LOS ANGELES /California Newswire/ — Our eyes of flesh see only noir! Even before its official release, a new novel was making the rounds among the cognoscenti of the movie business. Not since The Day of the Locust and The Love of the Last Tycoon has Hollywood and the motion picture industry been shown in such a bold and perspicuous light, a light that producers and directors and screenwriters are clamoring to capture for themselves. Brimming with sex, romance, eye-widening spectacle, and a host of recognizable characters, this latest post-lux novella by Konrad Ventana sets a new standard of poignancy in postmodern literary fiction as it raises the bar for visual special effects (VFX).
In his latest book “The Unbearable Sadness of Zilch” (ISBN: 9781440158247, softcover) Konrad Ventana explodes the myths behind the Star Machine with a whole new level of intimate private investigation: No one is innocent … not in this town. In this town, the apocalypse has come and gone, lifting the veil of innocence like a great velvet curtain in an old movie house, where the only victims that don’t return for the sequel are the gods themselves, struck out long ago by the big blue pencil. In this town, every man, woman, and child takes the limits of his or her own field of vision to be the limits of the world.
Without the lamplights of fate that flicker in a constant state of anxiety through yonder movie reels, the collective vision would be blacker than the slate of a director’s clapboard, suffused with a pessimism that goes far beyond film noir, far beyond existential anguish, far beyond the pale of postmodernism to the very crux of the loneliness, dread, and despair that is the wretched birthright of the descendent species.
A consummate work of social criticism, “The Unbearable Sadness of Zilch” is a treatise on existentialism, modernism, and the emergence of nouveau feminism with a vivacity that puts artificial computer generated imagery (CGI) and hackneyed melodrama to shame. Set in Hollywood Neo-noir, and guided by an intrepid philosophical counselor (or life coach), we investigate The Lost Love of the Latest Tycoon, examining the role of the muse, the magnificent intemperate impulses of the femme fatale, and the allure of the casting couch, as we witness the fall of an empire in the twilight of the egoists.
Blazing with eye-opening drama, keen psychological and philosophical insights, and layers of linguistic pyrotechnics, not to mention scintillating VFX, the reader is at once awed and entertained by this post-lux piece de resistance.
About the Author
Using the pseudonym Konrad Ventana, literally “Bold Counsel through a Window,” the author looks behind the curtains at the ideologies of our modern times and examines the potential for future development. This is the second book of The Post-Lux Trilogy (on artistic creativity), which has recently received Editors Choice and Rising Star awards.
Summary
“The Unbearable Sadness of Zilch” by Konrad Ventana.
Published by iUniverse.
ISBN: 9781440158247, 160 pp, 6×9, Perfect Bound Softcover.
ISBN: 9781440158261, 160 pp, 6×9, Dust Jacket Hardcover.
ISBN: 9781440158254, 160 pp, E-Book.
Available from: www.iUniverse.com, www.bn.com, and www.amazon.com .
