I don't know. This is Orson Welles we're talking about. Dude was into expansive visions of American mythology. I don't think he would be satisfied with an unknowable symbol, and I certainly don't think the viewing audience of the time was into that sort of thing. In The Killers, which works on the same disordered-flashback structure, we certainly find out why the Swede waited passively for his own murder.

Since this is the Literary thread, and since only one person other than me has read The Custom of the Country (and she's in a hurricane!), can anybody else suggest novelistic American-mythology, expansive representations of that country-to-city, rise-in-social-standing story? I'd like to interrogate the basic plot-eventuality further, and clearly Kane is too debatable at this point to qualify.

I wouldn't call it great literature, but Louis Lamour's Sitka explored some of that following its protagonist from his humble beginnings to increased status and sophistication later in life.

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Casper reccomends The Great Gatsby. Which, there's some potential there, although Gatsby is the country-to-city character, and we never get his viewpoint, only hints from Sam Waterston. (What is that character's name?? I am a dunce.)

But Gatsby himself always struck me as a story about reinvention -- he changes his name, throws some money around, presto! he's someone else.

Daisy Buchanan's story, now there's a character who needs to be beaten with a stick, and her flaws are associated with her living the monied life. And being a twit, I mean, but it's a lot harder to be a twit and get away with it if you live in a tenement on the Lower East Side.

(What is that character's name?? I am a dunce.)

Nick.

I don't think Kane is the point of the movie, particularly. It's a story about storytelling, not about him.

I *heart* Strega. That's what I loved about the movie. It's a narrative about narratives.

Also, since this is a lit thread, I thought I would proclaim The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time supremely underwhelming, and not worth your time if you have other options.

P-C, I appreciated it as an exercise in narrator voice and as a study of Ausberger's (which, according to my father, it's pretty accurate as), but I didn't enjoy it, per se.

I read Curious Incident to kids I was looking after, and it seemed to really interest them. It had them asking the questions it was supposed to, I think.

P-C, I appreciated it as an exercise in narrator voice and as a study of Ausberger's (which, according to my father, it's pretty accurate as), but I didn't enjoy it, per se.

Yeah, I agree. Although the exercise wore thin for me after a while, especially when the actual plot kicked in. It just irked me that interesting things were happening and the narrator didn't even realize it. And I know that's not the author's fault, but yeah. Kind of like with Moby Dick, I enjoyed the asides more than the story itself.

Yeah, I'm with Debet. I appreciated it, but I didn't enjoy it. And I usually do like to enjoy books.