I love this post. It's had me pondering all day. This sentence "Catharsis is only possible within an already formulated framework," surprises me. The character that I am playing is naive. She is continually wandering in dramas that have not revealed their plots- then suddenly she recognies what has been going on and is amused. Ah, it's that story! She thinks- so I have been in that story! Could it be a story or just some series of events that have come together to create a semblance of a drama- or dream?
Just recently, I had the great fortune of passing by, on the off chance, Jacksons Lane Arts Centre in Highgate, discovering that they were presenting the quite ingeniously named 𝘈𝘭𝘪 𝘪𝘯 𝘞𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳(𝘌𝘯𝘨)𝘓𝘢𝘯𝘥, performed and created by the LegalAliens Theatre Company, a “migrant-led Theatre of Sanctuary based in Haringey”.
The next day I went to see the play, at the invitation of its director, and found myself witnessing a very moving and pertinent production for our times, which I only wish more people could see—especially those who view migrants, asylum seekers and refugees as some sort of existential threat to the nation. I would sincerely hope that they might learn from such work that when you dehumanise others, you ultimately dehumanise yourself.
Accompanying this particular presentation, LegalAliens produced a Playbook, with the script (ever-changing, from one presentation to another, depending on the changing cast), and a fascinating introduction by Dr Peter Maber, Head of English, Creative and Academic Writing at Northeastern University London. One paragraph particularly stood out for me, referencing the play’s director and founder of LegalAliens, the Italian-born actor, dramaturg and facilitator Lara Parmiani. It goes as follows:
Have you read Byung Chul-Han's 'The Crisis of Narration'? Anyhow, judging from the trailers I saw the last time I went to the cinema, we're in Dystopia.
We are living in pre-genre Medieval Times wherein a thing of a man demonstrates what it means to embody all Deadly Sins as he breathes French fry 🍟 breaths.
A time when windmills didn’t present an imminent threat to mankind.
Friends of mine have made 'Very third century' a punchline to being rousted in a misunderstanding, or arrested for public intoxication. But one has to live in a town of under a hundred thousand souls for the punch of it to land. The author Gary Cross of a tome abt the 20yh makes your point in the concluuding chapter,. Seeing how people take serious pleasure in their happy family meals. He says it cannot be waved away the identities, he says, people take from sugar salt fat and fat
Having recently seen the film , Nolans Odyssey, I much prefer reading about yours Hanif, though I truly wish it could have been a different outcome for you ...a very resonant piece, brilliant !
""Baudrillard went further. The Gulf War, he said, had already shown that the image, rather than helping us process the event, actually replaces it, so that a war fought largely through footage becomes, in his phrase, a war that “did not take place” at all, only its hyperreal broadcast."
This is very much a view through Western eyes and Baudrillard was a very clever man. I'm sure the Palestinians don't view their own slaughter as spectacle and I'm sure Hanif, that you don't view your own state as spectacle even if that's your way of dealing with it, of trying to come to terms with it. After all, you have to try and make sense of it, even if it's senseless, it's the human thing to do, or it drives you mad.
Is it really dying? Or are we becoming so class-segregated that the children of wealthier parents still read and all the otgers spend 4 to 8 hours a day on their little screens?
Anyway, it's a great question. I wish I had an inkling of an answer.
Thank you so much for your stories, Mr Kureishi, and for sharing them with us.
Got me wondering why I write my stories in the genre that I do. Crime. Most of the ideas are triggered by something heard or seen that I reimagine into something I hope people don't expect. In genre, people expect and want the familiar in order to understand. Your wider point though, yes. Where are we? Add AI and the past will not even truly be there to be understood by those in the present or future.
Maybe we give the OHenry twist a status as a genre? Anothe soul robbed by his accountant was an author in the genre of shape shifting mutant children Pahlaniuk. Twilight zone? Clayton Eshleman in a bad mood says twilight starts at 1259 pm,. Acknowledging where here in the states it is only in your early morning wh is a very pressurized,. Like darwinian adaptations state of mind then it is we can safely be frowsy and idiosyncratic. I lose the word,. You have it, no category here for the (what?)idiosyncrate. So acknowledging without Housman and e m forster we would be nowhere, we would not have the proof one can trust his senses to show him a path forward with integrity,. The twilight zone genre would have to turn to give the high sign to a very few PKD stories in which the transplanted Angeleno starts again under a new dispensation. We are in genre a young adult novelc what Doris Lessing's "Dann" books appear to be. Dangerous world climatolgically
Pretty terrific ledture to someone who couldn't get better than a B- in English! Thank you!
I love this post. It's had me pondering all day. This sentence "Catharsis is only possible within an already formulated framework," surprises me. The character that I am playing is naive. She is continually wandering in dramas that have not revealed their plots- then suddenly she recognies what has been going on and is amused. Ah, it's that story! She thinks- so I have been in that story! Could it be a story or just some series of events that have come together to create a semblance of a drama- or dream?
