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Genuine self-analysis is impossible; otherwise there
would be no illness.
Two things strike me about Franz Kafka. First, the almost complete absence of ideas in his work. Second, how obvious it is that his work is fundamentally about either repressed or closeted homosexuality. First things first; reading these stories and comparing what's actually on the page to the central position that Kafka holds among critics in 20th Century literature, I couldn't help thinking of Chauncey Gardiner. He, of course, is the simple minded hero of Jerzy Kozinski's great book Being There. Having spent his whole life within the grounds of a mansion gardening and watching TV, he enters the world completely unprepared to interact with his fellow man. But the people he meets inflate his non sequitirs into faux profundities and he is soon advising the President of the United States. He is a blank slate upon which other people scribble and then interpret their own ideas as genius. In much the same way, Kafka wrote a series of completely autobiographical tales, and an unpleasant autobiography it is: grown men living at home with their parents; working menial jobs in huge bureaucracies; terrified of marriage; bullied by overbearing fathers; plagued by illness, nightmares and feelings of alienation from all around them except for one loving sister. This was Kafka's own life and these are the common threads that run throughout his work. But add them all together and what you get is a situation, not a set of ideas. Kafka endlessly rewrites the situation that he found himself in; noticeably absent are any thoughts about the origin, meaning or alternatives to this situation, other than killing off the character who finds himself stuck therein. Second, I guess the discussion of Kafka as a "gay" writer is fairly recent, but I'm not sure how else he can be read. The very lack of socio-political meanings in his work, the degree to which it is situation based, rather than driven by ideas, leaves you with only the elements of the situation to interpret and the point inexorably towards a conclusion that his heroes are isolated by their homosexuality. Just take Metamorphosis; here are the elements of the plot. A grown single man who still lives with his family wakes up one morning to find that he has become a bug. This leads to his being isolated from his shamefaced family. His father drives him out of a room by throwing apples at him. One lodges in his backside and rots there; the resulting infection kills him. Well c'mon; this just isn't even subtle. A family ashamed of their single son. He's a dung beetle for cripes sakes. The apple (sin) infects his posterior. I mean surely we've all got the picture by now. Why go on? All of which leaves us with an interesting question, does the fact that his stories may not have meant to him what they have come to mean to different schools of critics in some way diminish his stature as a literary figure? Or does the fact that his intensely personal story can be read in a universal manner to apply to (1) the Jewish experience, (2) the epoch of totalitarian regimes and (3) the dehumanizing age of bureaucracy in which we all live, actually demonstrate just how great a writer he was? I'm inclined towards the first view. I think that the situation that he reiterates in his work is so specific to him and has so little to say about the world most of us live in that it is hard to justify his lofty position in the literary pantheon. As I read, I found myself thinking, "this author is a troubled boy" more often than "this is a troubling society he describes". In a perverse way, it seems likely that the best thing that ever happened to Kafka was the rise of totalitarian regimes in general and, specifically, their banning of his works. It is noteworthy that he died before the long dark night of Nazism and Communism descended on Europe. It is only retrospectively that his work came to be read as a gloss on these regimes. And had they simply ignored him, it's hard to believe that he would have come to be so closely associated with their machinations. Return him to the time and place that he wrote and take his work at face value