Flicker

by Theodore Roszak

From the golden age of art movies and underground cinema to X-rated porn, splatter films, and midnight movies, this breathtaking thriller is a tour de force of cinematic fact and fantasy, full of metaphysical mysteries that will haunt the dreams of every moviegoer.

Jonathan Gates could not have anticipated that his student studies would lead him to uncover the secret history of the movies—a tale of intrigue, deception, and death that stretches back to the 14th century. But he succumbs to what will be a lifelong obsession with the mysterious Max Castle, a nearly forgotten genius of the silent screen who later became the greatest director of horror films, only to vanish in the 1940s, at the height of his talent.

Now, 20 years later, as Jonathan seeks the truth behind Castle's disappearance, the innocent entertainments of his youth—the sexy sirens, the screwball comedies, the high romance—take on a sinister appearance. His tortured quest takes him from Hollywood's Poverty Row into the shadowy lore of ancient religious heresies.

He encounters a cast of exotic characters, including Orson Welles and John Huston, who teach him that there's more to film than meets the eye, and journeys through the dark side of nostalgia, where the Three Stooges and Shirley Temple join company with an alien god whose purposes are anything but entertainment.

Genres: Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Film, Thriller, Novels, Crime

592 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Theodore Roszak was Professor Emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay. He is best known for his 1969 text, The Making of a Counter Culture.

Roszak first came to public prominence in 1969, with the publication of his The Making of a Counter Culture[5] which chronicled and gave explanation to the European and North American counterculture of the 1960s. He is generally credited with the first use of the term "counterculture".

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 1 out of 5]

Apparently TikTok is awash with videos demonstrating that your arm is magnetic after you’ve had your Covid vaccination, thus proving that they have MICROCHIPPED you as part of the sinister plan to microchip the entire human race. Wake up, sheeple! This was a PLANDEMIC not a pandemic. Geddit?

I really hate stupid conspiracy theories so the moment I realised that this up-till-then amusing comedy about film obsessives (it was getting very close to a rather cruel caricature of ME) was going to be an elaborate exploration of a fictional conspiracy involving the usual suspects (Templars, Popes, the Albigensian Crusade, you know) I dropped it like a hot genetically-modified potato.

I should have taken the cover of the book seriously. 1) the tag line says “Sunset Boulevard meets The Name of the Rose." Leaving aside the crassness of those “something meets something” enticements (wanna see something kid? Fight Club meets Bambi! Step right inside, only ten thin dollars) I should have realised it was going to be some groanworthy epic of silliness, and 2) there is a blurb by our old friend Brett Easton Ellis telling us that this book will fill the reader with “an awful creeping dread”, which is a good way of describing how I feel whenever I see the name Brett Easton Ellis. So these were two warning signs which I blithely ignored, just like those idiots in The Blair Witch Project.

These reviews by Krokzero

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

And Elizabeth K

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

come to some grim conclusions after they were kind enough to read the whole book.

SOUNDTRACK

Everyone’s Gone to the Movies : Steely Dan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H28Zo...

Movies is Magic : Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nxfn...

Saturday Night at the Movies : The Drifters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIkjF...

Music for Films : Brian Eno

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40V2o...

Hollywood Rag : Cannon’s Jug Stompers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kglTy...

Relax : Frankie Goes to Hollywood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh4tH...



"Personally I love this book!"
"Me too."
"Me too."
"Me too."

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars ("I really liked it").

Short version: Despite a troubling (and dated) narrative voice and an off-the-rails ending, I greatly enjoyed this book about hidden film imagery and religious conspiracy.

Long version: The worst part about this book is the narrator/author. He's a curmudgeon (I'm blending the author and narrator together, which I think in this case is fair). He represents the very worst of baby boomer patriarchy. The only women important in this book are ones that sleep with the narrator (on one trip to Europe, he sleeps with both a 17-year-old college student and a 70+ retired actress. Yup). Modern culture is, according to the narrator, literally destroying humanity; MTV and John Waters movies are soon going to have us all grunting like cavemen. However, the pop culture of HIS generation--the cheesy movies and comic books--THOSE are worth studying at universities. Sometimes the plot is interrupted so the narrator can go on multiple-page rants about "kids these days." (He especially, for some reason, hates punks. It's almost adorable.) I don't think this is done on purpose to create a character, either--I get the feeling this is the author's voice.

This book is also slow paced. I enjoyed each revelation about (sadly fictional) Max Castle and his filmography, but I can see why some readers thought it boring.

And, like many conspiracy novels, you have to really suspend your disbelief. I was willing to do that because I have a weakness for stories about cults and fringe religious zealots, but this book is pretty over the top. And the ending! I love it because it's so ridiculous.

What I especially enjoyed were the (lengthy) descriptions of the films--especially the subliminal and symbolic elements. I also loved the religious iconography and the slow reveal about the cult and its plans.

Overall I greatly enjoyed this book. This is a good addition to the sub-genre of thrillers about movies, along with Night Film, Experimental Film, and Syndrome E.

ETA: I just watched Videodrome for the first time and this book really wants to be that movie.

[Gregor Xane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Totally engrossing. I am a sucker for this kind of story, however. But it is truly a paragon of the "lone investigator gets in over his head" genre. Fantastic!

[Elizabeth K. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oy gevalt, this was terrible.

The set-up was intriguing -- Templar-esque conspiracy has been hiding secret subliminal messages in films. Especially at the beginning of the book, the whole classic film culture is so very present that if you are a film history fan at all it's very easy to get sucked in.

Then, it takes a turn for the annoying. Essentially, the authorial voice seems to be an old guy who maintains that the culture of his youth was insightful, poignant and significant, in contrast to the culture of following generations which is vapid, hollow, and immoral, and he WON'T STOP BRAYING ABOUT IT. The last half of the book consists of endless variations on "hey you kids get off my lawn!"

