Ferdydurke
@ferdurduke.bsky.social
A writer working in the shadows of Kafka, Beckett, Lispector, and Gombrowicz, trying to make native language a foreign language.
I think mosquitoes are not afraid of a hand at all. It is the hand that should fear them. When the palm swings out and misses, it aches for nothing, then swells into a broad red welt, as if subjected to a second humiliation.
January 23, 2026 at 2:03 AM
I think mosquitoes are not afraid of a hand at all. It is the hand that should fear them. When the palm swings out and misses, it aches for nothing, then swells into a broad red welt, as if subjected to a second humiliation.
The Sheepdog
On Silence, Permission, and a House Full of Witnesses
open.substack.com
January 14, 2026 at 6:09 AM
Rocket Limericks from Gravity’s Rainbow
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
Rocket Limericks from Gravity’s Rainbow
There once was a thing called a V-2
open.substack.com
January 8, 2026 at 2:25 PM
Rocket Limericks from Gravity’s Rainbow
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
Bishop herself said that the poem was triggered by a typographical error she noticed in a newspaper: mammoth was printed as man-moth. From there, she began to imagine a “man-moth” literally, taking the word at face value. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47537/...
The Man-Moth
It lies at his feet like a circle for a doll to stand on, and he makes an inverted pin, the point magnetized to the moon. He does not see the moon; he observes only her vast properties, feeling the qu...
www.poetryfoundation.org
January 3, 2026 at 3:56 AM
Bishop herself said that the poem was triggered by a typographical error she noticed in a newspaper: mammoth was printed as man-moth. From there, she began to imagine a “man-moth” literally, taking the word at face value. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47537/...
The intrinsic advantage of mediocre literary works lies in the fact that their authors are still alive and continue to stand behind them. The true meaning of obsolescence.
— Kafka
— Kafka
January 1, 2026 at 3:25 AM
The intrinsic advantage of mediocre literary works lies in the fact that their authors are still alive and continue to stand behind them. The true meaning of obsolescence.
— Kafka
— Kafka
The various semiotic inscriptions that give rise to subjectivity do not maintain a permanently fixed or inevitable hierarchical order.
Subjectivity is plural and polyphonic.
— Chaosmosis
Subjectivity is plural and polyphonic.
— Chaosmosis
December 30, 2025 at 4:42 AM
The various semiotic inscriptions that give rise to subjectivity do not maintain a permanently fixed or inevitable hierarchical order.
Subjectivity is plural and polyphonic.
— Chaosmosis
Subjectivity is plural and polyphonic.
— Chaosmosis
The Void of a Negative Philosophy: A Review of Thomas the Obscure
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
The Void of a Negative Philosophy: A Review of Thomas the Obscure
This meditation on Maurice Blanchot’s Thomas the Obscure is ambitious in its conception, aligning less with a traditional narrative and more with a “philosophical novel” or “novel of ideas.” While con...
open.substack.com
December 29, 2025 at 1:57 PM
The Void of a Negative Philosophy: A Review of Thomas the Obscure
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
Advancing Positions — Part I
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open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
Advancing Positions — Part I
This is a novella-in-progress
open.substack.com
December 27, 2025 at 2:56 AM
Advancing Positions — Part I
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
don't know ChatGPT also has report function
December 25, 2025 at 3:11 AM
don't know ChatGPT also has report function
On Substack, I see too many posts about “how to write” or “how to grow” from people whose own writing leaves much to be desired. I’m tired of the home feed pushing typewriter aesthetics and middle-class grievances disguised as literature.
December 24, 2025 at 7:25 AM
On Substack, I see too many posts about “how to write” or “how to grow” from people whose own writing leaves much to be desired. I’m tired of the home feed pushing typewriter aesthetics and middle-class grievances disguised as literature.
December 23, 2025 at 8:11 AM
The most powerful and dangerous passion, by which human beings are most easily destroyed, has been so thoroughly repudiated that, as a result, the most powerful human beings themselves have become impossible, or else must feel themselves to be evil, “harmful and illicit.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
— Friedrich Nietzsche
December 16, 2025 at 5:38 AM
The most powerful and dangerous passion, by which human beings are most easily destroyed, has been so thoroughly repudiated that, as a result, the most powerful human beings themselves have become impossible, or else must feel themselves to be evil, “harmful and illicit.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
— Friedrich Nietzsche
I think a guy like Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm will keep getting downvoted on Reddit until he’s shadow banned.
December 13, 2025 at 4:39 PM
I think a guy like Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm will keep getting downvoted on Reddit until he’s shadow banned.
My top10 books of 2025
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open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
My Top Ten Books of 2025: A Retrospective
Here is a reflection on the ten most impactful books I read in 2025, presented in the order that resonated most deeply with me.
open.substack.com
December 13, 2025 at 8:31 AM
My top10 books of 2025
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
The following poem was written during an event called “Poetry and Spontaneity.” I began by simply doodling, and subsequently, I thought it would be a better idea to compose a poem based on that drawing.
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
Madeleine
Madeleine lifts the ghost of an arrowhead
open.substack.com
December 10, 2025 at 7:41 AM
The following poem was written during an event called “Poetry and Spontaneity.” I began by simply doodling, and subsequently, I thought it would be a better idea to compose a poem based on that drawing.
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
Generated by AI.The prompt is one of my dream
December 7, 2025 at 2:51 AM
Generated by AI.The prompt is one of my dream
I’ve always had this tendency: if a literary magazine is mediocre, I feel like giving them mediocre work. Sometimes I even think that pieces I’m not very satisfied with are still better than much of what’s popular out there
December 6, 2025 at 3:02 AM
I’ve always had this tendency: if a literary magazine is mediocre, I feel like giving them mediocre work. Sometimes I even think that pieces I’m not very satisfied with are still better than much of what’s popular out there
I recently watched Werckmeister Harmonies. It didn’t exactly astonish me. I’d seen Sátántangó before, and the long takes in that film felt far more grounded and powerful. Here, they come off a bit too formalized. But when there are too many of them, everything flattens into a kind of uniformity.
Ferdyduke (@ferdyduke)
I recently watched Werckmeister Harmonies. It didn’t exactly astonish me. I’d seen Sátántangó before, and the long takes in that film felt far more grounded and powerful. Here, they come off a bit too...
substack.com
December 6, 2025 at 2:54 AM
I recently watched Werckmeister Harmonies. It didn’t exactly astonish me. I’d seen Sátántangó before, and the long takes in that film felt far more grounded and powerful. Here, they come off a bit too formalized. But when there are too many of them, everything flattens into a kind of uniformity.
“A stark, slow-burning tale from contemporary rural China—where modernization breeds its own rituals of suspicion, conformity, and quiet, bodily terror. It’s the kind of story that cannot easily appear in print China, which is why I’m publishing it here instead.”
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
The Patrol
After negotiations, the village decided to collaborate with developers from out of town to construct a building by the railway tracks—right at the end of the new village’s main lane.
open.substack.com
December 4, 2025 at 2:26 PM
“A stark, slow-burning tale from contemporary rural China—where modernization breeds its own rituals of suspicion, conformity, and quiet, bodily terror. It’s the kind of story that cannot easily appear in print China, which is why I’m publishing it here instead.”
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...
open.substack.com/pub/ferdyduk...