and I think you're left, not with a writer whose work defines and illuminates the 20th Century (a la Orwell, with whom he is often unjustly paired), but with merely the mildly intriguing tales of an unwell man. (Reviewed:) Grade: (C+) Tweet Websites:See also:Franz Kafka (2 books reviewed)Eastern European Literature New York Public Library's Books of the Century -WIKIPEDIA: Franz Kafka -The Kafka Society of America -FILMOGRAPHY: Franz Kafka (IMDB) -Franz Kafka Online -ENTRY: Franz Kafka (Modernist Archives) -ENTRY: Franz Kafka German-language writer (Encyclopaedia Britannica) -WIKIPEDIA: The Trial -ENTRY: The Trial novel by Kafka (Peter Boxall, Encyclopaedia Britannica) -VIDEO DISCUSSION: Translating Kafka: Will Self, Anthea Bell, Joyce Crick, Karen Seago and Amanda Hopkinson (Sep 24, 2015, London Review of Books) -EXCERPT: from The Trial (Afterword: The Translator's Trial (Breon Mitchell, Spring 1998, CONJUNCTIONS) -EXCERPT: from The Trial: Kafka Executes Josef K. (translated by Breon Mitchell) His gaze fell upon the top story of the building adjoining the quarry. Like a light flicking on, the casements of a window flew open, a human figure, faint and insubstantial at that distance and height, leaned far out abruptly, and stretched both arms out further. Who was it? A friend? A good person? Someone who cared? Someone who wanted to help? Was it just one person? Was it everyone? Was there still help? Were there objections that had been forgotten? Of course there were. Logic is no doubt unshakable, but it can’t withstand a person who wants to live. Where was the judge he’d never seen? Where was the high court he’d never reached? He raised his hands and spread out all his fingers. -EXCERPT: from The Trial: Kafka’s Great Fable: “Before the Law” (translated by Breon Mitchell) -ESSAY: Kafka 100: a parade of men with no appetite from a writer consumed by thoughts of nourishment (daniel Vendell, 6/03/24, The Conversation) -ESSAY: How Franz Kafka Achieved Cult Status in Cold War America: Brian K. Goodman Traces the Origins of the Term “Kafkaesque” (Brian K. Goodman, July 5, 2023, LitHub) -ESSAY: Kafka’s Remarkable Letter to His Abusive and Narcissistic Father: “It is, after all, not necessary to fly right into the middle of the sun, but it is necessary to crawl to a clean little spot on earth where the sun sometimes shines and one can warm oneself a little.” (MARIA POPOVA, 2/03/23, Marginalian) -ESSAY: Franz Kafka, Party Animal (Becca Rothfield, Jan. 9th, 2023, The New Yorker) -LETTER: 25 March (1914): Franz Kafka to Felice Bauer (The American Reader) -READING GUIDE: The Trial (Penguin Random House) -EXCERPT: from The Trial: Before the Law (Franz Kafka, Translation by Ian Johnston, Kafka Online) -ETEXT: The Trial by Franz Kafka (Translated by David Wyllie, Franz Kafka Online) -STUDY GUIDE: The Trial (SparkNotes) -READING GUIDE: The Trial (LitLovers) -ENTRY: the Trial (Encyclopedia.com) -SAMPLE ESSAY: on The Trial (Prime Essays) -STUDY GUIDE: The Trial (Grade Saver) -GUIDE: The Czech Books You Must Read 8) Franz Kafka’s The Trial - ambiguous novel that asks deep metaphysical questions (Tom McEnchroe, Radio Prague International) -ETEXT: The Trial by Franz Kafka (Project Gutenberg) -AUDIO BOOK ARCHIVES:Franz Kafka (Librivox) -ARCHIVES: Franz Kafka (Internet Archives) - -ESSAY: Kafka’s Scream: Dreaming of a Nightmare (Joseph Pearce, August 16th, 2022, Imaginative Conservative) -ESSAY: Kafka the hypochondriac: Franz Kafka believed illness was at the root of his writing yet he embraced wellness fads with hearty vigour (Will Rees, March 2022, Aeon) -ESSAY: TB or not TB: the literature of consumption: No infectious disease has left its scars on the body of literature like tuberculosis (John Self, March 2022, The Critic) -ESSAY: A Return to Kafka: On the publication anniversary of ‘The Trial,’ a foray into the labyrinth of Russian bureaucracy shows that the author was dead-on (MAXIM D. SHRAYER, APRIL 26, 2021, Tablet) -ESSAY: The Best Franz Kafka Books (recommended by Stanley Corngold, 2/19/21, Five Books) -ESSAY: In Kafka’s Prague (Jared Marcel Pollen, JANUARY 31, 2021, LA Review of Books) -ESSAY: The Pleasures and Punishments of Reading Franz Kafka (Joshua Cohen, September 2, 