Fight for Your Long Day is again compared to Joyce's writing:
"In a review of Fight for Your Long Day, William Pannapacker
judges Kudera’s “depiction of the life and psychology of an
adjunct teacher” to be “realistic.” But Pannapacker balks at the
repellent quality of Kudera’s protagonist: 'Fight for Your Long
Day is not without problems. The sexual and digestive
preoccupations of the protagonist seem like distractions from
the larger message of the novel. One could argue that they
relate to Maslow’s hierarchy; in any case, they are revoltingly
described," which "undermines any sympathy the reader might
have for him as a representative of adjuncts.' Perhaps it is the
rare artist who can craft gastrointestinally challenged
characters with high literary merit — James Joyce, Samuel
Beckett, and Monty Python come to mind. Pannapacker
recognizes that Kudera’s novel participates in a significant shift
in the representation of faculty on the contemporary campus,
but he misreads its 'sexual and digestive preoccupations' as
distractions. On the contrary, they are the abject essence of the
novel.
"Duffleman’s musings on and fantasies about bathrooms, bowel
movements, and farts parallel the abject conditions of his
employment as an adjunct who moonlights as a security guard.
His search for a clean public restroom at the close of his
evening security shift at Liberty Tech is, as Pannapacker
complains, a bit of a slog. The nearly 30 pages through which
Duffy carefully considers his routine evening toilet break — its
time, location, and stall — also signal his “overworked adjunct
state” and his equally routine shame that he “hasn’t written
anything beyond email in several years.” Soon the reader, too,
begins to long for relief from his digestive issues. Duffleman’s
lack of gastrointestinal and professional movement reflects
another common quality of the Adjunctroman — neither the
protagonist nor the narrative progresses."
Alex Kudera’s award-winning novel, Fight for Your Long Day (Atticus Books), was drafted in a walk-in closet during a summer in Seoul, South Korea. Auggie’s Revenge (Beating Windward Press) is his second novel. His numerous short stories include “Frade Killed Ellen” (Dutch Kills Press), “Bombing from Above” (Heavy Feather Review), and “A Thanksgiving” (Eclectica Magazine).
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Auggie's Revenge and Fight for Your Long Day
affordable copies
Why pay less when spending more is so easy and free? Right. In other words, if anyone would like a shipped paperback copy of Auggie...
-
In theory, a book isn't alive unless it's snuggled comfortably in the reading bin in the bathroom at Oprah's or any sitting Pres...
-
And Duffleman has the nerve to think he has problems! Is he a homeless man breaking into and reopening a bar? No. Is he earning over $10K a...
-
An excerpt from and a book review of Auggie's Revenge appears in the June 2017 issue of the European academic journal American, Briti...
-
Reading Little White Duck: A Childhood in China led me to Wuhan, China, a large sprawling city dissected by a huge river that Chairman Mao ...
-
Even more quickly than Joe Wilson could nab $200,000 for his near-blasphemous yelp in the halls of power, Allen Iverson inked for 3.1 millio...
-
"The bookshelf was an immediate giveaway — every Weatherman read Malcolm X , the poetry of Ho Chi Minh, Amical Cabral , and Mari Sandoz...
-
I stumbled upon a couple articles on Atlantic City's current casino "contraction," here and here , and it sounds like the bea...
-
It's always a bit disappointing to see these somewhat simplistic articles get a shiny new website when my more developed and nuanced n...
-
Here's Dave Newman's essay on trucking, teaching, writing, and surviving in America.
-
The Clemson Literary Festival came and went, and as best I can tell, it was a huge success. For me, highlights were hearing U.S. Poet Laurea...
No comments:
Post a Comment