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Charlie Kaufman and Hollywood's Merry Band of Pranksters, Fabulists and Dreamers: An Excursion Into the American New Wave
Since the late 1990s, a subtle, subversive element has been at work within the staid confines of the Hollywood dream factory Young filmmakers like Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson, Michel Gondry, David O. Russell, Richard Linklater, and Sofia Coppola rode in on the coattails of the independent film movement that blossomed in the early 1990s and have managed to wage an aesthetic campaign against cowardice of the imagination, much like their artistic forebears, the so-called Movie Brats—Coppola, Scorsese, De Palma, Altman, and Ashby among others—did in the 1970s. But their true pedigree can be traced back to the cinematic provocateurs of the Nouvelle Vague—such as Truffaut, Goddard, Chabrol, Rohmer, and Rivette—who, in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, liberated screens around the world with a series of films that challenged our assumptions of what the medium could offer and how stories could be told—all of them snapping with style as much as they delivered on ideas. Highly idiosyncratic yet intricately realized, accessible yet willing to overthrow the constraints of formal storytelling, surreal yet always grounded in human emotions, this new film movement captures the angst of its characters and the times in which we live, but with a wryness, imagination, earnestness, irony, and stylish wit that makes the slide into existential despair a little more amusing than it should be. .
Price: $11.53
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Conjunctions: 39, The New Wave Fabulists
For perhaps two decades, a small group of writers rooted in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror have been simultaneously exploring and erasing the boundaries of those genres by creating fiction of remarkable depth and power. Their connections to the genres they have been radically redefining have, for many of these writers, limited the appreciation of their accomplishments to a specialized readership. For example, though John Crowley and Jonathan Carroll have massive underground reputations, and Peter Straub has written two books with Stephen King and other bestselling novels such as Ghost Story, Koko, and The Throat, many if not most readers of Conjunctions will be unfamiliar with their work. In this haunting and beautiful collection of tales, Crowley, Carroll, and Straub join Elizabeth Hand, China Mieville, M. John Harrison, Neil Gaiman, and Kelly Link to demonstrate precisely how science fiction, fantasy, and horror have been unobtrusively colonizing serious literature during the past twenty years. As an added bonus, science fiction and fantasy experts Gary K. Wolfe and John Clute offer a critical perspective and explain everything in sight. With original cover art by master cartoonist Gahan Wilson..
Price: $9.41
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The Fabulist
Five years after his dismissal for fabricating stories, former New Republic hotshot reporter Stephen Glass released The Fabulist, a novel telling the story of a hotshot reporter named Stephen Glass who is fired after fabricating stories. And while the original incident provoked outrage, especially in Washington, The Fabulist is a mostly an empty exercise, devoid of strong characters, compelling action, or, finally, a reason to exist. Glass told lies, got caught, got fired, and then wrote a book about it. Why should we care? While interesting possibilities surely existed in tracing the arc of a career of fakery, Glass chooses instead to begin his story just as "Stephen" is being exposed for the first time. He fills the rest of the book by taking us through the character's dull and lengthy process of recovery as he seeks sanctuary with his parents, changes girlfriends, finds a new job and a new apartment, and avoids the spotlight of his scandal. The Fabulist is populated with characters seemingly pulled from the scrap heap of numerous failed sitcoms: the Egotistical Boss, the Girlfriend Who Doesn't Understand, the Pushy Older Jewish Lady with a Single Granddaughter, and the Comically Mysterious Co-workers. Many of the characters are reportedly based on real people and are portrayed, disappointingly, as jerks and fools more deserving of derision than apology. Perhaps the most distressing part of The Fabulist is that there's no heart and no center. The central character, the only hero we are offered, never seems to understand who he is. He lies, those lies get him in trouble, he searches for an explanation or redemption for his actions, but neither he nor we ever understand what is to be gained from it all. Could the enterprise have been clearer as a nonfiction tell-all testimonial? Maybe. Would it be believed coming from the pen of Stephen Glass? Maybe not. But regardless of what one thinks of the ethics of the situation, it's disappointing that a writer of Glass's skill and obvious imagination couldn't come up with a more interesting novel. After all, he's written so much fiction in the past. --John Moe.
Price: $4.95
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ParaSpheres: Extending Beyond the Spheres of Literary and Genre Fiction: Fabulist and New Wave Fabulist Stories
Exploring the porous boundary between mainstream literary fiction and the genres of fantasy, horror, and science fiction, this collection of short stories juxtaposes the conventional and the fabulist—with dazzling results. In Rikki Ducornet’s “Lettuce,” a petitioner in a futuristic totalitarian state pays with his life when he requests permission to grow lettuce; “Birthday of the World,” by Ursula K. Le Guin, is narrated by a woman whose brother destroys their culture when he decides he wants to be God; and the disillusioned wife in Carol Schwalberg’s “The Midnight Lover” finds the perfect marriage partner in her dreams, only to be divorced by the dream lover. Containing 50 works by genre writers Kim Stanley Robinson and Michael Moorcock and noted literary authors Laird Hunt and Brian Evenson, this compilation expands the fiction subgenre that has been called “speculative” and “slipstream.” .
Price: $9.80
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With Signs & Wonders: An International Anthology of Jewish Fabulist Fiction
Bringing together 24 contemporary writers from 19 different countries, this anthology captures the exuberant storytelling tradition of the Jewish people that has been shaped by centuries of legends, folklore, and mysticism. These writers—from Central Asia, Iran, Morocco, Russia, Siberia, Israel, Latin America, Europe, and the United States—show the diverse strains of the Jewish fabulist imagination. Teeming with passion and humor and rooted in the triumphant and tragic history of a people, these stories illustrate—regardless of language and locale—the Jewish fascination with the mysteries of the imagination and the endless possibilities of life. .
Price: $143.83
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Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction
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