External Links: Short Stories Etc

[Andrew, Wound Up]

I'm going to search out some of the referenced short stories and other items from the novel and post links here. Feel free to add anything you find!

King Lear
PDF

Science and Human Behaviour
PDF

A Hunger Artist
Kafka, The Complete Stories - Search for Hunger Artist

The Balloon
The Balloon, Donald Barthelme PDF

Blumfeld, an Elderly Batchelor
Kafka, The Complete Stories - Search for Blumfeld

Our Cause
Possibly a short story from the following collection:
The Taste of Penny, Jeff Parker (Purchase Link)

The Hat Act by Robert Coover
Audio Version
Pricksongs & Descants: Fictions - (Purchase Link)

Groucho Marx Eyebrow Raise
Good Examples

Whistles
Wolf Whistle
Cat Call
Attention Whistle

Alfred Nobel
Wikipedia - Chad-Kyle sucks.

Marvelous Margin Hagler
Wikipedia

Take My Breath Away
Youtube

The Nuremberg Race Laws
Holocaust Encyclopedia

[Andrew, Wound Up]

Kafka possibly said this about Blumfeld, considered an unfinished work: "Just now read the beginning. It is ugly and gives me a headache. In spite of all its truth, it is wicked, pedantic, mechanical, a fish barely breathing on a sandbank".

It is an interesting story but does feel unfinished. There are echos, at least in Blumfeld's reaction, between the balls and his assistants. Why is he so against the balls when he had just been thinking about a dog? His imaginings are so violent I found parts of the narrative disturbing.

Reading the story early in the book I not only contemplated how the Curios could be a high tech version of the balls but also the naming of the character "the Ball".