2020, Paris Review) -LECTURE: What makes something "Kafkaesque"? (Noah Tavlin, Jun 20, 2016, Ted Talk) -VIDEO: Franz Kafka: Chronicler of Darkness (Biographics, Oct 10, 2019) -LECTURE: Franz Kafka | The Metamorphosis (Gregory B. Sadler, 10/02/2014, Existentialist Philosophy & Literature) -VIDEO: Franz Kafka's "The Trial" (Manufacturing Intellect, Nov 25, 2018, Ten Great Writers of the Modern World) -VIDEO: Will Self's Kafka Journey: A Prague Walking Tour (Will Self, Jun 19, 2015, London Review of Books) -VIDEO LECTURE: Will Self on Franz Kafka (Will Self, May 20, 2020, How To Academy) -VIDEO LECTURE: Who Was Franz Kafka? (Dr. Henry Abramson, Nov 29, 2016, Jewish History) -VIDEO CONCERT: Philip Glass - Metamorphosis (Philip Glass, Dec 1, 2016) -VIDEO INTERVIEW: Max Brod on Franz Kafka (English Subtitles) (John McIntire) -VIDEO: Understanding The Trial by Franz Kafka with Jason Reza Jorjani (New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove, Jun 27, 2018) -PODCAST: Kafka's The Trial (Melvyn Bragg, BBC: In Our Time) -AUDIO SERIES: In the Shadow of Kafka (BBC3: The Essay, Series in which leading writers explore the breadth of Czech author Franz Kafka's thinking, his world and how his writing still resonates for them) -ESSAY: PRECARITY AND STRUGGLE: KAFKA, ROTH, KRAUS (ARI LINDEN, 3/10/21, public Books) -ESSAY: The Pleasures and Punishments of Reading Franz Kafka (Joshua Cohen, September 2, 2020, Paris Review) -ESSAY: The Essence of 'Kafkaesque' (Ivana Edwards, Dec. 29, 1991, NY Times) -ESSAY: What It Really Means to Be 'Kafkaesque': Author Ben Marcus says the beautiful but sorrowful strangeness of Kafka's "A Message from the Emperor" make it a perfect piece of writing. (JOE FASSLER, JANUARY 15, 2014, The Atlantic) -LECTURE: On Kafka: The following was delivered at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on April 26, when President Havel was awarded an honorary degree (Václav Havel, translated by Paul Wilson, The New York Review of Books) -ARTICLE: Unseen Kafka works may soon be revealed after Kafkaesque trial (Associated Press, 17 Apr 2019) -ESSAY: Looking for Kafka: Richard Hooper tries in vain to locate the grave of the famous author in a Prague cemetery (Richard Hooper, 17 January 1964, The Guardian) -ESSAY: Kafka's sexual terrors were 'absolutely normal', says biographer: Reiner Stach, author of a three-volume life of The Trial’s author, says his ‘anti-sensual’ fears were shared with millions of middle-class peers who dreaded STDs (Sian Cain, 5 Dec 2016, The Guardian) -ESSAY: Franz Kafka's virtual romance: a love affair by letters as unreal as online dating: His love letters were sent by post rather than email, but Kafka’s affair with Felice Bauer recoiled from reality in a way that has become familiar in the internet age (Rafia Zakaria, 12 Aug 2016, The Guardian) -ESSAY: Reading Kafka Visually: Gothic Ornament and the Motion of Writing in Kafka's Der Process (Tomáš Jirsa, Central Europe) -ESSAY: KAFKA'S PARABLE BEFORE THE LAW (Herbert Deinert, May, 1964, THE GERMANIC REVIEW) -ESSAY: FRANZ KAFKA: A REVALUATION (Hannah Arendt) -ESSAY: Laughing with Kafka (David Foster Wallace, July 1998, Harper's) -ESSAY: The Impossibility of Translating Franz Kafka: How do you translate a writer who felt alienated from his own words? (Cynthia Ozick, 1/11/99, The New Yorker) -INTERVIEW: ON TRANSLATION: Retranslating Kafka: with Michelle Woods (Michelle Johnson, 2/26/13, ) -ESSAY: Franz Kafka's Trial and the Anti-Semitic Trials of His Time (Michael Löwy, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Human Architecture) -ESSAY: The Delusion of Hope: Franz Kafka's the Trial (Jerry H. Bryant, 1969, Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures) -ESSAY: Kafka Was a Terrible Boyfriend: Read Franz Kafka's "Love Letters" to Felice Bauer (Eleanor Bass, February 14, 2018, LitHub) -ESSAY: The Franz Kafka Marriage Manual for Young Ladies: What to do with the art of a man more monstrous than the monster he created? (Rebecca Schuman, 9/25/18, Guernica) -ESSAY: Franz Kafka’s Kafkaesque Love Letters (Josh Jones, May 27th, 2015, Open Culture) -ESSAY: Kafka's "Before the Law": A Reflection of Fear of Marriage; and Corroborating Language Patterns in the Diaries (Erwin