A particularly painful aspect of this novel is that Roszak managed to create a group of teenage characters who are even more cringe-inducing than poor, sweet Madeleine L'Engle's hopeless teen gang in The Young Unicorns. Just completely missing the mark with capturing any sense of a believable youth experience, it's like a paranoid fantasy of mohawks and bad grammar.

The cherry on top of all this is that he also communicates a palpable nostalgia for the misogynistic, anti-Semitic, and homophobic days of golden age Hollywood (as opposed to now, I guess). I suspect he would defend that choice by claiming that Hollywood was misogynistic, anti-Semitic, and homophobic ... yeah, but that's not the part you're supposed to miss, dude.

To add one more complaint, this book also embraces the belief that the most terrifying thing to academic white guys is a sexualized black guy. Alas, Mandingo.

Grade: D for dreadful
Recommended: You know, I have heard of people loving this book, and I don't get it.

[Oliver Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant conspiracy thriller that manages to pull a huge amount of richness out of its fairly hokey plot. Great characters, huge amounts of fascinating detail about the history of cinema and a wonderful ending. I really loved it.

[Becca Balistreri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theodore Roszak knows film and loves it - the technology, the history, the benchmarks. The mystery he devises is complex, believable, and eerie. Every time I see a film, I think for a moment about the implications of his book.

Just keep telling yourself - it's all just a story.

[José Nebreda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Turbadora y absorbente. Una historia plagada de personajes oscuros, damas glamorosas y todo tipo de seres atormentados de una u otra manera, con los templarios y los cátaros de por medio, pero que sobre todo trata de cine y de una técnica secreta muy inquietante.

[Kansas · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2024...

“Mi madre era una espectadora ávida, una fanática que iba dos veces por semana a sesiones triples de cortometrajes variados. Usaba las salas de cine como millones de americanos a fines de la aciaga década de los años 30: como refugio a veinticinco centavos del calor del verano y del frío del invierno, como preciosa vía de escape del dilatado sufrimiento de la Depresión."


Desde pequeña he visto siempre mucho cine, ahora ya no tanto por falta de tiempo pero siempre he mantenido viva esa curiosidad por estos cineastas que de alguna forma traspasan las pantallas de cine y se apoderan de tí, convirtiendo la experiencia visual en algo que puede funcionar como un espejo de tu propia vida. "Parpadeo" aborda casi como ninguna otra novela esta experiencia porque es difícil que una novela logre captar justo ese momento en que el cine pasa de mero entretenimiento a algo que va más allá, el momento en que tú como espectador tomas conciencia, por ejemplo, de que "La noche del cazador" no es solo una simple película de terror, o "Notorious" de Hitchcock una simple película negra de espías cazando nazis, o "Centauros del desierto" una tópica película del oeste… cuando llegado un momento reconoces en estas películas estas otras capas medio ocultas baja la etiqueta del género, esas capas que hablan de la soledad de Ethan, o el amor tóxico entre Alicia Huberman y Devlin, o incluso el desamparo de unos niños enfrentados al horror doméstico en "La noche del cazador", justo es el momento en que ya sabes que has pasado esa fase del mero entretenimiento y te implicas: no olvidas ya ciertos personajes incluso años después de haber visto ciertas películas. “Me vino un pensamiento tan vivido como si perteneciera a la banda sonora: vivimos en película, en una película, en la piel de una burbuja, lo real yace detrás, a la espera de abrirse paso a paso, de tragarnos, de reclamarnos”. Así que se puede decir que Parpadeo como las buenas películas capta perfectamente esta simbiosis entre entretenimiento y arte, algo difícil de alcanzar porque a lo largo de sus casi 800 páginas, Theodore Roszak no solo construye una novela en torno a la historia del cine sino y lo más importante, sus personajes están continuamente hablando de películas, contándolas, viviéndolas e identificándolas con sus propias vidas: sobre todo es una novela en la que cuentan cómo se sienten al ver ciertas películas.


“Debo estar agradecido, consciente de que el torpe deseo que estos pocos momentos fugaces de seducción cinematográfica aceleraron en mí fue el primer destello crepuscular de la adultez. Con ellos, fui aprendiendo la diferencia entre lo sexual y lo sensual. El sexo, a fin de cuentas, es un apetito espontáneo, borbotea sin forma ni esilo desde los jugos adolescentes del cuerpo. Estamos predispuestos a él como todo animal simple que cae en celo y se aparea de manera mecánica. Pero la sensualidad -instinto básico reelaborado por arte del producto mental susceptible de ser interpretado hasta la saciedad-, es propia del humano maduro. Idealiza la carne y la convierte en un emblema despojado.”


Y ese clic de toma de conciencia saltará en la vida de Jonathan Gates, el narrador de esta brillantísima novela, cuando como ingenuo devorador de películas malas, conoce a a Clarissa Swann ("Qué dicha era explorar esta fantasmagoría de la mente llamada cine. Y qué privilegio tener a Clarissa Swann como guía personal.") que es quién le hará cambiar la percepción de cómo ver cine, de descubrir el alma que hay en ciertas películas, de darle a conocer a cineastas autores en cuyos personajes se ve reflejado: ese será justo el instante en que la novela adquiere una dimensión única porque Clarissa entiende que el cine y la vida son inseparables. Clare se convertirá en una mujer que le influirá profundamente en el rumbo que irá tomando su vida, porque la década de los 50 es justo el momento en el que el cine empezaba a tomarse en serio más allá del puro entretenimiento y a ser contemplado ya como digno de estudio académico.


