Antkind: A Novel

By: Charlie Kaufman

Narrated by: Fred Berman

Length: 25 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

The bold and boundlessly original debut novel from the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Synecdoche, New York.

B. Rosenberger Rosenberg, neurotic and underappreciated film critic (failed academic, filmmaker, paramour, shoe salesman who sleeps in a sock drawer), stumbles upon a hitherto unseen film by an enigmatic outsider - a film he’s convinced will change his career trajectory and rock the world of cinema to its core. His hands on what is possibly the greatest movie ever made, a three-month-long stop-motion masterpiece that took its reclusive auteur 90 years to complete, B. knows that it is his mission to show it to the rest of humanity. The only problem: the film is destroyed, leaving him the sole witness to its inadvertently ephemeral genius.

All that’s left of this work of art is a single frame from which B. must somehow attempt to recall the film that just might be the last great hope of civilisation. Thus begins a mind-boggling journey through the hilarious nightmarescape of a psyche as lushly Kafkaesque as it is atrophied by the relentless spew of Twitter. Desperate to impose order on an increasingly nonsensical existence, trapped in a self-imposed prison of aspirational victimhood and degeneratively inclusive language, B. scrambles to re-create the lost masterwork while attempting to keep pace with an ever-fracturing culture of 'likes' and arbitrary denunciations that are simultaneously his bête noire and his raison d’être.

A searing indictment of the modern world, Antkind is a richly layered meditation on art, time, memory, identity, comedy and the very nature of existence itself - the grain of truth at the heart of every joke.

©2020 Charlie Kaufman (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"Outstanding. Combining his films’ most urgent themes and recurring concerns in a format that supports the digressions and logic-loops he’s so famous for, Charlie Kaufman may have out-Kaufmaned himself." (The i)  

"A very strong debut novel, a long, anguished spill of a book, full of buried furies and nervy philosophical expeditions, constantly tossing off sparks of humour and imagination...at once surreal and highly readable." (LA Times)

Nuggets for bloating

Tasty. Funny. Moreish. Fun. Clever. Interesting. Fresh. Bug Powder Dust for the cerebral sphincter. Buy it.

Excellent reading of a fantastic book

I loved this book so much. So relentlessly funny! Fred Berman reads with great comic timing too.
Such an enjoyable experience! I’m sad it’s over.

The weirdest thing

This is the weirdest book I've ever encountered. And I suffered through Danielewski's "House Of Leaves". It's filled both with gibberish and some sort of profound wisdom simultaneously. Not for everybody, probably not for me either but I found some pleasure in suffering through it, and it left me bamboozled in the end. Certainly not your typical piece of literature and if you don't find Charlie Kauffman's movies even remotely enjoyable, this book is definitely not for you. Frustrating and beautiful.

Outstanding

If this book doesn’t win the Oscar for best book written by a film person then The Oscars will need to take a long hard look at itself/thonself.

The narration is superb and makes this a must listen, even if you’ve read the book.

Disregard the one star reviews, they’re written by people who like Starbucks and Christopher Nolan.

Epic

If it wasn’t for the narrator I wouldn’t have finished thus book... the start held me, then a period where you wonder where it’s going, then you just have to hang on in till the finish to wonder how is this thing going to end.
Accomplished!

Bloated and self-indulgent

I know it’s only September but this will undoubtedly scoop my award fir the worst book of 2020. It is bloated, over-long and horribly self-indulgent. It’s only redeeming feature is the terrific performance by Fred Berman. I used to really enjoy Charlie Kaufman’s screenplays but this and his awful adaptation of ‘Im Thinking of Ending Things’ (Netflix) have similar features of a bizarre solipsism devoid of any ‘sensible’ external editorial control.

Brilliant production

The best fit between narrator and novel I have come across. Judd Apatow wept.

not for me

it could be good as sleep story) narration is very sleepy and the story itself has no intrigue at all

great narration, weird book

the narration is great and very engaging, while the content is an absurd psychedelic fever dream of self deprecating literal misinterpretation.

Decent

Too much rambling (even for Kaufmann!) without the story moving ahead in second half of the book ruins the experience.

Hilarious and brilliant and profound.

I've not finished listening to this yet but I can already tell you that it's BRILLIANT.
I'm four hours into the book and, so far, top marks to the narrator. Thon has been superb at every moment.
Very highly recommended.

charlie kaufman

This book will teach you to hate charlie kaufman, because you are charlie kaufman we are all charlie kaufman.