Franz Kafka (1883–1924)

An extraordinary combination of beauty and subtle, paranoid horror - "growing inured to disappointment". Who else can make snow sinister (scary perhaps, but surely not sinister)? It ends in the middle of a sentence, more tantalisingly still, it ends with a mysterious old woman just about to say something... Very apt for a tale of layers of secrecy and never-ending frustration.

It can be interpreted as an allegory for Jewish alienation and/or as a semi-autobiographical rendition of his show more relationship with Milena and hers with her husband (portrayed as the mysterious Klamm). Or you can read your own meaning into it.

See my Kafka-related bookshelf for other works by and about Kafka: HERE.

See also Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which I reviewed HERE. One of the two strands has many parallels with this. show less

I consider the central fact of Kafka's stories to be his effort to illustrate something familiar (at least to him) through unfamiliar scenarios. That these scenarios create an effect of alienation, a sense of the absurd, or perhaps horror is significant but not the main thing. (I think this description applies to Expressionism, generally.) And these unfamiliar scenes are in fact rooted in the familiar: certainly there is the impression of another era (customs, business, automation) moving show more into a recognisably modern society. And generally the tales do not seem specific to Europe or even the German-speaking cultures, but broadly applicable to 20c civilisation. Again, the unfamiliar seems a way of drawing the reader's attention, but is not itself the point.

I've heard interpretations of stories such as "Die Verwandlung", and the theories seem clever and insightful at first: that it's autobiographical, say, Kafka feeling an alien or vermin for wanting to be a writer, in a family rejecting that role. But while there's something to that idea, it's soon clear it falls quite short. There's a moment in "Die Verwandlung", when the story doesn't end after the confrontation with his family, rather Gregor is left alone in his room and his family attempts to move on. At that point, it's clear there are too many contradictions, too many details which don't fit the first reading at all. And so it goes with the other stories: a moment or scene stitching together two very different tales, though featuring the same setting and characters. "Der Heizer" (originally the opening chapter of Amerika) in which the character unaccountably meets his Senator uncle amid an onboard trial between two steamship employees; "Das Urteil" in which a well-meaning young man's behaviour is revealed to be less than benevolent, though again it's not quite clear why. Always a twist that is unexpected, evidently meaningful, but ultimately elusive.

Example of how Kafka confounds the expectations set up by the oddity of his establishing scenario: "In der Strafkolonie", when the executioner (der Offizier) fails to persuade the visitor of the merits of the torture device, and so ... straps himself to it, as though taking desperate measures to win the argument. If horror or weirdness were the point, that would be the climax and indeed the point, but here the key does not appear to be related to the conflict between characters, but occurs later. The tension in the story points to the protective stance adopted by the visitor toward the executioner, and his distancing from a subordinate soldier and the executioner's prisoner. Not the narrative arc expected given the opposition between the principal characters, nor that hinted at by the action, either. Clearly, Kafka is getting at something, but what?

And that's just it. When I attempt to "figure out" a Kafka story, understand the strange predicament at its core, for the most part I fail. Interestingly, this failure is not disappointing, and in fact I've come to see the result as a primary source of what draws me to Kafka's work. For I'm left with the abiding strangeness, coupled with the conviction it's not done for its own sake, and though I'm not able to puzzle out the meaning, still I'm convinced there is something more than an effect underlying the story. I may never figure out the story, but I don't lose the pleasure of reading it. This reading experience isn't found anywhere else.

//

Read in 2011 primarily in effort to keep up my German. Kafka's prose is straightforward in vocabulary, but not as simple as I once thought. He relies comfortably on the convoluted sentence structure and nested dependent clauses characteristic of German. The language fits the stories as much as does the narrative itself. show less

European and Western disillusionment with life was at a peak after World War I. The twentieth century was supposed to be humanity’s greatest; instead, it was full of greater ways (think, nerve gas, machine guns, and trench warfare) for humans to destroy themselves. In this context, Kafka wrote this novel, published only after his death. In this story of an everyman, the dilemma of Josef K. (or just K.) raises the question of what we should do in face of life’s seeming meaninglessness.

By show more forces beyond his control and beyond even his cognition, K. is thrust into a trial. He maintains his innocence of the charges – though those charges seem vague and unspoken – but lacks an adequate defense team of lawyers. He falls in and out of love with several women; even love is fleeting and provides little hope. He is judged by a legal system that he cannot meaningfully interact with.

He has discussions with three mainstays of Western life – the law, the arts, and the church. All of them do not provide adequate explanations for how he ought to live life. The arts, symbolized by a painter, provided the most compelling narrative (one of clairvoyance, or “clear seeing”), but by hiding the paintings, K. even rejects that this gloomy reality should be celebrated.

In a manner reminiscent of original sin, he lives under the cloud of deadly forces that he cannot control. This sentence of an unfair death is one that everyone is born into and cannot escape. Despite protests of innocence, no one is permanently acquitted of their fate. Even the priest’s explanation seems confusing at best. The ending fittingly resolves this tension.

I could not help but feel empathy for Kafka in this novel. I also could not help but picture scores of Europeans killing each other in trenches. An entire generation of young men from all over the continent are suddenly gone. And for what? The status quo ante bellum? This disillusionment was shared all over the arts community and by the populous during this era. A “Lost” Generation, they were nicknamed.

This novel should not be read by those looking for hope because it contains little. Instead, it presents the realities of life squarely. Hope must be brought in by the reader through some external means or else despair will reign triumphant, much as it did after World War I. Nonetheless, the existential story sheds light on the seeming meaninglessness that life offers. Fortunately, the remainder of the twentieth century resulted in human progress. Though still not perfect (as Kafka so vividly reminds us), the human story is not over. show less

I'm sure there are as many ways to describe this novel as there are readers, but for me, I'm struck by how accessible and surrealistic it is.

The novel transforms from a tale of railing against bureaucracy into a quiet dystopian nightmare of shadowy conspiracy. K is awoken to his arrest, is subjected to inane bureaucracy, corruption, incomprehensible justice proceedings, and best of all, NO REASON.

In fact, we never get a reason why he is arrested or the purpose of the trial, but we are show more subjected to every stage of the nightmare in a way that could be the seven stages of grief or could be explained as a parable of the Self being subsumed by the State. Or perhaps just the natural progression of a natural person being replaced by the illusory. :)

Of course, it could also be read as a religious parable whereas we are never given a clear set of codes or if we are, the number of interpretations make the result absolutely meaningless and in the end, there IS NO RESOLUTION.

Or it could be as the surface intends, that we live in an increasingly complex system designed primarily to stifle and strangle us by the weight of its own importance.

We can read into it morals and promiscuity and even the Fall by Pride, too, but these are just the delicious mores and quagmires that K is subjected to. :)

Imminently readable and still as applicable today as it was back when it was written in 1914 and pubbed after Kafka's death, I am spoiled as a reader to read it for the first time now.

Am I blown away? Am I thrilled and in total love with his writing?

Yes. :) In fact, I'm going to knock this into my top one-hundred list of best novels of all time. :)

I am pretty damn amazed. It also turns out that I'm probably MOST influenced by him as an author even though I've never read him directly. Surrealism is FREAKING AMAZING.

It's the super-grandaddy of everything that makes dark horror, dystopian literature, and magical realism great.

Oh, and I've been told my own novel writing fits the bill. I think I'll own that. Sweet! :) show less