September: Franz Kafka

We'll start off a new school year in September with Franz Kafka. At this early stage, what are you all thinking about reading? What works of his have you read in the past?

edited for touchstones ... been giving me issues all day!

Kafka is weird and bizarre, but in an amazing way. I've read The Metamorphosis, The Trial, and The Castle.

I also read these amazing graphic novel versions of The Metamorphosis: graphic novel and some of Kafka's short stories called Give It Up!, both by Peter Kruger, as well as the Illustrated Classics version of The Trial. I highly recommend the two based on the novels/novellas, while the short story one was a little more eh.

Hopefully in September I'll try Amerika, time permitting.

The Burrow!

I've read collected short stories, both in English and auf Deutsch. Though I get far less out of the German, I want to keep it up as much as I can, and consider it a good excuse to read more Kafka.

I've recently come into suhrkamp editions of his 3 novels, and might pick one up as I follow along here. It will be slow going if I do, though.

>3 nohrt4me2: I wasn't familiar with this story so I looked it up and found these two tidbits via Wikipedia:

- A parody of the story appears as part of the short story "The Notebooks of Bob K." by Jonathan Lethem, which is collected in Kafka Americana. In the story Batman's Batcave is presented as a version of the burrow.

- Ian McEwan quotes "The Burrow" in one of two epigraphs to his novel The Innocent.

>4 elenchus: No worries, there is no rush with this group. I think it's great you've read them in translation and in the original German. Did the translations ring true to you?

If I recall, The Burrow is an unfinished fragment. Great study of dread, though.

Re Kafka trivia, Nicholas Cages's character has a picture of Kafka behind his desk in the cult film, Vampire's Kiss.

>5 sweetiegherkin:

That's a great question, about whether the translations ring true. I hadn't considered it before you asked, but I think for me the entire experience, spread now over a few decades of reading, all contribute to an overall experience for me. I can't pull apart separate books from the rest, really, let alone those in translation from those in German.

I tried to describe for myself just what is compelling to me about reading Kafka, in my most recent reading, here. That applies to both the originals and the stories in translation. I'll have to consider whether one or another makes a stronger impression.

>6 nohrt4me2: Fun tidbit. :) I see Kafka's face almost every day as he's one of the authors on my coasters: http://www.outofprintclothing.com/products/punk-author-coaster-set

>7 elenchus: Thanks for sharing. Your review is very thought-provoking -- I like the idea that the absurdness in Kafka's works is not actually the point... I feel like that's not usually the critical feeling but you make excellent points.

I'll be reading The Castle.

>7 elenchus: I think you are exactly right; Kafka liked to use striking settings or plots to explore a human emotion such as dread in heightened and exaggerated circumstances. Turning into a cockroach and losing your identity such that no one recognizes you could be a metaphor for any number of human tragedies. With Kafka, though, I'm never sure if we've crossed the line from horror to farce.

This is perfect. This will hopefully motivate me to read the Kafka I have on my shelves. I can't decide on Amerika or The Trial. I also recently printed out The Country Doctor which might be a great warm up.

How's everyone doing with Franz Kafka this month?

Ah I finished The Castle a while ago. It was...interesting. Had its moments. But overall, I wasn't so wowed. I really enjoy the Absurdism in Catch-22, but in The Castle it just doesn't do it for me. I just wondered throughout why, about quite a lot of it! Lol. I dunno. I'm still planning to read his other stuff but, I'm not sure that Kafka is really for me.

The Castle was probably my least favorite of his books (that I read so far). My feelings were similar -- I like the absurd, but within limits. The Castle honestly didn't make a lot of sense to me ... things just seemed to happen for no reason. I much preferred The Trial -- also weird and absurd, but at least there seemed to be a kind of logic to it. And The Metamorphosis was my favorite so far.

Yeah, it was very much "...but why?!" about, well, very much. Lol. I laughed here and there, and there were a few "deep thought"ish moments, but mostly it was just like ...but why do you want to do that? why are they doing that? why is that happening? why does X wind up resulting in Y?! and so forth, hahaha. Just, not so satisfying. I will read the rest though (only missing Amerika), they're just not at the top of my list right now. :)

>15 .Monkey.: Yep, I hear you! It seemed like a lot of random nonsense in The Castle.

Oh, by the way, for anyone who might be interested, Kafka has three books on the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die list. They are:

The Trial
The Castle
Amerika

For some reason, The Metamorphosis didn't make the cut, although I don't pretend to understand the rationale behind some of the list's book choices. I've read some that I definitely could have lived without reading.

Because of when things were available at my library, I flip-flopped months for H.G. Wells and Kafka, so I just now started Amerika. Too soon to say anything of substance about it.

I finally finished Amerika after a month and wasn't super thrilled with it. Pasting my review below.

After a sexual encounter with a servant girl, teen-aged Karl is shipped off to America by his parents to live with his uncle. But his uncle soon turns his back on Karl, who is left to fend for himself. Karl is shortly joined on his journey for employment by two other immigrants - one from France and one from Ireland - who prove to be false friends that lead Karl to increasingly more difficult problems.

Like The Castle, this Kafka work made me feel pretty dumb. I kept feeling like there was something I was missing because I wasn't really getting a big picture takeaway from it. As far as I'm aware of, Kafka never spent any time in America himself, which is perhaps why this book doesn't feel in the least bit like a commentary on America - either good or bad. Likewise, despite what critical readings say, I didn't get a sense of the absurdities of bureaucracy in this book like in other Kafka works. True, lots of ridiculous things happen to Karl, but there doesn't seem to be a "force" causing these things to happen, it just seems like a variety of ill-mannered people acting cruelly. Not much for a takeaway message.

The audio book was narrated by George Guidall, who also narrated the copy of The Castle that I listened to sometime ago. Guidall is okay as a narrator -- he does have a good variation in his voice to indicate emotions, but he lacks very clear distinctions between character voices and doesn't even attempt the various accents that should be present.

All in all, this was a bit of a disappointing read. I'm glad I finally got to it, but I would steer Kafka newbies to The Metamorphosis or The Trial rather than Amerika.