kafka

nb: this isnt the actual proper end of the book, its the final 2 chapters tagged on by brod

can anyone with this particular copy to hand, tell me what painting this is?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743493443/002-6586136-8808059?v=glance&n=283155

nb the surrealists were fascinated by black humour, and majorly influenced by kafka in this sense. see breton's 'anthology of black humour', which i think includes something by kafka (as well as poe! a story about a beer barrel talking to a drunk man iirc!!).

re: the castle - i was once told by a german kafka studies grad student that there is absolutely, categorically no way you can appreciate kafka 'properly' in english, as you miss out on loads of stuff like 'der schloss' meaning not only 'the castle' but also 'the bridge'.

In fact, there are some "interviews" with Kafka. They were recorded by a young Czech called Gustav Janouch and published under the title "Conversations with Kafka".

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081120295X/103-4361534-8588656?v=glance&n=283155

They read too much like literature to be taken at face value (although Kafka was, of course the man who said "I have no literary interests; I am literature." For instance, one of them (I'm telling it from memory) goes like this:

"Dr Kafka entered the room in a state of some perturbation. "Did you see that?" he cried. "What?" I asked. "Look, out there, on the square! What is it?" I looked, and saw a small dog. "It's a little dog!" I exclaimed. "A dog," said Kafka, looking uncertain, "are you sure?" "Yes, I'm quite sure, it's a little dog!" Kafka shook his head. "It would be good if it were just that. But I doubt it. For you it might be a dog, perhaps, but for others it is... a sign."

Giorgio de Chirico - The Enigma of The Hour.

-- david laughner (david/laughne...), February 8th, 2006.

I took a course with a German Kafka scholar who talked about the same thing -- for example The Trial is actually called Der Process (sp?) which doesn't quite literally translate to trial and can also just mean, well, process. This is especially great since part of the joke, as it were, of The Trial is that there's never actually a trial.

OTOH scholars of every foreign writer make the same argument about every foreign writer. I still think there's plenty to get out of Kafka in English.

i think the castle might be my favourite book, sometimes

kafka is one of the few authors who it really really pays to reread: i've probably read "the metamorphosis" like 5 times since high school and it feels fresh and interesting each time.

i like the welles film of "the trial" a lot but he really mucked up the ending!

i think it was nabokov who wondered, why didn't he just fly out the window?

James Hawes in today's guardian:

If the mere prospect of a few new letters throwing light on his relationship with Max Brod is enough to send scholars all over the world into raptures, why has no one ever thought fit to show kafka's readers and students the pornography he owned?
There is a footnoten in Brod's first biography of kafka, which would have enabled anyone to to find this material 85 years ago. His letters to Brod reveal, to those with eyes to see, exactly where he kept his porn - in a locked bookcase in his parents' house (an image that sets off echoes throughout the work). The mystery is why it has remained such a secret. The underlying reason is, I suspect, that admitting to Kafka's porn also unlocks the truth of his whole truth of his whole literary life.
The man who delivered porn to Kafka in 1906-07 turns out to be the same man who first published him in 1908 - and who, as judge of Berlin's major literary prize, fixed things so that kafka would get the glory. it seems the Kafka industry doesn't want you to know such things about its idol - which means, academics being the gatekeeprs of the artefacts, that they don't want you, the reader, to know.
Once we realise this, the light of historical reality floods in through the holes in the hagiographic myth. We find a millionaire's son addicted to whores all his adult life; a writer backed by an influential clique who was admired (and knew it)by almost every major German-language author of his day; a loyal Hapsburg citizen with a senor state-sector job who expected (and wanted) the Germab and Austrian empires to win ww1, right to the end; a man who had no more inkling of the Holocaust than anyone else.
with the rubble cleared away, perhaps we'll at last see Kafka's work for what it really is - not the gloomy stuff we anglo-Saxons received via post-Auschwitz French existentialists, but wonderful black comedies writen by a mansoaked in the writings of his predecessors and of his own day.

