The Unimportant Man

ISBN-13: 9780615584423 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 210 str.

Jeremy Nichols

Opis

"The Unimportant Man" - The story of a nondescript North American pizza delivery man and his struggle to achieve significance after having been attacked by a perverted, gun-wielding, Brigitte Bardot look-alike, reality television star. Written in an epigrammatic and associative style (though never rambling), "The Unimportant Man" draws from myriad literary, cultural and historical sources (E.M. Cioran, Giorgio Agamben, Jean-Luc Godard, Roland Barthes, Papal Encyclicals and more); intertwining themes in a violently entertaining essay-esque narrative that expresses the anguish and sense of futility suffered by unimportant men (men like the author). Author and translator, Jason Weiss (Writing at Risk: Interviews in Paris with Uncommon Writers (University of Iowa Press) & The Lights of Home: A Century of Latin American Writers in Paris (Routledge)) has compared "the ease with which Nichols] manipulates and maneuvers narrative elements, turning them around to consider them in a dispassionate mode" to the art of Milan Kundera: An author with whom Mr. Weiss collaborated in Writing at Risk. He has further praised Nichols' work for its adroit "weaving back and forth between the story and the Author's machinations"; a strength he later likened to the Argentine master, Macedonio Fernandez: The mentor of Borges. English poet, author and agitator, Paul Kingsnorth (One No, Many Yeses (Simon and Schuster) & Real England (Portobello Books)) has described Nichols' writing as "funny, intelligent and biting." Excerpt from "The Unimportant Man" - When he was a boy, grown-ups told the pizza delivery man, "Everyone has a talent: Something that they do better than others." Because the young pizza delivery man had no recognizable talent; because that shortcoming troubled him, the young pizza delivery man found the grown-ups' words very reassuring. They helped him sleep. At night, he would drift off fantasizing about his dormant gift. Because he enjoyed music, he often wished he would wake the next morning with a better ear: "Please, God" he would pray, "perfect pitch?" As the years passed, the still talentless pizza delivery man became restless. "When will I find my talent?" he would ask. Because he was still a boy, grown-ups continued to ply his heart with optimism: "Give yourself time," they would say. "However modest, you will find something uniquely yours, something for which you will feel pride." Because he was still young, the grown-ups' words comforted him. Unfortunately, the pizza delivery man could not stay young forever. As he aged, the grown-ups' reassuring words grew fewer and farther between, until one day they stopped. The adults who once insisted that everything was going to be alright (that his talent would reveal itself in time) now demanded that the talentless pizza delivery man get with the program; work with what he had; and face the music that he could not make. As a grown-up, nighttime became something different for the pizza delivery man. Because he will never wake with anything like a well-tuned ear, nighttime is no longer a time for fantasy. It is now just that time (after fitful tossing and turning) when the pizza delivery man resigns himself to the fact that he has nothing of which to be proud. Raised in a society that celebrates musicians, performers, athletes, models, published writers, intellects, entrepreneurs, charismatic statesmen, and other talented people; having long believed that talent is the standard against which a man's importance is measured, nighttime is now just that time when the pizza delivery man sees most clearly that he is an unimportant man.