Franz Kafka: The Complete Novels - The Trial- America - The Castle

[Rumpel]

Franz Kafka: The Complete Novels - The Trial- America - The Castle

What have you read?
What did you like?

 

[btthegreat]

Franz Kafka: The Complete Novels - The Trial- America - The Castle

What have you read?
What did you like?

 

[btthegreat]

I read The Trial for AP English and wrote my final paper on it, and I read Metamorphosis on my own( that is the one where a salesman turns into a beetle/ bug, and his family reject him.) I am a definite fan. Somehow, I could not get into the Castle though.

When your last name becomes an adjective outside your native tongue, you know you have made a major impact on literature and the arts.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Kafkaesque Kafkaesque- nightmarish, illogical, bizzare,
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/kafkaesque reminiscent of Kafka, extremely unpleasant, frightening, and confusing, and similar to situations described in the novels of Franz Kafka.

He is a very significant and utterly unique voice in twentieth century literature. He expertly captures the absurdity, the alienation of modern urban life. Kafka is definitely not for everyone but if you like your novels twisted and infused with very dark dry humor this is the guy for you!

 

[btthegreat]

By the way, even by the high standards set for modern literary types, Kafka was one weird, eccentric and odd character.

 

[Rumpel]

By the way, even by the high standards set for modern literary types, Kafka was one weird, eccentric and odd character.

I like and admire Kafka!

 

[Rumpel]

I read The Trial for AP English and wrote my final paper on it, and I read Metamorphosis on my own( that is the one where a salesman turns into a beetle/ bug, and his family reject him.) I am a definite fan. Somehow, I could not get into the Castle though.

When your last name becomes an adjective outside your native tongue, you know you have made a major impact on literature and the arts.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Kafkaesque Kafkaesque- nightmarish, illogical, bizzare,
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/kafkaesque reminiscent of Kafka, extremely unpleasant, frightening, and confusing, and similar to situations described in the novels of Franz Kafka.

He is a very significant and utterly unique voice in twentieth century literature. He expertly captures the absurdity, the alienation of modern urban life. Kafka is definitely not for everyone but if you like your novels twisted and infused with very dark dry humor this is the guy for you!

so it is!

 

[Rumpel]

anybody else who has read kafka?

 

[btthegreat]

anybody else who has read kafka?

Here in the states, I suspect most Americans who have had any exposure at all, will have been coerced by a teaching curriculum in high school or college, or indirectly and incidently from some movie version they accidently watched late at night. In public school, its going to be the short story, because teachers tend to concentrate their limited time on ramming a lot of short stories/ short poems and their authors and relatively few longer novels or plays and then they concentrate on American ones. . Unless it was in college, the students probably won't even remember the name of the author. Coercion via 'homework assignment ' is the quickest most insidious way to induce an amnesia diagnosis in any teen between 16-19 years of age. Ask any adult how much of that High School French they recall, or the formula for finding the lowest common demoninator in a fraction.

Your short answer, is most Americans will never have read Kafka, and those that have, won't attach the name, because they were exposed to as a student . They will just remember the distinctive plot, if their memory is jogged. I am by no means normal. I was a literary nerd all throughout in my youth.

They will however remember their exposure to their first Shakespeare play. Its not a compliment to the Bard. They recall the name of the Shakespeare play (inevitably Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar or Macbeth) they studied in 9th grade for the same reason they would recall being waterboarded, or strung up by their thumbs too. ( we do a really shitty job of teaching Shakespeare over here)

 

[Rumpel]

one must read Kafka for pleasure, not because one is forced to read him.

 

[btthegreat]

one must read Kafka for pleasure, not because one is forced to read him.

I chose The Trial for my AP English semester final essay subject. I not only got an A, I got parts of my essay read in class! Those were the days before the internet was full of such essays one could download with a credit card. I used (gasp!) a typewriter and White- Out.

 

[PoS]

I first read The Metamorphosis when I was 12, because I thought a story about a guy who turns into a cockroach would be like a cool horror book full of gore and craziness. Boy was I wrong.

 

[Rumpel]

I first read The Metamorphosis when I was 12, because I thought a story about a guy who turns into a cockroach would be like a cool horror book full of gore and craziness. Boy was I wrong.

View attachment 67476116

and i first read THE TRIAL at that age because it would be a …detective story, sort of ….

soon i was puzzled . ….. but i kept reading ….. fascinated ….

 

[PoS]

and i first read THE TRIAL at that age because it would be a …detective story, sort of ….

soon i was puzzled . ….. but i kept reading ….. fascinated ….