R. Steinberg, March 1986, Journal of Modern Literature) -REVIEW ESSAY: The Human Stain: The question has been asked: Was Franz Kafka human? He seems to have had doubts himself. (John Banville, SEPTEMBER 30, 2004, The Nation) -ESSAY: Locking down with Kafka: How the great writer, in his airless, claustrophobic fictions, provides a guide to living in the pandemic age. (SAMUEL EARLE, 2/21/21, New Statesman) -ARCHIVES: Kafka (LA Review of Books) -ARCHIVES: Franz Kafka (The Guardian) -ARCHIVES: kafka (NY Review of Books) -REVIEW: of The Trial by Franz Kafka (Sabine Peschel, Deutsche-Welle 100 German Must Reads) -REVIEW: of The Trial (Ted Gioia, Postmodern Mystery) -REVIEW ESSAY: Franz Kafka’s The Trial—It’s Funny Because It’s True: Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. (Benjamin Winterhalter July 2, 2019, JSTOR Daily) -REVIEW ESSAY: A Door for You Alone: Reading Kafka’s “The Trial” in Self-Isolation (Robert Zaretsky, APRIL 2, 2020, LA Review of Books) -REVIEW: of The Trial (Roman Altshuler, Harvard Crimson) -REVIEW: of The Trial (Adelaide H. Villmoare, Law Courts) -REVIEW: of The Trial (David Frum) -REVIEW ESSAY: FRANZ KAFKA: MISUNDERSTOOD CRIME AUTHOR: How The Trial upended what we know about crime fiction (PETER STEINER, OCTOBER 3, 2019, CrimeReads) -REVIEW: of The Trial (Matthew Selwyn, BiblioFreak) -REVIEW: of The Trial (Nina Chavchanidze, Research Gate) -REVIEW: of The Trial (Jay Fox, Stay Thirsty) -REVIEW: of The Trial (Clive, Whispering Stories) -REVIEW: of The Trial (Walker Fults) -REVIEW: of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (Richard T Kelly, The Guardian) -REVIEW: of The Metamorphosis (Lucy Sweeney Byrne, Irish Times) -REVIEW: of Letters to Felice by Franz Kafka. Edited by Erich Heller and Jurgen Born. Translated by James Stern and Elisabeth Duckworth (Morris Dickstein, NY Times) -REVIEW: of Letters to Felice (Michiko Kakutani, NY Times) -REVIEW: of Letters to Felice (Keith Cushman, Chicago Review) -REVIEW: of Investigations of a Dog: And Other Creatures by franz Kafka (Nathan Scott McNamara, LA Review of Books) -REVIEW: of The Burrow by Franz Kafka (Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian) -REVIEW: of The Castle by Franz Kafka, translated by Mark Harman (J.M. Coetzee, NY Review of Books) -REVIEW: of The Castle (Dinitia Smith, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW ESSAY: On Reengaging with Franz Kafka’s Astonishing Worlds: Gregory Ariail Considers the "Lost" and Newly Translated Fragments (Gregory Ariail, October 1, 2020, Lit Hub) -REVIEW: of The Lost Writings by Franz Kafka, translated by Michael Hofmann (Colin Laurel, The Baffler) -REVIEW: ofLost Writings (Becca Rothfield, BookForum) -REVIEW: of Kafka’s Last Trial by Benjamin Balint (Tim Adams, The Observer) -REVIEW: of Kafka’s Last Trial (John Banville, The Guardian) -REVIEW: of Kafka’s Last Trial (Elif Batuman, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of Kafka’s Last Trial (Devorah Baum, History Today) -REVIEW: of Kafka’s Last Trial (Guy Chazan, Financial Times) -REVIEW: of Kafka’s Last Trial (Publisher's Weekly) -REVIEW: of Kafka’s Last Trial (Steven Wilf, New Rambler) -REVIEW: of Kafka: The Early Years By Reiner Stach (Mark Harman, LA Review of Books) -REVIEW: of Kafka: The Decisive Years by Reiner Stach (PD Smith, the Guardian) -REVIEW: of Kafka: The Years of Insight by Reiner Stach (PD Smith, the Guardian) -REVIEW: of Franz Kafka: The Poet of Shame and Guilt By Saul Friedländer (Morten Høi Jensen, LA Review of Books) -REVIEW: of Excavating Kafka by James Hawes (Tim Black, spiked) -REVIEW: of Kafka’s Other Trial by Elias Canetti (The Examined Life) Two decisive events in Kafka’s life—events which he and all the people would have wanted to keep especially private—had taken place in a way that was embarrassingly public: the official engagement in the Bauer family home on June 1 and, six weeks later, on July 12, 1914, the ‘tribunal’ at the Askanische Hof, which led to the breaking of the engagement. It can be shown that the emotional substance of both events entered directly into The Trial, which Kafka began to write in August. The engagement becomes the arrest in the first chapter; the ‘tribunal’ appears as the execution in the last. -REVIEW: Of Zürau Aphorisms by franz Kafka (Ben Hutchinson, TLS) -REVIEW: of Responses • Kafka's Prague by Ji?