Caspian is Kotzwinkle's presentation of the artist as eternal exile. Like Kafka's Hunger Artist, he can never find the nourishment he needs beyond the obsession which is destroying him; he is always out of step with the "real" or conventional world, living beyond time or lost in time, forever trying to create a "reality" in which he will find the aesthetic satisfaction that proves so elusive. It is the poignancy of this struggle that makes Caspian's predicament so disconcerting.

The films he stars in enable other people to escape from the dread of an evil or absurd existence, while to make these films effective, he has been compelled to reach into the depths of his psyche to confront evil and face absurdity with no protective psychic devices. And while this has enabled his art to grow in depth and range, it has also, ultimately, destroyed the artist himself...