"Desde que me tomé el cine en serio, la misma noche que mi madre me llevó a ver Les Enfants du Paradis, supe que ahí había algo, más recóndito. Algo más que el glamour, el encanto. Algo detrás de eso. Un poder. Alguna cosa capaz de penetrar y agarrarte. Solo era una cría, pero supe que el mundo civilizado se volatilizaba ."


Por este y otros motivos, Parpadeo, es una novela difícil de clasificar aunque yo la encajaría en una especie de subgénero (inventado por mí) al que llamo ficciones cinéfilas, en el que incluyo algunas obras de ficción en torno al cine, pero no coloco cualquier novela en este subgénero sino que deben ser obras que cumplan un requisito imprescindible y esto es la representación de cómo el cine puede moldear nuestra alma, que es además una cita de Parpadeo que me viene que ni pintada para este tipo de libros. Steve Erickson, Robert Coover, Ramsey Campbell, entre otros, pocos hasta ahora, porque como ya digo, no cualquier novela en torno al cine como ficción encajaría en este subgénero, son autores que para mí cumplen a la perfección este requisito. Me enrollo como siempre, pero a lo que quiero llegar es a que Parpadeo como novela se asemeja a esas películas en las que encuentras el equilibrio perfecto entre arte y entretenimiento e incluso lo llega a ratificar uno de los personajes de esta novela: “A Victor le dije que se acabó la teoría. Ahora solo quiero disfrutar del cine”, y nunca hubo una mejor representación de esto que la era del cine de los años 30 y 40 cuando comenzaron a llegar cineastas europeos, sobre todo alemanes a Estados Unidos huyendo del estado de terror en el que se había convertido Europa. Curt y Robert Siodmak, Fritz Lang, Edgar Ulmer, Max Ophuls, Murnau, Douglas Sirk y así podría citar nombres hasta el infinito. Fueron cineastas que supieron encontrar ese equilibrio porque se vieron en la necesidad de trabajar para la industria americana bajo unas condiciones en las que el requisito inapelable era entretener a gran público, pero al mismo tiempo se las arreglaron para colar, la mayoría de las veces, subliminalmente, el arte como bandera. Usando la atmósfera como excusa para esconder la falta de medios, ya que muchas de estas películas eran de serie B con un presupuesto mínimo, consiguieron crear auténticas obras de arte lanzando entre líneas, casi entre parpadeos, mensajes bajo una segunda capa de lectura, el sexo, los problemas sociales, y ciertos temas tabú se colaban tan ambiguamente que pudieron traspasar cualquier censura de la época. Pues de esto va precisamente Parpadeo, de Max von Kastell, un director de cine mudo alemán que arriba en Hollywod y se convierte en Max Castle. Von Kastell/Castle se convertirá de mano de la pluma de Theodore Roszak en el representante perfecto de esos cineastas artesanos y emigrados a Estados Unidos, que tuvieron que malvivir, que hacer concesiones, que malvenderse a una industria que los trataba como escoria, pero ellos se las arreglaron para crear arte casi a escondidas.


"Aunque podía hablar de técnica cinematográfica con los mejores, nunca permitió que el medio importase más que el significado del cine. Ella insistía en que las películas eran algo más que un saco de ilusiones ópticas; eran literatura para el ojo, en potencia igual de importantes que cualquier página escrita. De ella aprendí a escuchar siempre la palabra, a observar la imagen."


Parpadeo pasa por varias fases y Roszak está continuamente cambiando el rumbo. En un principio puede parecer una novela de formación, y ciertamente lo es, para a partir de la mitad pasa convertirse en una especie de novela de detectives, o en algo parecido a un thriller erudito, filosófico, surrealista en su etapa final, en el que entran nuevos personajes y nuevas perspectivas en acción. Jonathan Gates en cuyo primer tercio es un joven e ingenuo aprendiz de cine bajo el ala de Clarissa Swann, pasa a convertirse en una suerte de investigador/historiador desde el momento en que llega a sus manos una película del misterioso director de cine mudo alemán Max Castle, el centro neurálgico de esta novela en la misma medida en que lo será Clarissa Swann. Ambos serán dos pilares fundamentales en la vida de Jonathan Gates, ella por dar sentido a su vida a través del cine “Nada de rememorar. A esta edad soy demasiado vulnerable”, y Max Castle por convertirse en materia de su estudio académico. Desde el mismo momento en que Jonathan descubre una de las películas olvidadas de Castle, sucumbe a una especie de obsesión por saber más sobre él, un genio casi olvidado que cuando llega a Hollywood se convierte en el enfant terrible de las peliculas de terror hasta desaparecer del mapa poco antes de la Segunda Guerra mundial, en el que se le dio por desparecido. Max Castle, un genio incomprendido para Jonathan, pero una especie de papanatas para el mundo del cine que nunca se lo tomó en serio, se convertiría con el tiempo y gracias a los estudios académicos de Jonathan en una figura de culto para la historia del cine, también se convertirá para él en una obsesión porque necesitará desentrañar ese misterio que envuelve su vida. “El arte está en la ocultación. ¿Es que no lo sabes a estas alturas? Uno trabaja siempre bajo la superficie. Es la única manera de penetrar en las mentes: cuando no te ven venir.” Hay una premisa que regirá esta búsqueda incansable que va más allá de las películas a simple vista y esto será la capacidad de Max Castle de contar una historia dentro de la historia a través de una misteriosa técnica narrativa en la que se esconde otra película dentro de la película y a medida que Jonathan va avanzando en el misterio que suponen los mensajes subliminales que Castle dejó soterrados en sus películas, Parpadeo va adquiriendo cada vez más un tinte más sombrio y oscuro. Lo que empieza siendo una novela de formación en la que el narrador se va conociendo a sí mismo y creciendo gracias al cine, se va desarrollando en una obra oscurísima y turbadora en torno a nuestras obsesiones.