í Kolá? (Complete Review) -REVIEW: Of Franz Kafka: The Drawings By Andreas Kilcher and Pavel Schmidt (edd) (GEORGE PROCHNIK, Literary Review) -REVIEW: of Franz Kafka: The Drawings (Thomas Marks, Prospect) -REVIEW: of The Diaries of Franz Kafka, translated by Ross Benjamin: (Andrew Lapin, Times of Israel)) -REVIEW: of The Diaries: A Kafka for Our Times: A new completist edition of Kafka’s diaries lures readers into the Kafkaesque experience of seeing the author dissolve into an auto-fictional scrapheap (MARCO ROTH, The Tablet) -REVIEW: of The Diaries of Franz Kafka, translated by ross benjamin (Theodore Dalrymple, First Things) -REVIEW: of The Diaries (david Mason, Hudson Review) -REVIEW: of Brian K. Goodman’s “The Nonconformists” (Ian Ellison, LA Review of Books) - FILM: -FILMOGRAPHY: The Trial (1962) (IMDB) -WIKIPEDIA: The Trial (1962 film) -FILM REVIEW: The Trial (Roger Ebert) -PLAY REVIEW: The Trial (Michael Billington, The Guardian) Book-related and General Links: -Encyclopaedia Britannica: Your search: "Franz Kafka" -Franz Kafka (1883-1924) (kirjasto) -THE KAFKA SOCIETY OF AMERICA -Franz Kafka (1883-1924) (bio, links, etc) -Franz Kafka -Joseph K's The Castle -The Kafka Project by Mauro Nervi -Franz Kafka Photo Album -Constructing Franz Kafka: project started by participants of the spring 1996 Franz-Kafka graduate seminar taught by Dr. Clark Muenzer at the German department of the University of Pittsburgh -existentialism and Franz Kafka (Katharena Eiermann, The Realm of Existentialism) -Existentialists: Franz Kafka (bio, commentary, etc.) -Franz Kafka and Jewish mysticism- Kabbalah -Franz Kafka: an Absurdist -Leni's Franz Kafka Page -my tribute to franz kafka -Franz Kafka and Prague -ARTICLE: KAFKA'S LIBRARY FOUND IN GERMANY (JOHN TAGLIABUE, NY Times) -ARTICLE: Kafka's Homeland Lifts Its Ban (JOHN TAGLIABUE, NY Times) -ARTICLE: New Work In a Word: Kafkaesque (CRAIG R. WHITNEY, NY Times) -ARTICLE: Prague Journal; Kafka and the Jews in a Web He Would Recognize (HENRY KAMM, NY Times) -ETEXTS: Franz Kafka's Texts on the Web -ETEXT: "the metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka -Kafka, Franz The Metamorphosis (Medical Humanities, NYU) -CHAT: Franz Kafka & The Metamorphosis Forum Frigate -Transformation Stories List (Mark Phaedrus) -REVIEW: J. M. Coetzee: Kafka: Translators on Trial, NY Review of Books The Castle by Franz Kafka and translated by Harman Mark -REVIEW: of THE CASTLE A New Translation, Based on the Restored Text. By Franz Kafka. Translated by Mark Harman (Jeremy Adler , NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: Matthew Hodgart: K., NY Review of Books The Trial by Franz Kafka The Terror of Art: Kafka and Modern Literature by Martin Greenberg There Goes Kafka by Johannes Urzidil Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Castle edited by Peter F. Neumeyer -REVIEW: of Letters to Felice By Franz Kafka (MICHIKO KAKUTANI, NY Times) -REVIEW: of THE NIGHTMARE OF REASON A Life of Franz Kafka. By Ernst Pawel (Leonard Michaels, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of THE NIGHTMARE OF REASON A Life of Franz Kafka. By Ernst Pawel (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, NY Times) -REVIEW: of KAFKA. A Biography. By Ronald Hayman (Michiko Kakutani, NY Times) -REVIEW: of KAFKA A Biography. By Ronald Hayman (James Atlas, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: V. S. Pritchett: The Logic of Franz Kafka, NY Review of Books Kafka: A Biography by Ronald Hayman Kafka's Other Trial: The Letters to Felice by Elias Canetti and translated by Christopher Middleton Letters to Ottla and the Family by Franz Kafka, edited by N.N. Glatzer, translated by Richard Winston, and Clara Winston -REVIEW: of Franz Kafka Representative Man By Frederick R. Karl (MICHIKO KAKUTANI, NY Times) -REVIEW: of Franz Kafka Representative Man By Frederick R. Karl (Leigh Hafrey, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of Kafka By Pietro Citati (Michiko Kakutani, NY Times) -REVIEW: of KAFKA'S OTHER TRIAL. By Elias Canetti (ANATOLE BROYARD, NY Times Book Review) -ESSAY: FRANZ KAFKA: The Irony of Laughter, by