Jesus Christ. Take 2

James Hawes in today's guardian:

If the mere prospect of a few new letters throwing light on his relationship with Max Brod is enough to send scholars all over the world into raptures, why has no one ever thought fit to show Kafka's readers and students the pornography he owned?
There is a footnote in Brod's first biography of Kafka, which would have enabled anyone to find this material 85 years ago. His letters to Brod reveal, to those with eyes to see, exactly where he kept his porn - in a locked bookcase in his parents' house (an image that sets off echoes throughout the work). The mystery is why it has remained such a secret. The underlying reason is, I suspect, that admitting to Kafka's porn also unlocks the truth of his whole literary life.
The man who delivered porn to Kafka in 1906-07 turns out to be the same man who first published him in 1908 - and who, as judge of Berlin's major literary prize, fixed things so that Kafka would get the glory. It seems the Kafka industry doesn't want you to know such things about its idol - which means, academics being the gatekeepers of the artefacts, that they don't want you, the reader, to know.
Once we realise this, the light of historical reality floods in through the holes in the hagiographic myth. We find a millionaire's son addicted to whores all his adult life; a writer backed by an influential clique who was admired (and knew it) by almost every major German-language author of his day; a loyal Hapsburg citizen with a senor state-sector job who expected (and wanted) the German and Austrian empires to win ww1, right to the end; a man who had no more inkling of the Holocaust than anyone else.
with the rubble cleared away, perhaps we'll at last see Kafka's work for what it really is - not the gloomy stuff we Anglo-Saxons received via post-Auschwitz French existentialists, but wonderful black comedies written by a man soaked in the writings of his predecessors and of his own day.

what a twat. link? I can't find it.

no link. i typed it (as you can see)

which is to say: look, it's certainly admirable to attempt to unseat a lot of the myths that swirl around Kafka, to separate the actual work from the legend, to unsettle conventional wisdom that's settled into received fact. But why the paranoia and deliberate overstatement of your own in tempering what you see as falshoods? Why "admitting to Kafka's porn also unlocks the truth of his whole literary life"? WTF does that even mean? Why paint acadamics, of all people, as evil lords of information who don't want readers to know the truth? Or: "a man who had no more inkling of the Holocaust than anyone else"? Who does he think claimed that Kafka had actual foreknowledge of the Holocaust, rather than suggesting that his works seem to foreshadow it in retrospect?

Yeah, that's...yeah.

Anyway, a timely revival as I've finally read The Trial. The various eternal explications of legal policy had me in stitches.

I love the novels (had a soft spot for parts of 'America', its been years since I've read him tho'). Funnily enough I never got round the short stories so I'll do that now.

He's certainly not the first to point out that Kafka had a sense of humor. What I really want to know is, exactly what was in that locked bookcase? Titles, please.

Anyway, a timely revival as I've finally read The Trial. The various eternal explications of legal policy had me in stitches.

I also just finished it. A few thoughts:

1. The traditional existentialist interpretation is an ill fit.
2. There's a lack of focus, compared to his short stories.
3. It feels like Kafka wrote about 1/2 of it before he died, not 7/8ths.

Also, fixed:

Titties, please.

"Wow, she has a nice set of Kafkas!"

that is a joke like Jeffrey Dahmer was a chef

I find the novels dull, but that's the point, in a way. However, I can read the short fiction and letters over and over.

Kafka is totally a porn name

K.

terrible writer

I remember Orson Welles speaking about his (seriously underrated IMHO) "Trial" adaptation as part of that epic BBC interview he did , and saying that people didn't realise that Kafka's work was meant to be funny. Couple of significant references to Pr0n in the movie, too.

And "titties please'? Excuse me for being interested, and excuse me for having a sexuality, but I seriously want to know: If he had first editions of Sade, or Sacher-Masoch, or whomever, that becomes an influence and throws a whole different light on his work.

I love Welles' movie.

yeah alot of his work was definitely meant to be comedic.

"The clarity and concreteness of Kafka’s sometimes Chaplinesque vision underlie another comic moment, a great moment in Western civilization. In 1914, shortly after war broke out, Kafka read aloud the first chapter of The Trial. Now keep in mind what happens there: Joseph K. awakens one fine morning to find himself rudely arrested under dubious authority for an unspecified crime. So Kafka sat and read. "We friends of his," Brod says, "laughed quite uncontrollably when he let us hear the first chapter of The Trial. And he himself laughed so much that at moments he couldn’t go on reading."

Can't a dude just enjoy some fine titties without having to bring the Marquis de Sade into it?

