Nathanimal’s Comments (group member since Jan 28, 2011)

Nathanimal’s comments from the Franz Kafka group.

It's been a while since I read it, but what I remember liking a lot about "The Burrow" was Kafka's ambiguity over what kind of creature the burrower was. So, like all his work, it can be read many ways. On one level it's a story about an incredibly fussy little animal living underground. On another it's a drawn-out analogy told by a man who's gone to great pains to shore up his dark, insulated world. The picture I have in my head from when I read it is a hybrid of the two: a smudged little man reveling in his underground kingdom of dirt and rocks. Hey, that reminds me of Notes from Underground. Companion pieces?

Michael: "Small fry" - I love it. I find that so much of my enjoyment of Kafka relies on appreciating "the kind of absurdity that results from the deadpan playing out, at great length, of an increasingly ridiculous premise." Nicely put.

The story seems like a perfect portrait of Kafka later in life. After so much fretting and angst he's finally found a little black hole to settle into. I think I remember reading that he and Dora would sit up nights and read it aloud. What fun.

Super. I love "The Burrow" which I think is from that period, too.

OK. Great. I'm reading the Louis Begley bio right now, and noticed that he recommended that one in his selected bibliography as the "best general biography." I find it funny when you get to the end of a book and the author says, in affect, And if you want to read an actual good book on the subject . . .

Anything you particularly liked about The Nightmare of Reason, or was it just roundly good?

Oh, and duh, I almost forgot to mention my favorite piece on Kafka, which Camus sticks in the appendix of The Myth of Sisyphus. So rich, so articulate, and so short. In fact if this discussion group ever wakes from its coma that would be a fun reading to discuss.

Hey this book looks like a lot of fun. Any one read it?

Which leads me to a broader question: do you have favorite books written about Kafka? As in a biography or some kind of criticism? I enjoyed a lot of Roberto Calasso's book, K. Also R. Crumb's illustrated bio was pretty entertaining.

I've heard, from Calasso and other sources, that Walter Benjamin is the guy to read for insight into Kafka. I should hurry up and read that, I guess.

Frida Fantastic wrote: "Not a real moment, but I found K.'s bizarre ways of gauging his relative value or class compared to other people. I liked that scene when he was dealing with the red-head in the court, and how K. f..."

Oh so true. Ridiculous and painfully real. I especially like these ridiculous assumptions when they come the other way around. Like how in Amerika or The Castle others just assume that Karl or K is some kind of blackguard or smarmy, suspicious individual. It's like the protagonist has a shabby look to him that he (and the reader) can't see.

That's really interesting. Never thought of Before the Law as a solution. What do you think it's suggesting? A kind of civil disobedience of the soul?

Also, as far as funny goes: the 2 assistants "as alike as two snakes" from The Castle are just pure comedy. The 2 henchmen from the last chapter of The Trial are pretty funny in a creepy way, too. I wonder what it is Kafka likes about doubles and why he draws them so cartoonishly.

Oh, of course. And though I know there are perhaps more faithful translations out there (perhaps yours, Phillip!) we wouldn't want these original translations to just go away, right? And as long as they are reprinting them they might as well give them the face lift they need. Maybe it's the wet San Francisco climate but all my old Schocken editions, the ones with the morose matte and gloss black covers, curl like crazy. It leaves those staid Muir translations looking a little ridiculous. (Not that I actually plan on buying them again, but for posterity's sake I guess.)

So, I just found out about the new Schocken editions slated to come out in June this year. When first I laid eyes on them I thought, hey! what's with all the color? For some reason I imagined reading these with a Kafka martini in front of me, with soft Kafka jazz playing in the background. However after reading designer Peter Mendelsund's reasoning behind the vivid designs I thought, Yes, exactly right. There's always a lot of talk about Kafka as some kind of prophet of alienation and doom, which, yeah, he was, but we tend to forget that he was also hysterically funny and imaginative and playful.

Here's a speech given by David Foster Wallace on the essential funniness of the man.

What are some of your funniest moments in Kafka?

Probably my favorite is the scene in The Trial called "The Whipper." Joseph K discovers a little broom closet at his job where the two men who ate his breakfast at the beginning of the book are being whipped. Of course it can be read darkly, revealing how our own comfortable lives are often the result of the invisible suffering of others. But it's also an injection of hilarity into K's work day. The ongoing joke throughout The Trial of the injustice of those men eating K's breakfast just kills me.