“Pero veo adónde queréis llegar en las notas. Las sombras. Todo está en las sombras. Sobrecogedoras.
[...]
Ella comparaba el trabajo de cámara en "Sombras sobre Sing Sing" con Caravaggio, cuyos lienzos pueden volverse tan oscuros que provocan fatiga visual. Sin embargo el espectador sigue mirando, pensando que hay algo ahí que no quiere perderse."


No es la primera vez que leo Parpadeo, ha sido una relectura que ha funcionado también como si fuera una primera vez, e incluso se puede decir que la he disfrutado más que cuando la descubrí. Theodore Roszak crea una obra que a mi me sigue pareciendo perfecta y estoy convencida de que incluso los lectores sin bagaje cinematográfico la disfrutarán en la misma medida, ya que Roszak al igual que su iconíco personaje Clarissa Swann (“Ella hacía que sus lectores se sintieran parte descubridora de estos escasos granos de oro...”) cuando hablaba de cine, consigue despertar esa curiosidad eterna por desenterrar historias ocultas. Roszak pasa por todas las etapas del cine desde el mundo más primitivo, a la epoca dorada y clásica de Hollywood, pasando por el cine underground, la nouvelle vague, las películas más raras que se podían visionar solo a medianoche, y así comparando el cine con la vida, le sale una novela inclasificable en la que en esta relectura quizás lo que más me haya impresionado haya sido toda la sección final que parece sacada de una película totalmente experimental y que convierten esta novela en una sátira de la crítica cinematográfica, o el cine de minorías que se quiere situar siempre por encima de la cultura popular. Me sigue flipando Parpadeo y hay tanto que rascar, tantas capas, que me alegra saber que está en la estanteria esperando una nueva lectura. Gracias a los socios de Pálido Fuego por esta maravillosa segunda edición.

"- Cuando ven películas en casa, ¿apagan las luces?
- No, las dejan encendidas. Cenan, hacen tareas del hogar, discuten, van a lo suyo...
- Pero eso lo cambia todo. Así no puede haber sensación de aislamiento. Para el parpadeo, hace falta oscuridad, como en un templo, una cueva. Cada cual a solas con sus fantasías."

♫♫♫ Le mépris (El Desprecio) - Georges Delerue ♫♫♫





The Black Cat,1934, Edgar Ulmer

[Sonia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flicker pissed me off. Why? Because it was too long, too suspenseful, and I didn't have a whole lot of free time for reading this week. Impatient to unravel the mystery, I stayed up late, I arose early just to find out what the hell was going to happen!

The book is filled with crap I love to hate: snobby sophistication, scholarly intelligence, critics, conspiracy theories, name-dropping, detailed technological descriptions. And yet despite all this and a prolonged (and yes, masterful) suspense, Flicker was compelling.

This book had a hold on me and even now at it's completion, it won't let go. I loved the beginning, I loved the ending, and although the middle left me frustrated, it was only because I so eagerly wanted to solve the great mystery of Castle's work.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

If, rather than setting his tales in French bookstores or secluded Italian monasteries, Umberto Eco focused his paranoia about secret societies on the world of film, Flicker is the book that he would write. Crammed to overflowing with film lore and history, Flicker is both a crash course in film theory and a horrifying thriller that makes itself known not through any blood and gore but a very tangible creeping dread that suffuses nearly every page.

Flicker follows the life of Jonathon Gates, a young film student at UCLA in the early sixties who becomes enamored with the films of little known director from the 1930s named Max Castle. While his films are nothing special, B movies of the worst sort filmed with little budget and no name actors destined for late night television airings, Gates finds something hidden within the director's films that points to a talent, and an underlying philosophy, that compels him to search for the source of who Castle was and why his films are still cutting edge works of art over thirty years later.

This search sends Gates on a quest for Castle's final film, a horrifyingly dark adaptation of Heart of Darkness, that sends Gates flying around the globe from Orson Welles' dinner table to a Swiss orphanage run by a mysterious religious sect to a grindhouse theater in a dank (in more than one sense of the word) basement. What Gates discovers as he peels away the layers of mystery surrounding Castle is a world on the brink of extinction and a populace clamoring for a hell on earth that makes Castle's films appear as benign as Shirley Temple. A well-paced read that should delight both lovers of noir detective stories and old school fans of art house cinema, Flicker is a book that will grab hold of you and not let go until the final frame is finished.

[Krok Zero · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. Please read Steve Erickson's brilliant Zeroville instead. Zeroville is one of the most profound statements ever made about the cinema; Flicker is a silly, overlong Da Vinci Code–esque thriller disguised (poorly) as a profound statement about the cinema. Early chapters limning the world of late '50s cinephilia and the oeuvre of a fictional German director are rather interesting, but problems quickly arise: (1) Roszak fundamentally misunderstands the evolution of culture in the 20th century's second half, getoffmylawnishly lamenting the "decline" in "taste" that was actually the radical trailblazing of '60s/'70s film; (2) did he really think anyone would care about some dumb HISTORICAL INTRIGUE concerning SECRET RELIGIOUS ORDERS using movies to TAKE OVER THE WORLD or whatever? Such lame plottiness overtakes the book somewhere around the halfway point. There is also an inexplicable surfeit of ridiculous/misogynistic sex scenes. Also the writing is stilted and prosaic; it's clear Roszak is an academic, not a real novelist. But seriously, read Zeroville -- it is the masterpiece that this book doesn't even come close to being.

