Kafka's "The Hunger Artist"
Vardarys said:
In preparation for a role-playing game set around a 1930s travelling carnival, I've been on the search for books -- fiction or non-fiction -- that deal with the subject matter. The TV show Carnivàle has been very inspirational, particularly for its darker take on things, but I'd really like to have something I can read.
It's an obscure topic, I know. Can anyone make any recommendations?
Kafka's "The Hunger Artist" comes to mind.
Also, there is a wonderful carnival scene in Lawrence Durrell's Alexandrian Quarted (Balthazar I think).... where each year, someone gets to make love with his masked lover, but can never know her identity....
By the way, "carne" means "meat" and "val" comes from the same Latin root as "valedictorian", i.e. "saying goodbye", so the Mardi Gras carnival, prior to Lent, comes with "fat Tuesday" and it means "saying goodbye to meat for 40 days of Lenten fasting".
http://www.southerncrossreview.org/39/ventura.htm
Zahlan, Anne Ricketson. "City As Carnival, Narrative As Palimpsest: Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet." Journal of Narrative Technique 18.1 (1988): 34-46.
http://www.disinfo.com/site/displayarticle9148.html
http://raven72d.diaryland.com/041115_84.html
Carnevale... The Carnevale scene in Alexandria in Durrell's "Balthazar" is wonderfully haunting. And it makes me want to recommend to Libet a scene that Brooke recommended to me when she was in my Honors seminar-- and my bed. I want Libet to read the Carnevale scene from Pat Conroy's "Beach Music". I didn't like the novel, but I loved that scene. Sex and Venetian masks are always a brilliant pairing. Carnevale... I'll never have a masked Gianne Albertoni making love to me at Carnival in Rio; no mysteriously masked and leggy girl will lead me into the shadows of water stairs at Venice... But Carnevale remains a favorite setting for my dreams.
Also, pretzels supposedly derive their composition and shape from the Lent of the middle ages. People would fast from oil containing foods, and a pretzel is dry, like matza. The shape resembles the arms crossed upon the chest, with left arm covering the right, to prevent someone from inadvertently making the sign of the cross as they approach the chalice, and possibly spilling the chalice.
Aroung 1960, the "Book of the Month Club" featured "Here, Keller, Train This!", the autobiography of an actual lion trainer.
