Post-modern author explains works
By: Feride Yalav
Issue date: 11/8/07 Section: News
The man who breaks into a publishing company's factory to write "books suck" with his own feces all over the wall is elected president-the favorite of the people.
This was the world author Eckhard Gerdes presented to his audience Tuesday night in the Meyer Auditorium.
Of the fifty students who showed up, some listened in silence, while others had a hard time containing their laughs. Gerdes read from his newest and oldest works, including the story of Godzilla's plan to annihilate Shesus - the female messiah - and a landlady who keeps human frontal lobes in jars.
"I love words," exclaimed Gerdes as he uttered and repeated "cookidisnap," during a story where a man called Uncle Sam recites a song for Nin and Nan, the "gender ambiguous" couple who live in solitude, cut off from the world that offends them with billboards and roads.
Gerdes' ecclectic and pleasantly absurd imagination once prompted his professor to threaten to choke him to death while attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where Gerdes received his MFA in writing.
During Q&A's with students after the reading ,Gerdes spoke of the inspiration for his sometimes bizarre writing as a product of images, song lyrics, and dreams.
"Oh this is a good one, I have to wake up and write it down," said Gerdes, alluding to the dreams he uses as material for his novels.
He also spoke of misinterpreted song lyrics used as inspiration for his books "when I interpret the lyrics the wrong way I get something much better," said Gerdes who is a fan of Virgina Woolfe and Jim Morrison who, like himself, believes that even though life is going to end we should all act like it is not.
Gerdes is the author of six novels, publisher of the Journal of Experimental Fiction, and has also written on modern and post-modern literature for Review of Contemporary Fiction, Hyde Park Review of Books, and other magazines.
He also has a Myspace site that includes videos of his readings, blogs, and links to his favorite bands.
The event was co-sponsored by the English department, the American Studies Program, and the Center of Chicago Programs.
This was the world author Eckhard Gerdes presented to his audience Tuesday night in the Meyer Auditorium.
Of the fifty students who showed up, some listened in silence, while others had a hard time containing their laughs. Gerdes read from his newest and oldest works, including the story of Godzilla's plan to annihilate Shesus - the female messiah - and a landlady who keeps human frontal lobes in jars.
"I love words," exclaimed Gerdes as he uttered and repeated "cookidisnap," during a story where a man called Uncle Sam recites a song for Nin and Nan, the "gender ambiguous" couple who live in solitude, cut off from the world that offends them with billboards and roads.
Gerdes' ecclectic and pleasantly absurd imagination once prompted his professor to threaten to choke him to death while attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where Gerdes received his MFA in writing.
During Q&A's with students after the reading ,Gerdes spoke of the inspiration for his sometimes bizarre writing as a product of images, song lyrics, and dreams.
"Oh this is a good one, I have to wake up and write it down," said Gerdes, alluding to the dreams he uses as material for his novels.
He also spoke of misinterpreted song lyrics used as inspiration for his books "when I interpret the lyrics the wrong way I get something much better," said Gerdes who is a fan of Virgina Woolfe and Jim Morrison who, like himself, believes that even though life is going to end we should all act like it is not.
Gerdes is the author of six novels, publisher of the Journal of Experimental Fiction, and has also written on modern and post-modern literature for Review of Contemporary Fiction, Hyde Park Review of Books, and other magazines.
He also has a Myspace site that includes videos of his readings, blogs, and links to his favorite bands.
The event was co-sponsored by the English department, the American Studies Program, and the Center of Chicago Programs.