{"id":20225,"date":"2020-11-12T10:17:08","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T18:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=20225"},"modified":"2020-11-12T10:17:08","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T18:17:08","slug":"local-author-discusses-kafka-and-more-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2020\/11\/12\/local-author-discusses-kafka-and-more-this-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Local author discusses Kafka and more this weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lee Henderson, award-winning author of The Broken Record Technique<\/em>, The Man Game<\/em>, and The Road Narrows As You Go<\/em>, is seeing big changes this year due to the pandemic. And like everyone else, he’s having to take things online, which he’s doing this weekend.<\/p>\n

Henderson, who is also an associate writing instructor at the University of Victoria, is presenting a Zoom lecture on Sunday, November 15 titled \u201cKafka, Nachman, Kabbalah and Neuroses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Local author Lee Henderson is giving a talk this weekend (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are definite pros to the many cons of \u201cthe new normal,\u201d but the positive ramifications of the COVID-19 crisis can be easy to lose sight of in these unsettling times. Henderson keeps the positives in mind; take Zoom, for example.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Zoom] give writing students who may have otherwise chosen different universities a chance,\u201d says Henderson.<\/p>\n

Despite that the pandemic has closed many doors, Henderson finds that others have opened. He says that teaching creative writing to 150-person classes, as well as directing select MFA program students, is fun.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, it\u2019s all on Zoom,\u201d says Henderson. \u201cWe\u2019ve got students who are connecting from Moscow. Somewhere in Brazil, and somewhere in Mexico, and in Toronto, of course. It\u2019s really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henderson was a young child when he wrote his first story. He recounts the storytellers that made an impression on him as a youth, when authors the likes of Lorna Crozier, Patrick Lane, and Sean Virgo gave readings for his high-school English class. Today, he knows what some of those writers know: that some stories take longer than others to write.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have stories that I\u2019ve been working on for six years,\u201d says Henderson, \u201cI can never predict how long a piece is going to take.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for his talk this weekend, Henderson is no stranger to Kafka: Henderson\u2019s 2006 Journey Prize-winning short story \u201cConjugation\u201d was inspired by Kafka\u2019s \u201cThe Metamorphosis.\u201d Kafka\u2019s A Hunger Artist<\/em> makes a series of predictions, Henderson says, such as that the 20th century will find people fascinated with performance art and art that\u2019s on the body, as well as the idea of how we use our bodies for art and how we use the space for art as a relational space with the audience that requires a kind of interaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hunger artist seems to, like a prophet, predict this movement of intentional suffering as a representation of a social suffering,\u201d says Henderson.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s Zoom talk will focus on Kafka\u2019s shorter works.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Before the Law\u2019 and \u2018An Imperial Message\u2019 are little, super-succinct summaries of the themes throughout [Kafka\u2019s] The Trial <\/em>or The Castle<\/em>,\u201d says Henderson. \u201cEndless searching for an answer to a call that\u2019s been given that is ambiguous, and, who sent the call?\u201d<\/p>\n

Kafka\u2019s stories connect to the Hasidic tradition of tales, fables, and parables, says Henderson; storyteller Rabbi Nachman (who died in 1810) and Kafka, strangely, have much in common.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Nachman] came from a pious tradition\u2026 his great-grandfather was the Baal Shem Tov, legendary founder of the Hasidic movement,\u201d says Henderson.<\/p>\n

He says that Hasidic storytelling is comparable to Grimm\u2019s fairy tales with \u201ca different resolution\u2026 and a real different purpose.\u201d Nachman, Henderson says, seems to be \u201cimitating a secular style of bedtime story in order to secretly tell really powerful theological messages.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019m going to talk about both of them,\u201d he says, \u201c[because] Kafka\u2019s work is in some ways a really fascinating exegesis on Jewish Biblical tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henderson says that he is simply approaching this lecture as someone who loves these writers and is excited to get a chance to talk about them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t feel like I have grappled with Kafka nearly as well as some academics, you know? I\u2019m still just a fan who reads his work when I can,\u201d says Henderson.<\/p>\n

Kafka, Nachman, Kabbalah and Neuroses by Lee Henderson
\n7 pm Sunday, November 15
\nFree
\nZoom link: uvic.zoom.us\/j\/86253595456<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lee Henderson, award-winning author of The Broken Record Technique, The Man Game, and The Road Narrows As You Go, is seeing big changes this year due to the pandemic. And like everyone else, he’s having to take things online, which he’s doing this weekend. Henderson, who is also an associate writing instructor at the University […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20227,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20225\/revisions\/20227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}