Just recently, I had the great fortune of passing by, on the off chance, Jacksons Lane Arts Centre in Highgate, discovering that they were presenting the quite ingeniously named 𝘈𝘭𝘪 𝘪𝘯 𝘞𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳(𝘌𝘯𝘨)𝘓𝘢𝘯𝘥, performed and created by the LegalAliens Theatre Company, a “migrant-led Theatre of Sanctuary based in Haringey”.
The next day I went to see the play, at the invitation of its director, and found myself witnessing a very moving and pertinent production for our times, which I only wish more people could see—especially those who view migrants, asylum seekers and refugees as some sort of existential threat to the nation. I would sincerely hope that they might learn from such work that when you dehumanise others, you ultimately dehumanise yourself.
Accompanying this particular presentation, LegalAliens produced a Playbook, with the script (ever-changing, from one presentation to another, depending on the changing cast), and a fascinating introduction by Dr Peter Maber, Head of English, Creative and Academic Writing at Northeastern University London. One paragraph particularly stood out for me, referencing the play’s director and founder of LegalAliens, the Italian-born actor, dramaturg and facilitator Lara Parmiani. It goes as follows:
𝘓𝘢𝘳𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘣𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘸 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦; 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘵, 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘴, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 ‘𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘱’, 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥; 𝘣𝘶𝘵 ‘𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘲𝘶𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭, 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮. 𝘐𝘵 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘰 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘧𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘶𝘱.’
So, in answer to your question, we seem to be drifting towards the supermassive black hole of the grotesque as our prevailing genre.
Although, of course—and given the ancient scientific principle that shit makes things grow—its opposite is hopefully on the rise as well.
Have you read Byung Chul-Han's 'The Crisis of Narration'? Anyhow, judging from the trailers I saw the last time I went to the cinema, we're in Dystopia.
We are living in pre-genre Medieval Times wherein a thing of a man demonstrates what it means to embody all Deadly Sins as he breathes French fry 🍟 breaths.
A time when windmills didn’t present an imminent threat to mankind.
Friends of mine have made 'Very third century' a punchline to being rousted in a misunderstanding, or arrested for public intoxication. But one has to live in a town of under a hundred thousand souls for the punch of it to land. The author Gary Cross of a tome abt the 20yh makes your point in the concluuding chapter,. Seeing how people take serious pleasure in their happy family meals. He says it cannot be waved away the identities, he says, people take from sugar salt fat and fat
Having recently seen the film , Nolans Odyssey, I much prefer reading about yours Hanif, though I truly wish it could have been a different outcome for you ...a very resonant piece, brilliant !
Much love,
Jane
""Baudrillard went further. The Gulf War, he said, had already shown that the image, rather than helping us process the event, actually replaces it, so that a war fought largely through footage becomes, in his phrase, a war that “did not take place” at all, only its hyperreal broadcast."
This is very much a view through Western eyes and Baudrillard was a very clever man. I'm sure the Palestinians don't view their own slaughter as spectacle and I'm sure Hanif, that you don't view your own state as spectacle even if that's your way of dealing with it, of trying to come to terms with it. After all, you have to try and make sense of it, even if it's senseless, it's the human thing to do, or it drives you mad.
Farce?!
Thought-provoking as always.
The House of Mirrors genre?
I think the slipstream got spiked.
Is it really dying? Or are we becoming so class-segregated that the children of wealthier parents still read and all the otgers spend 4 to 8 hours a day on their little screens?
Anyway, it's a great question. I wish I had an inkling of an answer.
Thank you so much for your stories, Mr Kureishi, and for sharing them with us.
Got me wondering why I write my stories in the genre that I do. Crime. Most of the ideas are triggered by something heard or seen that I reimagine into something I hope people don't expect. In genre, people expect and want the familiar in order to understand. Your wider point though, yes. Where are we? Add AI and the past will not even truly be there to be understood by those in the present or future.
Dopamine-hit fiction.
The celebrity genre, perhaps.
Everybody knows but they don't open their eyes and nobody analyses the situation better than Hanif
Maybe we give the OHenry twist a status as a genre? Anothe soul robbed by his accountant was an author in the genre of shape shifting mutant children Pahlaniuk. Twilight zone? Clayton Eshleman in a bad mood says twilight starts at 1259 pm,. Acknowledging where here in the states it is only in your early morning wh is a very pressurized,. Like darwinian adaptations state of mind then it is we can safely be frowsy and idiosyncratic. I lose the word,. You have it, no category here for the (what?)idiosyncrate. So acknowledging without Housman and e m forster we would be nowhere, we would not have the proof one can trust his senses to show him a path forward with integrity,. The twilight zone genre would have to turn to give the high sign to a very few PKD stories in which the transplanted Angeleno starts again under a new dispensation. We are in genre a young adult novelc what Doris Lessing's "Dann" books appear to be. Dangerous world climatolgically