Hey, you're the one that pulled me over for asking for specifics. And, yes, I want to know.

Even if it is just Bohemian Farmers Wives Vol III

I didn't pull you over, and I can see why nobody "gets" Kafka's humor now 'cause everyone who reads him is a humorless sniffer!

joeks, de bruv

OK. But I think that there's a legitimate interest in Kafka's erotica collection (porn stash) as a literary influence. Particularly when looking at, say, 'In the penal colony', for example.

For example, you can't look at Bruno Schulz without acknowledging he was a total foot-freak.

am i right in thinking that kafka meant us to assume that

uh SPOILER i guess

gregor samsa didn't literally transform into a "monstrous vermin," and that stress plus living with a truly shitty family had just driven him insane?

Dude you can interpret it all you want, but the fact is that Gregor Samsa awoke one morning to find himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect.

Yeah I really liked that -- need to read his letters.

Does anyone know of a good comp of Jewish tales?

anyone read the hofmann translations of the stories?

No but want to!

You guys. What. The. Fuck.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/is-franz-kafka-overrated/309373/

In the unending critical Easter-egg hunt for the secret meaning in Franz Kafka’s fiction, Friedländer has retrieved the gay egg.

in a way it's almost refreshing to see someone actually criticize kafka, or try to, but i can't take anything by self-regarding homophobic nitwit joseph epstein seriously.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y5yDClWa5D4/T2dCLhiS5tI/AAAAAAAAF5c/LDbEpheR53M/s1600/Blog%2BArt%2B-%2BManhattan2.jpg

"They're all such schmucks. Really mired in thirties radicalism."

if woody allen dictated dk's pronunciation of "nabokov" two lines later it's the best argument ever for the auteur theory but it was probably keaton.

Rant/Using ILX as a blog/soapbox follows (just a heads up).

Today would've been Kafka's 130th birthday. Google Doodle is paying homage to him.

And I think back at what a bizarre last year and a half it has been: from moving to a different country, to aging parents on constant verge of death, to failed or unstable career moves.

Today was the due date to pay my IRS tax return, as well. As a Canadian living in the US, it bothers me that I had to move here. But I guess things never go as planned. And now I, too, feel like a monstrous vermin, crawling around the sewers of Los Angeles. When once health and exercise were an important part of my routine, now I struggle to have a decent quality of life and avoid breathing in crazy particulates when running on a hot, empty suburban street, where people initially looked at me strangely and locked their doors as I approached them. I guess they weren't used to having someone run around their safe and pretty neighbourhood. Ghost town.

All of it puts into question your self-worth, I suppose. And to add insult to injury, the American government is prepping for a cute role as police state. Canada, as spineless as their government officials are, follow along, and will now share all data with them. I wonder how long it'll take Canada Student Loan to figure out I'm not really in the country and force me to pay an exorbitant amount of money each month. I guess renewing my passport might tip them off.

It's a good thing I don't do drugs, because all this has upped my paranoia. I hardly use my fancy iPhone and don't post or talk about personal things on Facebook, Instagram, Skype and other suspicious software. I guess you can say posting this rant on ILX is my breaking point. I don't know. I might want to become a US citizen one day and from mine and others' experience when crossing the border, it seems like they'll point to anything that can make you a criminal or unwanted in the Land of the Free™. I guess their making a big deal of the smallest things is their defence mechanism. Meanwhile, the Harper Government has a plan of its own to destroy our country. I guess I should start defriending my anarchist and socialist friends. Or I don't betray who I really am and get on that RetroShare app. But encryption adds another level of suspicious activity, as one headline reads, "NSA: If Your Data Is Encrypted, You Might Be Evil, So We'll Keep It Until We're Sure". Then there's "US Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement", "Never Trust Facebook", "The Criminal NSA", "The Fallacy of Human Freedom", "DHS Watchdog: 'Intuition and Hunch' Are Enough to Search Your Gadgets at Border", the Utah Data Center. Maybe I should cancel my Verizon service as soon as my contract is up. Maybe surrounding myself with good people will help me deal with all this.