[Маx Nestelieiev · Rating 5 out of 5]

один із найкращих романів, які я прочитав за останні роки 2-3. усе, що я люблю: (псевдо)інтелектуальна оповідь+теорія змови (від маніхеїв через катарів до католиків)+ (старі) фільми+закос під Умберто Еко. в основі - цікава думка про небезпеку, приховану в сучасному кінематографі - про одвічну боротьбу світла і темряви. назагал - цікава і почасти переконлива спроба об'єднати всі теорії змов і таємні культи й показати, що таємницю ніколи особливо не приховували.

[Moira · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you ignore the sexism and the terrible fake Roth sex scenes, it's pretty damn good, especially the last two or three chapters.

[Patrick O'Duffy · Rating 1 out of 5]

The premise of Flicker is fantastic and compelling - that 1930s B-movie director Max Castle used a fantastic variety of unknown cinematic techniques and tricks to embed hidden messages and images within his horror/noir films, messages that lead back to an ancient religious sect and eventually to a vast conspiracy. There's so much that can be done with that, and reading Flicker is an exercise in impatience, waiting for the story to kick into high gear and the premise to pay off.

It never does.

Instead, the novel is a mediocrely-written potboiler that promises suspense and intellectual stimulation and never actually delivers, instead meandering around America and Europe while dumping occasional lead weights of info about the Templars, the Cathars and editing techniques, and digressions into how young people are soulless monsters and no good films were made after 1972. It's marketed as a thriller, but the first - and last - moment of danger and tension is on page 600, and the book ends limply and infuriatingly 70 pages later. God, even The da Vinci Code has stuff happening in it.

And yet I read the whole thing. Which is strange, because I'm a big believer in throwing books aside if they don't grab me in the first chapter or are badly written. And I think the reason why is that, on top of that terrific premise, there's an air of authenticity around the discussions of 1930s-1940s filmmaking that pulls you in, that leaves you believing that this world and these techniques are are genuine and wanting to know how these things were done. The book fails to do that, because Roszak isn't very good at describing the things he knows, but nonetheless you can tell that he really does know them, rather than just having researched them. There's passion in there, and sometimes that can keep you reading even if the book itself ain't that good. Which it ain't.

So if that premise sounds interesting, find a synopsis of Flicker and take notes. And maybe give the novel a try if you want to get a grip on the feel of the times, because Roszak's second-hand pre-war Hollywood, filtered through the memories of supporting characters and their stories of disappointment and obsession, has a definite if unfocused power, as does the described-in-memory figure of Max Castle, half madman, half visionary, half creepster.

But don't blame me if the rest of the book sits like mouldy cement in your head, or the ending makes you throw the book across the room. I warned you, damnit, I warned you.

[Ignacio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esta novela abusa de algunos recursos que me repelen en otros libros. De hecho le pondría el blurb "Más que una novela, Roszak encadena una secuencia de ladrillos informativos", y no estaría exagerando. Sin embargo, a partir del misterio "¿Quién fue Max Castle?" el ideólogo de la contracultura urde una ficción de misterio que glosa el poder del cine en toda su amplitud. Además incluye bonus inesperados como la pertinencia contemporánea de la cultura basura o lo apocalíptico y llega a tocar el horror cósmico (ese final) sin que nada parezca fuera de lugar. Parpadeo es a una historia secreta del mundo lo que El nombre de la rosa a la novela de detectives; un festival de erudición enmarcado en una narración un tanto irregular en la que, si caes, no puedes ni quieres escapar. Si te va el cine, vas a disfrutarla.

[Jeremy Maddux · Rating 5 out of 5]

The main character is left to an incredibly cruel fate, which is the only choice in which I disagree with the author here. Have you ever read a book that goes on so long, yet is so juiced to the gills with information that you feel nauseous afterwards? That's how this book made me feel. But man, what a ride it was! If you don't like your books to be overly talky, this might not be for you. There are no train heists or explosions (Lipsky's funeral only sort of counts). Instead, a more quiet, gradual menace is threaded throughout the story. It's a menace that points back to the Cathars, Knights Templar, etc. But don't mistake this for Da Vinci Code. Actually, another problem I had with the book was the main character's penchant for savaging B Movies, i.e. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Troma, Bucket of Blood. Didn't care for his scathing, condescending tone when forced to sit through these types of movies. It felt unbecoming of a protagonist I'm supposed to root for, but he was, after all, a film critic, and who really listens to film critics?

[Szplug · Rating 2 out of 5]

Roszak loves film—he's forgotten more about the movies than I could possibly ever know—and this passion throbs throughout the portions of Flicker that explore the cinematic history of early-modern Hollywood. The entire conceit of a cult B-movie horror director, Max Castle, adumbrating within his forgotten filmography the subliminal strains of a monstrous conspiracy—the evidence for which seeps forth from basement screenings, underground theatres, lusty ex-starlets, and German-accented film crew—is the perfect setup for a nice, eerie little dalliance with the macabre realm of ancient evil. Sadly, Roszak's story eventually goes off the rails into the silly stuff. What's more, his protagonist narrator is so utterly annoying, such a clueless clown, that his literary voice became nigh on intolerable before I had crested the two-hundred page mark. Imaginative, captivating in stretches, sexy in an over-the-top, loudmouth manner—but ultimately failing to deliver the horror goods, or even consistently creepy entertainment, in an amount commensurate with the story's raw potentiality.

