Brain Pain discussion
Kafka Stories - 2014
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Discussion - Week Five - Kafka - The Village Schoolmaster
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I could hardly remember having read this one before, so I assumed it would be a "lesser" story, of sorts, but it turns out I quite liked it. There's no life and death struggle here. The obsession with structures of power and influence, the inability of people to ever come to a proper understanding, the futility of efforts that usually yield regrettable results, they're all here.I liked when the old schoolmaster actually made his appearance, and became less of an abstraction. His fantasy was quite well elaborated. I also very much liked the awkward final image of him smoking his pipe and not departing in a timely manner. It was funny too, how he was described as having filled all his pockets with loose tobacco.
At the most basic level, the original material fact of whether or not a giant mole exists and was seen is not the focus of the story, or necessarily the focus of the protagonist... and in the rarefied levels above, the powers that be and those who determine what is true, what is false, what is scientifically valid and relevant... they're also not the focus. It's the peers, or nearly-peers in the middle, and their exchange, along with all the pettiness and ambiguous details which demand our attention.
Mod
Yep, all of this boils down to "what is reality? who defines reality? who has the authority to define reality and who doesn't?"
I also enjoyed Kafka"s characterization of how a prodigy from the provinces is brought into the urban milieu, how they are paraded through the streets, and how the citizens all fall in line to agree with and ogle the "latest thing". All about opinion makers and the sheep who follow them, among other things.
Most interesting idea for me was:
Every new discovery is assumed at once into the sum total of knowledge, and with that ceases in a sense to be a discovery; it dissolves into the whole and disappears, and one must have a trained scientific eye to even recognize it after that. For it is related to fundamental axioms of whose existence we don't even know, and in the debates of science it is raised on these axioms into the very clouds.
This reminds me of the idea from Catholicism that, in order to know and commune with God, you must have a priest as a middleman, but in this case, to know reality, you must have a scientist as middleman.
Good point. But also, I relate to that passage on another level. I think that, for instance, if and when a human being is cloned, or evidence of radio signals from a distant star is detected, it will create a big sensation... and then it will just be assumed like everything else we "know," and won't really be interesting or noteworthy... and little will be changed by even the most supposedly earth-shattering discovery.
Mod
And another element - the indifference of the masses and the experts.
Hello everyone, I thought I'd pipe in to this one. I love Kafka.This story reminds me of the dog that chases a rabbit and causes a big din in the forest, with other dogs joining in the chase, at least for a while until the novelty wears off, with the exception of the businessman who shows up too late for the party. In the end the only dog still interested in the chase is the only one who actually saw the rabbit. (schoolmaster as apostle)
Come to think of it, Kafka, for me, is like the original dog. I keep chasing after him in his writing din hoping, also, to get a glimpse of his elusive rabbit.
This story is one of my favorites. I remember reading it in class in school (wasn't supposed to be, it was a chemistry class) and accidentally drawing attention to myself by laughing out loud. I thought it was hilarious that K wrote a story about a giant mole and then said mole is completely overshadowed by the tedium of professional decorum, ego, reputation, etc. until the actual giant mole is completely beside the point!
I read somewhere that this was one of Kafka's unfinished stories. Does anyone know if it had been tampered with or if it is as complete as Kafka left it?
Mod
I don't know if it was "tampered with", but it was published after his death. There's a good amount of publishing info on this wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Ka...
Illuminating comment Linda; I hope you pipe up more.
Jim wrote: Most interesting idea for me was:Every new discovery is assumed at once into the sum total of knowledge, and with that ceases in a sense to be a discovery; it dissolves into the whole and disappears, and one must have a trained scientific eye to even recognize it after that. For it is related to fundamental axioms of whose existence we don't even know, and in the debates of science it is raised on these axioms into the very clouds.
It seems that these words were offered as a consolation prize. As long as a thing remains only in the mind and imagination of man is its uniqueness retained and appreciated.
City nerd gets in a beef about a mole with a country nerd. When the dust settles no one gives a scheiße.
Interesting brouhaha about the difference between the witnesses of an event and those who come later (historians?). Schoolmaster as apostle? Narrator as a believer via second-hand information?