Etger Keret’s “The Nimrod Flipout”

You willfully sign your mind up to be messed with when you walk into a movie like Black Swan or sit down to read stories by authors like Hunter S. Thompson. The camera work and anxiety addled narrators ensnare you with surreal yet gripping conflict; the aftermath leaving you to contemplate altered senses of reality. Then, on the other hand, there are authors who use subtler methods to stir the mind. Methods that feel as if reading the story is an act of meditation, not an exorcism. One such author is Etger Keret.  In his collection of short stories called The Nimrod Flipout, each story has a gravity that moves you through the virtue of his extremely nuanced creation of three dimensional characters within four pages. Like Black Swan and Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, there are surreal plot twists that serve as metaphors for real life experiences. Yet his metaphors don’t repulse you. They ring so sweetly, yet unsettlingly, accurate that your mind lingers with the image, seeing instead the surreal as real.

The opening story, “Fatso,” is the clearest example of his technique. Click here for the full text, available through LA Weekly. It tells the story of a man who discovers his girlfriend turns into a man at night. An absurd idea and an obvious deal breaker (for most, I assume). The outcome forces you to examine your own relationship and whether or not  you accept your partner’s inner ‘Fatso’. Other favorites from this collection of short stories are “Gur’s Theory of Boredom,” “Shriki,” and “A Thought In The Shape of A Story.”

I’ve used both “Fatso” and “Gur’s Theory of Boredom” in the classroom. The latter led to an interesting debate on whether love is motivated by boredom. A ’4 corner debate’ on Gur’s theory would have been ideal, but now I know for next year.

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