I am going to be eventually finding my way to Zeroville , Steve Erickson's 2007 work that explores the Hollywood that could have been if the drugs flowed like tap-water and dimensional hiccoughs were a commonplace experience—or at least, that should be the case, if he holds at all to previous form. Speaking of the Los Angeles maestro of eerie moodiness, he has a new novel being released at the end of this month. If I somehow slipstreamed the first-named book above after Amnesiascope , I'd have completed the Erickson canon in preparation for this newest excursion into elusive identity, sexuality, and temporality within the L.A. Basin. In any event, the combination of the supernatural or the uncanny with cult cinema is a match made in literary heaven, a concept just dying to be executed in a first-rate fashion. This doubtless is what heightened my disappointment with Flicker,because I was so eminently stoked heading into it—what with all of the requisite elements having been tantalizingly trumpeted upon the back cover—and rather quickly underwhelmed.

[Peter Landau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Movies are stupid, bloated commodities that have lost what little charm they showed in their infancy. They’ve grown into a cultural opiate that has moved from church-like communal theaters to isolated viewing in the palm of your hand. A mobile prison. That’s the good news. In FLICKER, an epic novel of moviedom, conspiracy and religious doom by Theodore Roszak, movies are evil. They’re an instrument of fanaticism and apocalyptic fantasy. For almost 600 pages our gullible innocent narrator is on the quest to uncover the unsung genius director who died seeking funding for his magnum opus. In his wake he left a mysterious and fragmentary oeuvre that reveals subliminal messages and strange rites. The book is too satiric to be strictly a thriller, though there are moments, especially towards the end, when I felt trapped in an inescapable horror. Along the way, there’s a lot about the movies. Woven into the fiction are true gems of film history and trivia that stretch from the birth of cinema to the 1970s, with appearances by Orson Wells and others. It made me think that movies are not as bad as I once believed, and they might just be the end of us all.

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gosn Rosak me je izuo, pa me obuo u kroksice, a na samom kraju me preobuo u vrlo neudobne baletanke.
Šta sam htela reći? Pa, iskreno, prva polovina je nerealno dobra. Svet koji je izgradio u toj polovini, atmosfera, likovi, ma bila sam ljubomorna na rečenice koje je sastavio. A onda je usledilo razočaranje u drugom delu gde je počeo da davi sa verskim sektama i verskim psihopatama. Tu sam već gubila koncentraciju i pitala se zašto mu je taj jeftini twist a la Da Vinčijev kod bio potreban? Na samom samcijatom kraju (čitajte: poslednja dva poglavlja) uspeo je da se iskobelja iz tog mulja i popravi utisak. Kraj nije baš onakav kakav sam zamislila (moram pod hitno da prestanem da smišljam krajeve i da se onda redovno razočaram), ali cela ideja knjige + fenomenalna prva polovina ipak zaslužuju svih 5 zvezdica (iako je realna ocena više 4, ali mi se bašbaš svideo taj prvi deo, dođavola).

[Iryna Chernyshova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Просотаний безліччю імен відомих і вигаданих акторів і режисерів цей громіздкий важковаговик прикидається чи то конспірологичним трилером про секти чи шпігунським романом, а для себе я назвала його романом про 25 кадр. Повільно і плавно (часто досить нудно) ми підбиралися до кінцівки, аж раптом автор зміг здивувати неочікуваним поворотом.

Цікаво було б почитати цей твір приблизно в час його написання (1991), бо зараз це все виглядає трохи наївно і незграбно, як часто згадуване німе чорно-біле кіно з навмисними ефектами типу вирячених очей. Або ми вже виросли з такої літератури, коли будь-хто грався в Еко з різними ступенями вдалості, щоб щіро насолодитися сюжетом, бо йому до біса не вистачає жвавості. А ще, якщо сприймати це все серйозно, можна навіки розлюбити кіно, в будь-якому разі навряд чи станеш сінефілом.

Питання з зірочкою - чи надихалися цім твором Charlie Lewinsky і DFW, бо ж могли, могли.

[Bigminipig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Здається мені, все менше і менше такого кіно в цьому світі.


«В течение следующих нескольких секунд на экране чернота - она приковывает к себе взгляд. Почему? Неосвещенный экран заполняется невидимым вихрем; он начинает незаметно проникать в наше сознание, вовлекая в себя и наш рассудок. На поверхности мы видим всего лишь что-то похожее на царапины на пленке, блики света, но воздействие их на нас гипнотическое. Зритель физически ощущает падение в бездонный колодец - все глубже, глубже, глубже... Публика как милосердия ждет привычного слова:
«Конец». Касл отказывает им в этом. Падение продолжается…»

[J · Rating 1 out of 5]

At some point, around 100 pages into this book's Stephen King-sized length, I stopped being engaged by the story, or existing in the book's world, and just felt like I was talking a walk around the author's hateful and unsympathetic mind with all its self-congratulatory misconceptions and stunted notions of people, movies, and psychology.

The most startling thing about this book is just how unlikable every single character is. It's a parade of hollow cliches and ill-conceived caricatures that the author/protagonist looks down on: Teenagers are vacuous and stupid, French people are pretentious and talk too much, and women exist in the book only to be slept with (the only girl who the author/protagonist doesn't sleep with is literally named 'Slutty' and dismissed as both a 'she-monster' and 'the ugliest human specimin I'd ever come across').

The story is essentially a water-thin conglomeration of things that have appeared in modern thrillers. The author throws in a few secret orders, some lost documents, some washed-up movie stars, and that's about it. Instead of any real tension, suspense, twists, substantial subtext or subplots, the action is that of a protagonist/author lacking in self-awareness meandering around and engaging with a queue of poorly-manifested targets for his condescension.

As for the subject of movies in the book, the author/protagonist conceals his lack of knowledge and insight by abstraction and separation. I got quite frustrated hearing how wonderful and intelligent, or dated and superficial, a certain person's 'theories' were, without actually hearing those 'theories' themselves. I got no sense of love, or passion, or genuine connection with movies from this book - they are merely name-dropped and described with diverting randomness.

