The Franz Kafka thread

[Kyriakos]

Just a thread about Franz Kafka.

You can discuss about this author, or ask questions (i am quite familiar with his printed works/diaries/letters). Afaik there will be some newly released bits in the future, since for the time being they are locked in a trial about that (predictable).

*

In my view he was a very notable author. Had his own shortcomings perhaps ('the most wide-spread individualism of writers is their way of covering up their shortcomings'), which can include ultra-allegorical settings and tone, characters which are not actually meant to be seen as fully-fledged human beings, or are just lit in a dim way from the distance forced on them by a tired and immediately repulsed glance.

While he did self-destruct, it likely was not the most brutal self-destruction of an important author of those general times (De Maupassant faired far worse in that respect).

 

[dusters]

Are there any stories with strong sadism or masochism themes in them?

I tried reading three of his books and he wasn't sensual, nor beautifully suicidal, it was just a man exploring his darkness as if it was accountant exploring an empty wallet.

 

[Kyriakos]

In the Penal Colony is likely his most violent and sm one.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

I think Kafka's problem, like so many others artists and intellectuals in those years, was he gazed for too long into the abyss and finally the abyss gazed back into him. Maybe if they had something else to gaze to as TV or internet they had lived longer (but we would not have so many nice stories and artworks now).

 

[Kyriakos]

I think Kafka's problem, like so many others artists and intellectuals in those years, was he gazed for too long into the abyss and finally the abyss gazed back into him. Maybe if they had something else to gaze to as TV or internet they had lived longer (but we would not have so many nice stories and artworks now).

Indeed. Not sure what Nietzsche had in mind at that moment ("And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you") cause the start of his phrase is about 'fighting with monsters' and iirc in that first part he alludes to decadent/nihilistic/christian etc 'anti-life' ethics and people tied to them, but Kafka often writes in his notebooks about himself being "married to Horror", which doesn't sound very good tbh

There isn't any question that Kafka had his own hell and carried it with him everywhere. Sadly a number of the most impressive authors of those periods were burned up, such as Maupassant, Nerval, Pessoa, and later on Borges.

 

[Borachio]

I find it hard to fit Borges into the model of the burned-out young author. He lived to be 86.

Maupassant, of course, tried to kill himself. But that was because he had syphilis (like a great number of other people, before the discovery of antibiotics) which was affecting his mind.

 

[Kyriakos]

Borges did not burn out as in 'died young'. Instead he borgesised himself into a heap of ruin after the early 50s, and kept spewing story collections which often are classed as 'imitations of (earlier) Borges'

From some biographies of his i read it does seem he had serious issues though, even prior to his blindness kicking in

Re Maupassant... i am sure not many people with Syphilis tried to effectively cut their throat off. And in the asylum he went after that he rapidly 'animalised' (“Monsieur de Maupassant va s'animaliser&#8221 RIP.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Well, syphilis and tuberculosis usually came from a disolute bohemian life proper of 19th century artists, whores, drugs, absinthe, sleep deprivation and in many cases malnutrition all combined with a not very stable character (the so called artistic temperament) usually lead to romantic and lucrative (for heirs) early deaths.

 

[Kyriakos]

And tuberculosis was also being termed 'the illness of the sensitive people'.

 

[dusters]

i read a lot about Kafka yesterday due to this thread, i have to say my sincerest thanks. As with Marcel Proust, i realised i adore the setting, the atmosphere which Kafka creates.

The chaos, the carnival, the sirreal, the precise notification of tiny details. However, i'm yet to read the books fully.

I have come to conclusion that to like somebody's literature, i have to understand their sense of humour first.

 

[Kaitzilla]

In the Penal Colony is likely his most violent and sm one.

I have a free link to four of Kafka's stories.
http://www.openculture.com/free_ebooks

A Hunger Artist
In the Penal Colony
The Metamorphosis
The Trial

This link seems to have more of them:
http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/kafka/kafkatofc.htm


There is also stories by:
Aesop
Aristophanes
Aristotle
Asimov
Austen
Baum
Bradbury
Burke
Carroll
Cervantes
Chaucer
Chomsky
Clarke
Confucius
Conrad
Darwin
Descartes
Dick
Dickens
Doyle
Dumas



Hobbes
Holmes
Homer
Huxley

Keynes
Keats
Kippling

Lovecraft
Marx and Engels
Nietzsche
Orwell
Plato
Rousseau
Shakespeare

Thucydides
Tocqueville
Tolstoy
Twain
Verne
Yeats

Bah, too hard to list them all.
And nobody ever reads anymore.

 

[Kyriakos]

^ Project Gutemberg has loads of free e-texts as well

"A hunger artist" is a very good story.

 

[Borachio]

I don't know.

I remember the Penal Colony and this machine for inscribing a man's crime on his back with a series of knives. Or something. Apparently the criminal would realize what his crime was just before expiring.

He's a bit dark, is old Kafka. I don't feel in much of a hurry to read him again.

 

[Borachio]

Lookit. Lookit. Lookit!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04pv8j1