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Social proof: The reason you’ll tolerate the first 1000 unintelligible words in The New Yorker before the author’s idea starts congealing.

themodelplumber 6y ago
I thought your comment was pretty funny. :-) And I'll happily admit that if there is a single idea here it hasn't congealed for me yet.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  "I in turn was astonished that he was astonished. Did he suppose I could fix in a couple of hours what two people had done wrong over the course of their entire lives" "Sometimes he runs his hammer along the walls, as though to give the signal to the great waiting machinery of rescue to swing into operation. It will not happen exactly in this way—the rescue will begin in its own time" From what I see, the farmer/captain in question has two hammers (one with a head too big for its handle, and the other with a head too small), and is currently banging them against each other, having yet to start on the wall.
imheretolearn 6y ago
Okay, I'll bite. Except for the farmer story, I didn't understand any of the other stories.
- pasquinelli 6y ago
  What do you expect to understand exactly? In the first one he progressively sucks the drama out of a myth by taking the concept of eternity seriously. The second one is about being in possession of something that you can't have. The third one is a joke about a man talking to a dog about his family problems. The last one is about two approaches to take when there's nothing you can do, not that it makes a difference. Do i understand these stories? I don't know. They're interesting. I just read them tonight though. Maybe in a year i will have forgotten them, or maybe i'll bump into them in my thoughts every so often, be reminded of them, draw parallels between them and other things. Each story has one thing following another in a logical progression that i'm sure you can discern, so what more understanding are you asking for? I could tell you all about the movie Toy Story, but do i understand it? I don't know. It's interesting, and i bump into it every so often in my thoughts and all that. If i understood it, i guess i wouldn't ever need to think of it again. Which reminds me of Twin Peaks, which i definitely don't understand.
  - natosaichek 6y ago
    I think the last is actually about a prisoner and his interrogator / torturer.
- archi42 6y ago
  The introductory sentences of Prometheus - "A legend is [...] to end in the inexplicable." - actually belong to the story's end[1]. Maybe that makes it a little more clear? But TBH, I don't find the original easy to understand. I mean, I /understand/ the words and everything, but I couldn't say for sure if I really understood what Kafka wanted to say, hence it's probably pointless trying to explain it (maybe as pointless as an eternal punishment by gods long forgotten) ;-) [1] German original: https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Prometheus_(Kafka) https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Prometheus_(Kafka)

themodelplumber 6y ago

I thought your comment was pretty funny. :-) And I'll happily admit that if there is a single idea here it hasn't congealed for me yet.

082349872349872 6y ago
"I in turn was astonished that he was astonished. Did he suppose I could fix in a couple of hours what two people had done wrong over the course of their entire lives" "Sometimes he runs his hammer along the walls, as though to give the signal to the great waiting machinery of rescue to swing into operation. It will not happen exactly in this way—the rescue will begin in its own time" From what I see, the farmer/captain in question has two hammers (one with a head too big for its handle, and the other with a head too small), and is currently banging them against each other, having yet to start on the wall.

imheretolearn 6y ago

Okay, I'll bite. Except for the farmer story, I didn't understand any of the other stories.

pasquinelli 6y ago
What do you expect to understand exactly? In the first one he progressively sucks the drama out of a myth by taking the concept of eternity seriously. The second one is about being in possession of something that you can't have. The third one is a joke about a man talking to a dog about his family problems. The last one is about two approaches to take when there's nothing you can do, not that it makes a difference. Do i understand these stories? I don't know. They're interesting. I just read them tonight though. Maybe in a year i will have forgotten them, or maybe i'll bump into them in my thoughts every so often, be reminded of them, draw parallels between them and other things. Each story has one thing following another in a logical progression that i'm sure you can discern, so what more understanding are you asking for? I could tell you all about the movie Toy Story, but do i understand it? I don't know. It's interesting, and i bump into it every so often in my thoughts and all that. If i understood it, i guess i wouldn't ever need to think of it again. Which reminds me of Twin Peaks, which i definitely don't understand.
- natosaichek 6y ago
  I think the last is actually about a prisoner and his interrogator / torturer.
archi42 6y ago
The introductory sentences of Prometheus - "A legend is [...] to end in the inexplicable." - actually belong to the story's end[1]. Maybe that makes it a little more clear? But TBH, I don't find the original easy to understand. I mean, I /understand/ the words and everything, but I couldn't say for sure if I really understood what Kafka wanted to say, hence it's probably pointless trying to explain it (maybe as pointless as an eternal punishment by gods long forgotten) ;-) [1] German original: https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Prometheus_(Kafka) https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Prometheus_(Kafka)