It's a bitter irony that a book which lambasts its own characters for having superficial, manipulative, and stupid understandings of movies, has just as negative and contrived an understanding of people themselves.

I tend to give 2 stars to books which are merely uninspired, and 1 star to books which are actively bad. For its unbelievably self-serving nature, its treatment of female characters as grotty wish-fulfillment, and a remarkable absence of substance or plotting, this is a book I can easily give one star to.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 1 out of 5]

Theodore Roszak, Flicker (Summit, 1991)

It must be twenty-five years ago now I tried to read Theodore Roszak's novel Bugs. I found it painfully boring, and never finished it. While the name stuck in my head for some odd reason, I never had any desire to read anything else the man wrote.

Jump ahead to 2003, and his out-of-print and previously obscure novel Flicker is announced as the source of Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream)'s latest film. I instantly recognized the name of the guy who wrote Bugs, and despite my misgivings decided to dive in again, then set about finding a copy (along with about ten thousand others). Instantly, hundreds of messages popped up all over the net asking where this book could be found, its price on bookfinder (and the rare ebay copy) skyrocketed. Amazon's zShops quickly sold out of copies. It's presently as sought after as Sierra Leone diamonds.

There's a copy at the Cleveland Public Library, folks. I'm done with it. And I hope that movie is a whole lot better than the book.

While I will give Roszak a few points for having a readable passage here and there (Sharkey describing the construction of his cameras to the narrator early in the book has an odd, slow hypnotic quality to it), and I was willing to give him more than the benefit of the doubt that I was just young and impatient when I tried Bugs, I found this book to have the same overwhelming problem as Bugs; it's painfully, glacially, unreadably slow. It's boring. Before reading Flicker, I'd have laughed if you'd told me you found a book whose author managed to make a threesome boring. But, well, here it is.

I can find absolutely nothing to recommend in Flicker, and again offer up a small prayer that Aronofsky can take this source material and make it into something watchable. (zero)

[Caitlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enjoyable trash with lots of golden age cinema references. But the writing is awful, the narrator is unbelievable, the sex scenes are putrid, it's 2-300 pages too long. The author's impression of world-renowned film critic discussion of movies is a little over-clearly from the imagination of a undergraduate film student of mediocre intelligence.

But, you know, I finished it. And really wanted to read other things afterwards.

[Pawit Mahattanasing · Rating 5 out of 5]

- หนุ่มนักวิชาการผู้ลุ่มหลงผลงานของผู้กำกับหนังเกรดต่ำ การสืบค้นลากโยงสู่เบื้องหลังลัทธิเก่าแก่
- เกือบข้ามเส้นสู่เรื่องไร้สาระ แต่หนุนไว้ด้วยตรรกะหนักแน่น ยอดเยี่ยม ทรงพลัง

- "เพื่อศิลปะ" ชาร์คกีพูด (น.180)
‎- "ฉันว่ามันคงไม่เป็น 'ศิลปะ' เพียงพอสำหรับแก แต่จะบอกอะไรให้ มันเป็นหนังที่ยอดเยี่ยมมาก ถ้าคำนึงถึงสิ่งที่เราพอมีปัญญาเอื้อมคว้ามาใช้ได้ ซึ่งแทบจะไม่มีอะไรเลย..." (น.187)
- ‎"...กระทั่งยามตกต่ำ เขายังทำหนังได้ดีกว่าพวกนี้เลย..." (น.194)
- ‎เธอยืนยันว่าความบันเทิงส่งอิทธิพลต่อชีวิตมากกว่าศิลปะ และส่งอิทธิพลอย่างครอบงำเบ็ดเสร็จ คนเราจะลดการปิดป้องลงเมื่อได้รับความเพลิดเพลิน ภาพพจน์และสารต่างๆ ก็จะแทรกซึมและยึดกุมได้อย่างลึกซึ้งมากกว่า (น.252)
- ‎เราศิวิไลกันแค่ไหนเชียว เราทุกคน? ศิวิไลหรือแค่ดัดจริต? (น.294)
- "‎...หลังจากตาเฒ่าวิลล์ เชคสเปียร์พูดอะไรไปหมดแล้ว ใครล่ะจะกล้าอ้าปากพูดอะไรโง่ๆ ขึ้นมาได้อีก?..." (น.443)
‎- "เพราะโลกนี้ที่เจ้าพักพิงอยู่ ได้กลับกลายเป็นอาณาจักรแห่งความมืด และเนื้อหนังที่เป็นเรือนกายของเจ้านั้น ก็คือ นรกภูมิ" (น.518)
‎- "ทำไมถึงจะไม่ล่ะ" (น.519)
- "ฮิตเลอร์พูดโกหกคำโต โตจนผู้คนต้องเชื่อ ผมเริ่มคิดว่า ความจริงคำโตก็มีเหมือนกัน โตจนไม่มีใครสามารถเชื่อมันได้..." (น.639)

[Marcheto Marcheto · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 estrellas, en realidad.

[Ernst · Rating 1 out of 5]

Chat GPT, bitte kürze das Buch auf die Hälfte, schreibe es in etwas anspruchsvollerer Sprache, entwirf plastischere Charaktere, gestalte die Dramaturgie spannender, konzipiere die Verschwörungstheorie glaubwürdiger…

Das beste an dem 850seitigen Elaborat ist die Inhaltsangabe (eine total spannende Geschichte über die fiktive (?) Verschwörung des Ordens der „Sturmwaisen“) und die Dokumente im Anhang.