I'm sure LA has wonderful people, but I sure wish I would stop meeting crazy artists, charlatans, opportunists, money-hungry businessmen, and start meeting, you know, normal people. Not that Vancouver doesn't have their share of crazies, but the ratio for crazy-to-normal seems higher here. Concrete jungle, for sure. But so many people want to move down here. Colour me confused, I guess.

I guess in the end I should stick to using the few good opportunities I've been given to my advantage and plan my Great Exodus as soon as possible. That's possibly the silver lining in all of this -- barely.

I always replay an incident from university in my head. It was my last final before graduating -- my Eastern European literature class. I lived just a few blocks from campus, in a 2-bedroom basement suite. I woke up an hour early because I tend to stress out easily and get paranoid about the smallest things, as you can tell from this rambling. My exam is at 8:30 and I am ready to leave by 8:00. As I go to open the door, I notice the door is locked. I unlock the knob but realise the top lock can only be opened with a key. The key had always remained in the keyhole for this very reason, I realised. But there was no key. In other words, the lock from the inside required a key to unlock the door. With no key, there was no way to open the door. I look to the only window large enough for me to exit, but there were bars protecting it. I remember thinking I wished I had some handyman tools at that point, but luckily I had my trusty mobile phone. Except no one picked up. I sat there for 45 minutes and someone finally came. I was late to my exam but while I waited I wrote a note to my prof explaining exactly what surreal conditions prevented me from being on time. When I got to class, I handed him the note and he handed me my exam questions. I had to choose one. I wrote an explanation of the term Kafkaesque.

And it seems like it's always like this. One is always waiting for another to open that locked door to let her in. As much as one is ready to go, it is very much a prisoner in a cell situation. It is not you who decides when to take the next step, it is the step, the external factors, the situation out of your grasp that comes looking for you.

I know I'm not the only one in this situation or with these feelings and that many others understand from experience. And many others are in far worse situations. But if the beginning of understanding is the wish to die, I don't know if I want to understand.

I apologise for the above. You can go back to your regularly scheduled programme.

I wonder how long it'll take Canada Student Loan to figure out I'm not really in the country and force me to pay an exorbitant amount of money each month.

or, y'know, you could just pay back your obligations.

If I had the money, I would. If you live outside, there is one single monthly amount, regardless of your income. So I would probably pay more than someone who owes $100k.

They only lower your monthly payment (drastically) if you live in the country.

To your point, though, I would much rather move back and pay whatever I need to, because it would probably be pretty darn low and doable, and it would save me this headache. But I have no one left in Canada. I'm currently saving up to move back, though. It's a slow process, because we pay thousands of dollars for my grandparents' due to their illnesses and such.

happy birthday franz kafka!

also, sorry to hear about all of that crimson hexagon.

Thanks, Treeship.

http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/jackson_07_13.php

Consider this incident, which took place as he was dying of tuberculosis, and knew it. One day, when he was walking in a Berlin park, Kafka saw a little girl crying. He asked her why she was sad and she told him that she had lost her doll. Oh no, Kafka said, her doll was not lost - the toy was simply off on an exciting adventure. Understandably sceptical, the girl asked for proof. So Kafka went home and wrote a long, detailed letter from the doll, and gave it to the little girl the following day. Then, every day for the next three weeks, he gave her an additional letter. It seems that the doll had met a boy doll, and become engaged, and then married. By the end of the three weeks, the doll was setting up her marital home and the little girl no longer missed her mute companion.

The last translation of The Diaries is totally fine. Kafka is very, very transmissible.

But still the cover looks rad and it's great to see talk of this collection.

Kafka’s last surviving diary entry. @rossmbenjamin has accomplished something truly monumental with this translation. https://t.co/FxadScmJMJ pic.twitter.com/cLdtD1NqHo

— Merve Emre (@mervatim) January 6, 2023

Does gaydar exist and if it does would it have been detected in Kafka's writing, e.g., his diaries, and how much suffering could not have occurred? I remember precise descriptions of male antagonists in The Trial. How does gender make you aware of other people?

Well, chew on that, youn.

Me reading that Franz Kafka had a *lot* of sex with women because he adored femininity but found the act physically uncomfortable and considered himself extremely unattractive despite being conventionally good looking:

🤔🤔🤔🤔

— Matilda, Battle Maiden 🐶 (@DESTINOOOOOOOO1) January 24, 2023