tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33287187.post7953556447889852336..comments2024-03-27T16:59:29.400-04:00Comments on NOISE: The Rudy Wurlitzer Renaissance.Eric Obenaufhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01684427234866223681noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33287187.post-61249818135553125962009-02-11T03:15:00.000-05:002009-02-11T03:15:00.000-05:00And thank you, Eric, for bringing Rudy back into t...And thank you, Eric, for bringing Rudy back into the mainstream (or at least the fringes) where he deserves to be. <BR/><BR/>As I mentioned in the article, Rudy Wurlitzer was an early and seminal influence on my own spotty but reliabale career as a professional writer and I believe that his works will live on long after John Irving's attempts at reinventing Charles Dickens in America are laid to rest (not that I didn't enjoy "The World According to Garp.") <BR/><BR/>As a novelist, Rudy, like all the masters, uses a formula that's a sure-fire success, artistically, any way you play it: Create a situation in the first act (A mountain man is cursed to roam between the worlds of the living and the dead, for instance) and then spend the rest of the novel exploring how he got that way and how he can get himself out, totally extricated from his existential plight. Rather Kafka-esque literary terrain when you think about it, making it no small coincidence that Rudy's old friend Phillip Glass invited him to write the libretto for "In the Penal Colony."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com