Der Autor selbst war eigentlich eine durchaus nicht uninteressante Persönlichkeit, wobei ich noch nicht sicher bin, in welche Richtung sein Gedankengut weist (Verschwörungstheoretiker???).

Eines muss ich leider posthum sagen, seine Prosa ist nichts für mich, es ist so furchtbar abtörnend, seine vermutlich unlektorierten, geschwätzigen Gespräche zu lesen, die der studentisch anmutende Cast miteinander zu bequatschen hat. Und das ganze Buch besteht ja fast nur aus Dialogen, die alle dazu dienen sollen, uns auf eine langatmige Spurensuche mitzunehmen und dabei den Vorlieben der Protagonisten zu lauschen, natürlich wird ganz viel über Kino- und Filmgeschichte geschwafelt, mögen da auch irgendwo interessante Nuggets zu finden sein, aber das Problem ist, manches entspringt realer Geschichte andere sind wiederum fiktive Informationen und man müsste ständig parallel IMDB oder Wikipedia laufen haben. Und damit dürfte der Autor bei der Entstehung des Romans auch spekuliert haben, lange vor der Verbreitung des Internets oder gar entsprechender Recherche-Plattformen. Das Kalkül ist wohl, der durchschnittliche Leser kann es eh nicht überprüfen, also werden einfach reale und alternative Fakten gemischt. Und 800 Seiten werden es ja nur deshalb, weil es eine ganz dünne „geheimnisvolle“ Idee ist, die den Roman tragen soll und da wird natürlich viel Schaumschlaegerei betrieben, um davon abzulenken. Also gibt es unzählige, unnötige Abzweigungen. Daher genug von meiner Seite. Das ganze ist wirklich nur etwas für Leute die ein Faible für abstruse Verschwörungstheorien haben und gleichzeitig filmhistorisch übermäßig interessiert sind.

[Maddy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Essentially a Stephen King novel for cinephiles, which certainly has its merits. I'm mostly struck by how much of a void our protagonist is, barely a person, an empty vessel to be filled up by films and conspiracies.

[Giney · Rating 1 out of 5]

‘From the golden age of art movies and underground cinema to X-rated porn, splatter films, and midnight movies, this breathtaking thriller is a tour de force of cinematic fact and fantasy, full of metaphysical mysteries that will haunt the dreams of every moviegoer’

Well, bring it on! Except when the book arrived and the front cover advertised it as ‘Sunset Boulevard meet the DaVinci Code’ I felt some concern. This concern, it turns out, was the wrong reaction. The correct response would have been put the book back into its packaging, return it and never go near it again. Sadly for me, and lucky for you, I ploughed my way though all 672 pages so you won’t have to. What follows is a brief account of a tale that I hope will fill you with enough fear to not go investigating yourself.

In this book the reader is introduced to narrator and protagonist Jonathan Gates. This Jonathan is not hindered by any personality to speak of, nor has not much in the way of intellect. Most importantly, he has no motivation throughout the action and retelling of his story. It is never clear why he is undertaking his ‘quest of discovery’, why he persists, why he is even interested. In addition to this, Jonathan turns out to be irresistible to woman, which doesn’t make much sense, but then none of the characters in this novel are drawn as 3-dimensional beings with interior lives. None of this is helped by the clunky dialogue that makes it impossible to believe any of these people are real.

Additionally, both renowned and obscure Hollywood figures find in our vacant leading man a safe place to deposit mysterious snippets of information about an obscure early film director by the name of Max Castle and his work. What fun could have been had in exploring ‘The Golden Age of Cinema’, what provoking theory and doubt could have been sown in the readers mind! Alas, we are left with endless descriptions of non-existent movies that go on for pages and pages. The same ‘tricks’ are explained dozens of time till the reader is left in a comatose state.

This story has, at its heart, a secret society. Yet everything we learn about them could be summarised in about two pages. Then, at long last, when we reach the final act of the book and we learn a little more about these Orphans of the Storm it turns out the source of this information is highly unreliable. When our narrator awakes in the most unlikely of places with the most unlikely companion the novel stumbles from the ridiculous into the absurd. The author seems to have attempted to pack about seven narratives and five genres into one book.

As he does throughout the story, Jonathan passively accepts his situation without much deliberation or drive. He deduces that he has been ‘kidnapped’ by the order because he knows too much. But, he doesn’t. All the information he was given is negated, or highly suspicious. None of what came before is revealed to be true or false, thereby rendering all of it irrelevant. Perhaps this could make for an interesting read in the hands of someone more capable; elevating this doubt around the motives of a religious cult active in the movie industry, and by extension the reliability of the narrator, to a captivating thrill ride. However, the thought that most eloquently sums up the feeling one is left with at the end is quoted by our protagonist himself: Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.

[Philip · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think what appealed to me about the book initially were the similarities between Flicker and one of my favourite books - The Book of Illusions: A Novel by Paul Auster. Both deal with reclusive characters from the movie industry who have mysteriously disappeared (or in the case of Flicker, died) and a protagonist intrigued by their story. Throw in a mysterious religious conspiracy and I should have been hooked.

Unfortunately Flicker read like the unwanted love child of The Da Vinci Code and a turgid dissertation on film history. Even the 'twist' was a non-event and although I have yet to give up on a book, it was touch and go with this one. Not that it's badly written or even a bad concept, I was just waiting for something to happen and it never really did. Basically, it started off slow and then tapered off from there.

To give it at least some benefit of the doubt it's a long, slow paced book and a lot of the novels I've read recently have been fast paced, and short. Still, even though I was expecting a 608 page novel to have a fairly slow burn (and I often enjoy books where "nothing happens"), this one never really intrigued me enough to care what was going on. The strange addition of some 'cut' scenes at the end of the book just added to an underwhelming ending.