Kafka, March 1912:
>Who will confirm for me the truth or probability of the fact that solely as a result of my literary bent I am without interest in anything else, and heartless.
Yikes, hold me /lit/
Kafka General
>>7625187
neat little freudian stories
short too
7.5/10
>>7625187
cute stories if a little dragged out
7/10.
>>7625187
>Who will confirm for me the truth or probability of the fact that solely as a result of my literary bent I am without interest in anything else, and heartless.
That quote reminds me of when DFW talked about how the central joke in Kafka was that a life in which one struggles to find meaning results in a life that is defined by that struggle.
This is now DFW general.
bought a copy of the trial at a thrift store.
good choice if I've never read kafka before?
>>7625225
Don't hijack the thread memester
Kafka on the soul:
"Man cannot live without a permanent faith in something indestructible in himself. At the same time this indestructible part and his faith in it may remain permanently concealed from him."
>>7625239
>starting Kafka with the book he never finished
>>7625270
The Trial is unfinished
The Castle is unfinished
Amerika is unfinished
Kafka hated the ending to the Metamorphosis
Kafka hated endings
I don't get your point
>>7625258
this looks like something a 16 year old would write on his facebook wall to seem deep desu
>>7625280
>thinking of aphorisms in context of facebook posts
We're on the way out
>>7625223
Nice short stories.
8.9/10
Are you throwing up yet faggot?
>>7625239
Max Brod on Kafka:
"When Kafka read aloud himself, this humor became particularly clear. Thus, for example, we friends of his laughed quite immoderately when he first let us hear the first chapter of The Trial. And he himself laughed so much that there were moments when he couldn't read any further. Astonishingly enough, when you think of the fearful earnestness of this chapter. But that is how it was.
Certainly it was not entirely good, comfortable laughter. But the ingredients of a good laugh were also there--alongside the hundred ingredients of uncanniness, which I shall not try to minimize. I am only pointing out the fact is otherwise so easily forgotten in studies of Kafka--the streak of joy in the world and in life."
Don't forget to laugh anon
>>7625316
Yeah, there is a kind of defeatist humour in Kafka. Somewhere between the laughter of a lunatic and impotent rage. I love it.
Know who else loved it? My old pal Davey Jest.
Kafka's diaries are a one way ticket to depression-land. I borrowed them from the library last week, read though some pages and decide it's not worth the effort and the sadness. I'll stick with his fiction. I mean, some excerpts:
“April 27. Incapable of living with people, of speaking. Complete immersion in myself, thinking of myself. Apathetic, witless, fearful. I have nothing to say to anyone - never.”
“Forget everything. Open the windows. Clear the room. The wind blows through it. You see only its emptiness, you search in every corner and don’t find yourself.”
“I feel an unhappiness which almost dismembers me, and at the same time am convinced of its necessity”
"People label themselves with all sorts of adjectives. I can only pronounce myself as 'nauseatingly miserable beyond repair'.”
Kafka pls :_
Walter Benjamin on Kafka:
"To do justice to the figure of Kafka in its purity and its peculiar beauty one must never lose sight of one thing: it is the purity and beauty of a failure. The circumstances of this failure are manifold. One is tempted to say: once he was certain of eventual failure, everything worked out for him en route as in a dream. There is nothing more memorable than the fervor with which Kafka emphasized his failure."
>>7625347
I wish I could be his bro.
>>7625347
Sounds better than his fiction.
>>7625432
What's your problem with his fiction?
>>7625347
Ich weiß, Franzl.
Ich weiß.
>>7625452
Nothing really. Its intricate, allegorical, somewhat humourous but also a tad long-winded and a little mastabatory. Sometimes -- especially when he only has one style -- one is more keen for something bold, direct and emphatic.
>>7625280
Yes, but he's allowed to do that. We all think things that are like the stuff that 16 y/o kids write in facebook, the difference is we don't make it public as if it were important. Kafka's journals have a lot of bitching about trivial things, but the journals were meant to be private, not a public rambling to be edgy and have attention.
Kafka on Life:
Kafka:
>Our world is only a bad mood of God, a bad day of his.
Brod:
>Then there is hope outside this manifestation of the world that we know.
Kafka, smiling:
>Oh, plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope--but not for us.
>>7625599
Exactly
