Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1925

Blanchot has some good bits about this, but I digress.

― pomenitul

Blanchot has some good bits about a lot of things. I should really go back and reread some of his shit, it's so good.

The New Yorker pieces are excerpts from The Lost Writings, which I posted about on What Are You Reading?:
"It is not a barren wall, it's living sweetness pressed into a wall, bunches of grapes pressed together."---"I don't believe it."---"Taste it."---"I'm too incredulous to lift a hand."---"I'll put a grape to your mouth, then."---"I won't be able to taste it from incredulity."---"Then drop!---"Didn't I tell you that the barrenness of this wall is enough to lay a man out?"
That's from Kafka's The Lost Writings, recently published by New Directions, translated by Michael Hofmann, and selected by Reiner Stach, who also wrote the afterword.
More uses of humor than expected, to a range of effects, incl. at least one that turns out like a sketch from Yiddish theater, if not a Mel Brooks movie. Also one that involves a power figure's much younger wife, uh-oh: more about sex and gender than expected as well---been a long time since I've read him, though. (Those last two are almost as long as it gets in here, like a couple pages each.)
Don't worry, it's also Kafkaesque:
A delicate matter, this tiptoeing across a crumbling board set down as a bridge, nothing underfoot, having to scrape together with your feet the ground you are treading on, walking on nothing but your reflection down in the water below, holding the world together with your feet, your hands cramping at the air to survive this ordeal.
Those are among my favorites so far, but some don't seem to work as well, though even here, he sets the bar fairly high.

Some of the ones I didn't get at first I do now (I think): the mind has to adjust to the shifts, the climbing of trees and word-walls and bridges and so on.

also the elite cadre, with Kafka at the top and Orwell quite possibly second, of writers who've stamped themselves into the imaginaire of people who've never read them

― Uptown Top Scamping (Noodle Vague), Monday, December 14, 2020 7:43 PM (one minute ago)

Kafka is evading this tendancy these days, I think. "Read some effin Orwell", is how it mostly is.

Also don't think Brod's interpretation has stuck -- all of this speaks to the greatness of the work.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Want to vote for "Frau Sixta by Ernst Zahn", but I'm thinking of a Sixta by another mister.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Was semi expecting a Silent Majority for Fitzgerald here but I guess it's no surprise Kafka would triumph on ILX

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1926

Would've voted Woolf had I known it would be a landslide. Only 3 votes is criminal imo.

Shout-out to whoever voted for the Dreiser, can't honestly say I think it deserves to win this field but it packs a punch and I'm glad it wasn't shut out

ranked voting would be handy in polls with multiple worthy books, but I think Kafka still would've won.

I really want more Stein and Dreiser, also need to try Gide, but right now what an unfuckwithable 1925 lifeboat quartet:
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Mrs Dalloway by Virgina Woolf
The Professor's House by Willa Cather

The only Dreiser I've read is the Library of America volume comprised of Sister Carrie, Jennie Gerhardt, and Twelve Men: exxxcellent.

also the elite cadre, with Kafka at the top and Orwell quite possibly second, of writers who've stamped themselves into the imaginaire of people who've never read them

― Uptown Top Scamping (Noodle Vague), Monday, December 14, 2020 7:43 PM (one minute ago)

Kafka is evading this tendancy these days, I think. "Read some effin Orwell", is how it mostly is.

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 15 December 2020 18:51 (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Just seen the following joke in The Simpsons. Lisa is outraged about something.

Lisa: This is Kafkaesque! Kafkaesque!
Judge: I've got my eye on you too
Lisa: Now it's Orwellian!

Lol fair enough though if it's a season 10+ joke then I'm not sure it counts

It was more recent than that. Of course it means nothing, but the timing made me smile