Thats exactly how I felt when I read The Metamorphosis. I wanted to see how it ended. When I finally closed the book I was confused and depressed, but I never forgot it.

 

[Rumpel]

Thats exactly how I felt when I read The Metamorphosis. I wanted to see how it ended. When I finally closed the book I was confused and depressed, but I never forgot it.

exactly!

i wanted to see how the trial ended!

and was confused then.

 

[Rumpel]

Here in the states, I suspect most Americans who have had any exposure at all, will have been coerced by a teaching curriculum in high school or college, or indirectly and incidently from some movie version they accidently watched late at night. In public school, its going to be the short story, because teachers tend to concentrate their limited time on ramming a lot of short stories/ short poems and their authors and relatively few longer novels or plays and then they concentrate on American ones. . Unless it was in college, the students probably won't even remember the name of the author. Coercion via 'homework assignment ' is the quickest most insidious way to induce an amnesia diagnosis in any teen between 16-19 years of age. Ask any adult how much of that High School French they recall, or the formula for finding the lowest common demoninator in a fraction.

Your short answer, is most Americans will never have read Kafka, and those that have, won't attach the name, because they were exposed to as a student . They will just remember the distinctive plot, if their memory is jogged. I am by no means normal. I was a literary nerd all throughout in my youth.

They will however remember their exposure to their first Shakespeare play. Its not a compliment to the Bard. They recall the name of the Shakespeare play (inevitably Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar or Macbeth) they studied in 9th grade for the same reason they would recall being waterboarded, or strung up by their thumbs too. ( we do a really shitty job of teaching Shakespeare over here)

that is really sad

and i can understand

i did not have Kafka at school … i read him of my own free will!

 

[Rumpel]

I read The Trial for AP English and wrote my final paper on it, and I read Metamorphosis on my own( that is the one where a salesman turns into a beetle/ bug, and his family reject him.) I am a definite fan. Somehow, I could not get into the Castle though.

When your last name becomes an adjective outside your native tongue, you know you have made a major impact on literature and the arts.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Kafkaesque Kafkaesque- nightmarish, illogical, bizzare,
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/kafkaesque reminiscent of Kafka, extremely unpleasant, frightening, and confusing, and similar to situations described in the novels of Franz Kafka.

He is a very significant and utterly unique voice in twentieth century literature. He expertly captures the absurdity, the alienation of modern urban life. Kafka is definitely not for everyone but if you like your novels twisted and infused with very dark dry humor this is the guy for you!

yes, Kafka is indeed unique!

 

[btthegreat]

yes, Kafka is indeed unique!

collecting english adjectives founded on the name of a writer: shakespearian, , orwellian, swiftian, byronic, vonnegutesque and the only two that I have found that is based on a writer non english speakiing origin like kafkesque, is machiavellian, and draconian (evidently based on an Athens lawmaker Draco from 620 BC)

If you have not learned the english word 'geek', there is a picture of me next to the Webster's dictionary definition.

 

[Rumpel]

collecting english adjectives founded on the name of a writer: shakespearian, , orwellian, swiftian, byronic, vonnegutesque and the only two that I have found that is based on a writer non english speakiing origin like kafkesque, is machiavellian, and draconian (evidently based on an Athens lawmaker Draco from 620 BC)

If you have not learned the english word 'geek', there is a picture of me next to the Webster's dictionary definition.

i know „geek“ … of course

 

[btthegreat]

i know „geek“ … of course

If you have to go all the way back to 620 bc to find your third writer from continental Europe to be s.o honored, you have to see Kafka in rarified light as a translated author in my native tongue and neither Draco nor Machiavelli were even the authors of any fine literature. they wrote nonfiction and they were not very nice reads at all. Nobody is begging to to be called machiavellian or draconian.

 

[Rumpel]

in German it is …kafkaesk ….

 

[btthegreat]

in German it is …kafkaesk ….

Do you have similar adjectives in German? Is there a duplicate for 'Shakespearean', for example or are there adjective forms of other German writers like Mann, Brecht or Goethe etc that take essential elements of someones' style, form, or structure and turn them into an adjective to be applied outside of their work?

 

[Rumpel]

Do you have similar adjectives in German? Is there a duplicate for 'Shakespearean', for example or are there adjective forms of other German writers like Mann, Brecht or Goethe etc that take essential elements of someones' style, form, or structure and turn them into an adjective to be applied outside of their work?

you could form such adjectives always … but they are not in general use …