depending on your reading speed) during which you'll be swallowed up by a disjointed, morbid vortex, in which the line between real and unreal dissolves.

The book opens and its jaws devour the reader, catapulting them into the world of B. Rosenberger Rosenberg, a low-tier film critic in search of the chance to show the world something astonishing, something that could elevate him, leave its mark, and cement his legacy. At a certain point he stumbles upon a film made by a mysterious, elusive figure, a three-month-long stop-motion piece that took ninety years to make. It's the opportunity Rosenberg has been waiting for all along, his discovery will shake up the world of cinema and he'll rise to become a star critic. Unfortunately, though, the film is destroyed in an accident, and all that's left to our man is a single frame: using that lone fragment, Rosenberg will have to remember and reconstruct the entire film.

Now, everything written so far amounts to, at best, 5% of what "Antkind" actually contains. Starting from this premise, Kaufman plunges into universal delirium, repeatedly quotes (and criticizes) himself and his own work, stages an obsession with political correctness, and puts his protagonist through events that, on closer inspection, make his films look like jokes compared to the sheer mass of material on display in this book. If great novels were measured by their capacity to surprise, then "Antkind" would be (is) a great novel, because you never know (never, ever) what's going to happen, page after page. Kaufman harnesses his idiosyncrasies to draft an extremely long and bizarre love letter to cinema. He proves himself a master of language, showing it again and again across its many pages; his humor and inventiveness inject a kind of electricity into his characters that makes them memorable, flaunting a seemingly boundless imagination. According to the author, "Antkind" is "confused, incoherent, and fetishistic", a novel full of clashing elements, hypertrophic, dizzying. It's a gluttonous feast at the buffet of literature and cinema. A funny, impertinent book that in the end leaves you with a sense of benevolent indigestion. What are you waiting for? Dig in.

Gong – You (1974)

It happened by instinct. Reading "Formichità", for some reason, the notes of "You" kept ringing in my head - my favourite Gong album. Charlie Kaufman raves, and Daevid Allen is no less delirious. A well-organised delirium, in both the book and the record. "You", compared to the previous chapters of the Zero the Hero saga, manages to be more angular and "technical", less free-freak than a "Flying Teapot" or an "Angel's Egg". And yet far more magmatic, space, no less exploratory when it comes to the inner and outer universe of the bestiary that dear Divid Allen manages to stage. In truth, there's a great harmony running through these grooves: the pot head pixies oddities don't disappear ("Thought For Naught", "Perfect Mystery", "You Never Blow Yr Trip Forever"), but then Tim Blake arrives, and with his Crystal Machine made of VCS3 and its derivatives he wraps everything in space-delight, aided by the hallucinated horns of Didier Malherbe, the infinite guitar of Steve Hillage, the mantra-rhythm of Mike Howlett and Pierre Moerlen, and the whispers of the space-concubine Gilli Smyth.

And so we fall into the vortexes of "Master Builder", "A Sprinkling Of Clouds" and "The Isle of Everywhere", with the earthly misadventures of B. Rosenberger Rosenberg mirroring the otherworldly ones of the Allen-esque hero. For the American, it's a matter of pushing to the very limits of cinema and literature; for the Australian, the journey goes beyond hyperspace, in search of Nirvana. In the end, things wrap up with Zero losing sight of his mystical goals and letting himself be seduced by a delicious fruit pie. Rosenberg, on the other hand... you'll have to read it yourself. Binge after binge, book and record intertwine, projecting us - full-bellied - into places beyond, finally free.

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