Antkind, by Charlie Kaufman.

An absurd novel by the screenwriter best known for Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He has another movie coming out this September on Netflix, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, which he directed and co-wrote with Iain Reid from Reid’s novel.

Antkind is crazy. It’s over the top. It’s unafraid to go wherever Kaufman’s imagination goes, which is everywhere. It’s funny with a slapstick, or early Woody Allen tone. The plot follows a film critic trying to re-create by memory a three-month long movie that he saw only once. The book explodes in all directions. Kaufman’s usual interests appear: puppets, memory, doppelgängers. Kaufman’s invention never falters. Eventually we get to an army of animatronic Donald Trump clones ushering in the apocalypse (of course). But it lacks the human center that made Eternal Sunshine such a gem. And it’s very long. It’s in 90 short chapters, to parallel the 90 days of the lost movie, and it starts to feel like Kaufman just keeps writing to fulfill his own pre-assigned plan. It’s amusing enough to finish, but tedious, too. The endless sense of driving forward with the awakening realization that it’s not going anywhere reminded me of David Foster Wallace’s, Infinite Jest.