Kafka, the anarchist

[Valkyrie]

Most of Kafka's writings speak of anti-authoritarianism/bureacracy/government (The Trial, The Castle, In the Penal Colony) and labor-societal alienation (The Metamorphosis, A Report to an Academy, The Judgment.) so, I'm inclined to think he had strong anarchist leanings.

http://www.wpunj.edu/~newpol/issue23/lowy23.htm

[Rastafari]

I think clearly that Kafka was a man very influenced by the changes going on around him (you can see an Einsteinian/Planckian body of reasoning in a few peices). I'd say this paper does the right thing on the subject as well, and doesn't draw his leanings out into fanaticism, which they certainly weren't.

[Valkyrie]

interesting comment, Rastafari. Yeah, Kafka's writings have a lot of layers. Even reading additional critical essays doesn't cover everything. Can you elaborate on the Einstein/Max Planck theme?

[peaccenicked]

I think kafka is too complicated to be pinned down by a political label. The term 'modernist' has been used to
describe his writing, yet that too may be too narrow or too broad dependeng on how its defined.
To historically place him, it is a good idea to see how others place him.http://www.themodernword.com/kafka/kafka_quotes.html.
Here is perhaps the most comprehensive place to begin studying Kafka online.
http://www.levity.com/corduroy/kafka.htm

[Rastafari]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2004, 12:14 PM
interesting comment, Rastafari. Yeah, Kafka's writings have a lot of layers. Even reading additional critical essays doesn't cover everything. Can you elaborate on the Einstein/Max Planck theme?
absolutely. Do you remember The Hunter Gracchus?
Read it again with the new aspects of space and time that were popping up in educated circles at this time in mind. It is really astonishing.
let's see...
here you go:
http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/kafka/hunt...tergracchus.htm (http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/kafka/huntergracchus.htm)

that is the big one I can thing of offhand. hmm...the story (I can't remember what it was called) about the young man and his friend who he wrote discourses to? With the twist at the end. Anyway, that one, too, had the idea of time being very fluid. all of his later stories seem to contain some aspect of a new view on physics within, but perhaps I am looking too far into them.

[Valkyrie]

Hey, Rastafari, Yeah, I know what you mean the concurrent time-fluidity themes in his writings.

I think the other story you might be referring to is "The Judgment" that brillant little filial commentary of betrayal,----- one sure way to read that story, atleast. there's very much a time element in there as well and kind of a duality going on.

Shit. you could spend a serious lifetime re-reading and then reading all the interpretations. Uncomparable, but, by contrast to Camus' precise, stark minimalism of the same subject matter -- Kafka's whole social commentary is in the understatements, mataphors and voids ---- so you have to keep reading and re-reading!!!! No problem, though, as the writing holds up well under scrutiny.


There are new translations out besides the old standard Edward Muir transliterations that are worth taking a look at.
Here's an interesting intrepretation of The Hunter Gracchus by Guy Davenport.
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/14/feb...96/gracchus.htm (http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/14/feb96/gracchus.htm)



heyPeacenik!--

The top link I haven't seen before and is excellent. I was reading the critical comments of Camus, Heller, etc. Interesting, but, still one can hardly argue that he was not a genius in his own right. And that perhaps without him, there might not be a Camus, or a Burroughs or even perhaps an Orwell. he opened up a whole genre - surreal existentialism (Kafka-esque) but, has not really been credited for opening the door to the literary existential movement at all. :(

I agree, he really can't be politically pigeon-holed. I was reading that his girlfriend Milena Jasenska belonged to the communist party.

http://www.kafka.org/
http://www.pitt.edu/~kafka/intro.html

[Rastafari]

There are new translations out besides the old standard Edward Muir transliterations that are worth taking a look at.
Here's an interesting intrepretation of The Hunter Gracchus by Guy Davenport.
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/14/feb...96/gracchus.htm


Great, man. Maybe the dynamic improvements made to Kafka's works will rival those made to Camus'...

[Valkyrie]

translation is everything-- that is true!

thanks Rastafari, you've given me an idea for a little side-project --a comparable study of Camus and Kafka. They have many running parallels.

speaking of Camus... a book is being published in April of him and Sartre that Sartre edited, and about the apparent ideological conflict, that of communism, that ended their long friendship. it's called: Sartre and Camus - A Historical Confrontation

a bit of history about the split is here:
http://www.history.und.ac.za/Sempapers/aronson2002.pdf

The book description here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=books&n=507846 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/159102157X/qid=1076950998//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/102-4386873-2618538?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)

and the Aronson book:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=books&n=507846 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0226027961/qid=1076950998//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-4386873-2618538?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)

[Danton]

You are smart folk, I read the trial recently and I'm sorry to say I didn't understand a fucking word of it - well, I exagerate, slightly. But seriously it was impenetrable man! Impenetrable... What am I missing?

I agree though, in my limited,wrongheaded way I can definatley say he was anti authority and anti buerocracy..

[Pete]

Hmm.. He was also influenced, and I may have my authors wrong, by jewish folk tales and jewish mysticism. My friend explained this to me after a class on the Merkavah, so I have nothing to back it up but his word.

[Valkyrie]

yes, that is right. he studied jewish folklore and a few years later when he was around 30 years old, he started studying Judaism. I read in the introduction to The Trial, that the methodology of Talmudic Law was a running stream of conciousness throughout that story.

Arthur Rock: If "the Trial" seems impenetrable, then you have understood it completely.

[Danton]

I guess, given the nature of a Kaftka novel.. My bewilderment certainly didn't impinge on my enjoyment in reading the thing, the end was extremely bleak but there were many moments of what seemed like mirth or at least tickled my warped sense of humour.. I will have to try another, what is recommended?

[Valkyrie]

another Kafka? I recommend "The Metamorphosis" You might find that amusing also, in a primeval-reptilian sort of way. Kafka was a working class insect.

The e-text is here:
http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/stories/kafka-E.htm

and others are here:

http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/kafka/kafkatofc.htm

The one problem with Kafka's longer novels is that they're unfinished due to his untimely death from TB at age 41. During his lifetime, he only had a couple of small books of poems published without much notice and so had to gain other employment elsewhere, working for an insurance company his whole life,(which must have been stifling for him) and thus never live to see the impact he left. I think because of that, his writings have that sort of purity to it, untainted by recognition and the fruits that spring thereof.


Have fun, Arthur!

[Valkyrie]

Interesting Nabokov interpretation of The Metamorphosis.


http://victorian.fortunecity.com/vermeer/2...tamorphosis.htm (http://victorian.fortunecity.com/vermeer/287/nabokov_s_metamorphosis.htm)