Whaling, Art and Obsession
László Krasznahorkai, Rotem, Ornan: The Manhattan Project
Keywords:
László Krasznahorkai, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Malcolm Lowry, Lunar Caustic, Lebbeus Woods, biography, intertextuality, intentionality
Abstract
In my essay, I examine how László Krasznahorkai’s The Manhattan Project challenges the accepted concepts of the literary work of art. I demonstrate how The Manhattan Project sheds new light on the concept of the author focusing on the writer’s personal fate, as opposed to the often-applied approaches of literary history. I illustrate that that text puts great emphasis on the role of coincidence versus that of the authorial intention, presenting itself as if it were a narrative of accidental events. Intertextuality is also radically reinterpreted as the boundaries between one’s own and another’s text become immensely blurred, which encourages the reader to interpret several works together.