Mark A. Seaver -ESSAY: Personal Best: The Castle by Franz Kafka (ANDREW ROSS, Salon) -ESSAY: Franz Kafka & the trip to Spindemuhle (Eric Ormsby, The New Criterion) -ESSAY: Holy Alienation and Anxiety, Kafka! (KEN KURSON, NY Times Book Review) -ESSAY: The Essence of 'Kafkaesque' (IVANA EDWARDS, NY Times Book Review) -ESSAY: THE VISION OF BOTH ORWELL AND KAFKA IS AS SHARP AS EVER, CONFEREES FIND (EDWIN McDOWELL, NY Times) -ESSAY: REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK; WAITER'S JOB IN PALESTINE WAS 'DREAM' OF KAFKA'S (HERBERT MITGANG, NY Times Book Review) -ESSAY: Special K. (Louis Kronenberger, NY Times Book Review) -ESSAY: THE CENTENARY OF A CONTEMPORARY (ERNST PAWEL, NY Times Book Review) -ESSAY: LITERARY FOOTNOTE; KAFKA'S HEBREW TEACHER (ERNST PAWEL, NY Times) -ESSAY: A VOYAGE THROUGH KAFKA'S AMBIGUITIES (RICHARD BERNSTEIN, NY Times) -ESSAY: Roaming the Greenwood (Colm Tóibín, London Review of Books) -REVIEW: Dark matter Adam Mars-Jones reviews A History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition by Gregory Woods (Mail & Guardian) -ESSAY: The "Fecal Dialectic": Homosexual Panic and the Origin of Writing in Borges ( Daniel Balderston, Borges Studies Online) -REVIEW : of Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann Translated by John E. Woods and The Castle by Franz Kafka Translated with a preface by Mark Harman (Steve Dowden, Boston Review) -REVIEW : of The Castle by Franz Kafka Translated by Mark Harman (Roz Spafford, SF Chronicle) GENERAL:
Comments:Hello...I shall openly admit that I am a 15 year old who happened to come across Kafka's books. I decided to search online for a non-biased analysis of his stories and stumbled upon this website... Really, your arguments are really entertaining...Personally, I think all you guys out there are not entirely wrong or right in your analysis of Kafka's fiction. I do agree to an extent, that Kafka is a troubled soul...But face the fact, in today's world, many people are plagued by this disease called depression, and if Kafka actually wrote his stories to give a description of his predicament rather than consolidate ideas, then what is wrong with that? I don't think that we should just label this man as someone who is wrapped all over in self-pity. How can we do so when we did not live in the country that he lived in and at also that particular time period? I think OJ is going a little bit far there, when you say that he is hinting at "repressed homosexuals". Maybe I'm young and naive, but just because Kafka often talks of being ostracised and shamed, doesn't mean that he hints at homosexuality or whatever. Also, although I would say that though Kafka's books do not exactly reflect the perfect vision of a melting-pot of ideas, it is not lacking thereof of ideas at all. No book can exist without ideas. Kafka's books do not have the shape or format of an average novel or work of literature has. But though you can say that Kafka's works do not have strong plots (or proper narratives maybe), you can't really say that they lack ideas. The strong themes that he wants to express are ideas in themselves. - Jacintha G - May-24-2004, 01:15 ******************************************************* The "universal theme" in Kafka's work is human alienation because of negative family relationships, work, failure to make acquaintances into friendships ... whatever. This theme is important because everyone has dealt with this to one degree or another. On the other hand, when reading some of his work, you can't help but pick up on some of autobiographical roots. Some are interesting; others have more of a "Get over it" reaction, at least from me. I'n not talking about Kafka's characters, rather Kafka himself. I think his biggest obstacle was himself: a lot of people have family relationships that are a lot worse than Kafka's, but they find ways to overcome them. - Mr. Pink - Jul-20-2003, 17:19 ******************************************************* Sure. It seems pretty straightforward, but if you can tell me what's unclear about it, I'll be glad to elaborate. - oj - May-21-2003, 12:54 ******************************************************* |
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