Which Kafka Next?

Inspired by somebody's post somewhere on LT (on the Onion's piece on the Kafka International Airport), I feel like reading more Kafka. I've read The Trial and Metamorphosis, and a bunch of other short stories. What is the next essential Kafka read?

Aside from the remaining short stories, you could tackle Amerika and The Castle. I'm not sure which you'd want to read first.

I guess there isn't much else . . . ? Well, that's not a lot of books. Kinda a silly question, now that I think about it (even though LT lists 250-ish works for him). Okay, Amerika sounds kinda weird. One, he doesn't even know how to spell the name of the continent? country?, and, two, I know enough to know he never did go there. So that one couldn't be any good. I guess that leaves the Castle?

The Castle is magnificent.

There is also a book of his aphorisms, as well as a few published collections of his letters.

A couple of years ago I saw a fringe production of "Kafka and Son", which was a one-man show based on the famous letter Kafka wrote to his father. I was quite impressed by the performance and the author's fraught relationship with his pere.

There's undoubtedly a KAFKA READER or something to that effect--perhaps that would provide a better overview to his body of work. Anyone know of a good biography?

I know an English prof who firmly states Kafka's full-length stuff is well nigh unreadable, it's only his short fiction that's worth seeking out.

But, of course, the best thing to do is to read the dude and see for yourself.

Note: I have a copy of Orson Welles' adaptation of THE TRIAL, starring Anthony Perkins, but have yet to watch it...

The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head by Begley is supposed to be the best Kafka biography. The biography by Brod is apparently not so good.

I recently got the book Kafka's Last Love, but I have not read it yet.

Kafka's The Penal Colony had a huge effect on me in grade 9. I didn't even know who the author was, and it took me 13 years before I finally stumbled upon it in a collection of short works. By then I knew who Kafka was, and when I found out he was the author I had to slap my head, "Of COURSE he wrote that! Who else could?"

If you can find it, I highly suggest it, although it is quite disturbing!

That's funny, the touchstone didn't work for "The Penal Colony"...

PENAL COLONY

Sometimes just taking out the article helps...

Er...or not...

Jesus, that's weird.

Kafka wrote in German, in which language "America" is, indeed, Amerika. So you ought to ask why the translators chose to leave it in that form, not whether "he doesn't even know how to spell the name of the continent? country?". In fact, one could posit that someone who doesn't realise a name may have different forms in different languages, is too dumb and/or uninformed to read Kafka.

>3 Nickelini: - Erm... You DO realize that 'Amerika' is not the title Kafka gave to it, right? Even if he had chosen it, what does it matter?

As for him not going there, considering that it's Kafka, I don't see how that matters at all, either. His writing is, in short, surreal, so even if he had gone there it wouldn't make much difference. It isn't as if he went to all the places portrayed in his other writings.

To judge Amerika by the title his literary executor chose and by whether or not he went there is ludicrous.

It was a JOKE people! Humour is subjective, and I'm obviously playing to the wrong crowd. Yikes.

>12 Nickelini: - On the internet, jokes need to be made very clear. Sometimes I thought (or hoped) people were joking, but it turned out they were not. Awkward.

Thus the invention of those moronic emoticons.

If it aids communication its not moronic. ;)

I also think emoticons are moronic, but they sure do come in handy. Yesterday I sent my husband a link to pmsbuddy.com - as a joke - but I forgot the goofy smiley guy. Just to be on the safe side, in case I was serious, he signed up. Now I feel silly.

15> That would be "it's".

17: Good pickup! :)

If it aids communication it is not moronic. ;)

Much better, thanks!

Cheers!

The best humour is that which works whether it is understood as humour or not. Jokes that need explaining are not worth making.

Humor has a shelf life, too. A lot of Shakespeare's jokes need explaining (to us), but they were still worth making.

>20 geneg: - But if one is going to make the joke anyway, it's best for it to be clear, correct?

I read the great wall of china last year and now can't remember what it was about. I guess that's the trouble with short stories (or old age).

R. Crumb wrote a graphic novel about Kafka.

KAFKA FUCK

Once back at my place she plays it coy scuttling under the couch until I menace her with a can of Raid using it to steer her toward the bedroom antennae twitching in excitement crawling up the edge of my bedspread chittering as I run my fingers along her polished carapace rubbing her thorax while her withered ornamental wings flutter mandibles dug into my pillow in insectile ecstasy as I mount her probing for anything resembling a vagina wondering if she uses protection and if not if the pupa will look anything like me.

**********************

Couldn't resist. This prose poem is from a chapbook I put together back in the early 90's. I was heavily influenced by the surrealist notion of "automatic writing", just putting pen to paper, no pre-planning, bypassing the logic circuits and going directly to the un/subconscious. It's a tactic I employ to deal with writer's block to this very day...

>25 CliffBurns: - Wow.

"it's"/ "its" and "there/their" are the two commonest mistakes i make typing- i only notice my error ~ 50% of the time.

ed. to correct tense error

25: Once you go to cockroaches, you never go back.

And, y'know, some people shy away from depictions of inter-species sex...

**Insert joke about the Red States**

Where the men are men and the sheep run scared.

Set and spike.

24.....I'd assumed he'd drawn the pictures and the other guy wrote it.

The Kafka Diaries.

How about The Zombie Metamorphosis? Or The Trial: How to negate the Zombie Metamorphosis Strategy in Court. I hear this last is a must read for lawyers who just aren't satisfied with the law and feel the need to muck about in it.

Does Kafka have to have a home in
a) A German University
b) A Swiss bank vault
c) The State of Israel

Yes?

#34:

None of the above.

His work belongs to the collective consciousness of humanity.

....like my fridge.

The Castle was really good as long as you understand what's going on. I had a friend of mine try to read it and she returned it the next day. (It was quote "lame").
(Sigh)
The Castle is really quite amazing though so I wish you luck.

Kafka Americana - seriously, i enjoyed it a lot.

Ein Landarzt (translated as various permutations of a country doctor) is one that's stayed with me for a long time. I'd recommend a collected short fiction, if such a thing exists in English - I think it's his best work, the short stuff.

I'm reading Strange Days Indeed by Francis Wheen. It's about the Kafkaesque 70s and "the Golden Age of Paranoia." Darkly comedic, gleefully paranoid, and on the verge of going off its nut, ah ... the Seventies.

Finally laid my hands on Roland Topor's novel THE TENANT (made into a brilliant Polanski film). If THE TENANT ain't Kafka-esque, I dunno what is...

40> Schocken has a collection of his complete short stories. It really ought to be next to the bed of every reader.

43: I'm a huge Kafka fan, but next to the bed? I don't want to begin to imagine the dreams "Penal Colony" would give me!