There are things I wouldn’t know if it wasn’t for my husband. I was broadly aware of Franz Kafka and his works, aware of what people meant by “kafkaesque,” but that awareness meant I wasn’t actually reading it. I’m just sunshine and lollipops over here. Unfortunately I am also horney on goffs, so I ended up married to one, and ended up reading some Kafka for myself. Now I know – Kafka deserved the fame. It’s absurd to say he’s really good actually, but he’s really fucking good, actually.
On my husband’s thirtieth birthday, he got the dying words of Franz Kafka character Josef K tattooed on his arm – “Wie ein Hund,” in the handwriting of Kafka himself. My dude must be more goth than anybody in alles die deutschsprachige welt, because google image search for that quote comes back with nothing but cutesy inspirational dog pictures. Yes, we know that means “like a dog,” but c’mon. Sort yourself out, Deutschland.
One time I mentioned Kafka to a German lady and she had no idea who I was talking about. Yeah, he was Jewish and lived in Prague, but he’s the most famous writer of the German language in much of the world for a reason. Sorry, Goethe is cheesy. Mann is lovely but I never heard of him until I was cohabiting with a goth. The disregard for our boy feels antisemitic. Do you like your own language or not?
So. What’s good about Franz Kafka? He owns your ass. As an author, you want to communicate a feeling to somebody, make them experience it, and if it’s a feeling that cannot easily be expressed in words? All the more impressive. People will talk about the absurdity and futility in his stories, but they don’t mention the humor and the pathos. It’s dark humor, the emotions are sad as hell, and when you’re experiencing both of these things and more, all at the same time, you are spellbound.
Unless you’re immune to art, which is a trait we can add to DickDawk‘s laundry list of character defects. At least he has the courage to never delete his history of incredibly embarrassing tweets.
So far I’ve read The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and The Hunger Artist. I know, I haven’t even read The Trial. Fake Kafka fan. Despite my high praise for him, I would not call myself a fan. What he did as an artist was basically perfect. Sometimes I can think of a quibble with even some of the greatest literature of all time, and I have no such criticism for Kafka. However, did I mention my sunshine and lollipops? When it comes to dark art, I am a tourist. It isn’t for me, for who I am. But it’s absolutely worth reading, regardless of who you are. Just once. Check him out.
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I read The Castle, which maybe wasn’t the best choice, as it’s incomplete–but I liked it! I think he’s very good and maybe I should add more of his to the queue.
the trial and the metamorphosis seem to be the essentials, so i’m not up to speed yet either.
If you enjoy Kafka (and I think In the Penal Colony is one of the best psychological dramas ever written), you probably would also enjoy Borges. Maybe you’ve already read Borges.
Borges is not quite as dark as Kafka, but has a similar outre style. Borges took up where Dunsany left off, and The Book of Sand contains numerous short-short stories which are really fragments which the reader can then continue in their own imagination. Borges’ non-fiction is good too, and I’d highly recommend his essay Blindness found in the collection Seven Nights which are transcripts of a lecture series he did in 1977.
The artwork of Giovanni Battista Piranesi also complements Kafka, in that it usually consists of overwhelming and confusing architecture which overshadows and belittles individuals. Piranesi also made many illustrations of decaying tombs, so he has that Goth credential as well.
The fact that people of a certain nationality don’t know the famous writers from their nation isn’t too surprising. How many non-mystery fans know Rex Stout? Or non-SF fans know Frederic Brown? I’ve run across many people who’ve never heard of Mencken. Mention the name Washington Irving, and you’ll get blank looks until you mention that he wrote, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and then they will think of the Disney cartoon. It’s not really a reflection on their lack of knowledge, they are undoubtedly knowledgeable in other areas than literature. But we tend to judge others based on the knowledge we hold rather than the knowledge they possess.
Not the cheeriest stuff, but.
thanks for the comments and especially the recs. also i recognize the usefulness of not judging people too harshly, i probably shouldn’t do that, heh.
I think Kafka was quite popular in Germany when I was young in the 80s. The 80s were full of “Existenzangst”, especially for the younger generation: high unemployment (especially in youth and higher education), renewed arms race (NATO Double-Track Decision), any feeling of progress stifled by conservative/market liberal government, but nationalism was “silent”. The older generation frustratingly still belived the propaganda of the 3rd Reich (my mothers parents told me I should be happy that “Die Juden” are gone, and that England started the war), but they mostly didn’t dare to speak out, creating some kind of vacuum, granting my generation some degree of freedom from nationalism. I didn’t realize how big of a gift that was until it was gone and nationalism came back after reunification and the soccer world cup of 2006 (“Sommermärchen”). The rise (and continuous move to more extreme positions) of the AfD is IMO directly correlated to that. Now we have similar “Angst” (the economy is down, war in Europe, shitty conservative government trying hard to reverse what little progress there was in the last years), but the general consensus seems to be that we need more weapons, ideally nuclear weapons. Not the best soil to grow some Kafka appreciation on, I guess.
without knowing all the specifics this definitely lines up with my outside sense of the place. i love the good things about germany, i care about humans in general, so i say good luck in all of that. may the kafka love come back as well.
Borges might not be as overall dark as Kafka, but on my short list of the greatest horror stories ever written, I place his “The Gospel According to Mark” right up there (a great story for other reasons too).
When I was about 13 someone remarked that The Castle dealt in part with the frustrations of dealing with a modern bureaucracy, and in part because at the time my dad was continually in conflict with the State bureaucracy he worked with, I thought it sounded like fun, so I got a copy, and though a bit heavy going, I gobbled it up, and have been a lover of Kafka ever since.
An unattributed Kafka quote written down long ago, “In the fight between you and the world, back the world.”
a second for borges, i should definitely check him out