Post by gnicholson3 on Jun 17, 2024 16:45:29 GMT
The video from this week helped me to understand the concept of the absurd a little better (or at least more able to discern differences in other absurd texts that I’ve read). The concept of the absurd appears in many texts, but it often feels very intangible, like trying to make sense of a nonsensical idea. The more I spend with it though somehow the senseless is making more sense. The two absurd novels that I think of are Camus’ The Plague and Kafka’s The Trial. Both contain moments of absolute chaos, but the events in each novel, though bizarre, illogical, and uncanny, still manage to feel a little more concrete and provide a clearer idea regarding existentialism than Mailer’s Barbary Shore. But even more interesting are the distinguishments between these novels and novels like Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita and Woolf’s Orlando. Bulgakov and Woolf, having a phantasmic feel and tone, work better to contrast societal concepts and structures to the realities of true freedom of oneself. I feel that Barbary shore is a little disappointing in this respect. While I can recognize the political idealism Mailer attempts to developed and explore, I feel that there is an element missing from his novel that pushes the envelope of the absurd that you see in other existential works. Hollingsworth search for the “things” and Lovett’s amnesia are parts of the story that are the most absurd and yet lack relevance in a way. While I understand these things may develop as we finish the novel, I can see how this novel can be considered lacking or being considered a lesser of Mailer’s novels.
