4 ms·

Franz Kafka’s Dissenting Bodies

19 points by prismatic 4y ago

gnulinux 4y ago
I'm not sure if this question is off-topic and if so I'm sorry, but I was really curious so I couldn't help but ask. I observe that articles about Franz Kafka end up in HN front page relatively frequently. Personally, I'm a huge fan of Kafka, I read all his novels (and some of his short stories), he's one of my favorite author, so I have no problem with this. But I can't help but wonder whether there is some kind of correlation between being an HN reader and liking Kafka's works, or whether people just see the word "Kafka" and somehow think it's related to Apache Kafka [1] and upvote. Curious about what others think about this. When it comes to the OP article: > Vladimir Nabokov was having none of it: in his teaching copy of the novella, he drew a sketch of a common beetle. I'm curious why Nabokov thought this would be accurate. The work itself intentionally doesn't mention what kind of "vermin" Gregor Samsa is.. [1] https://kafka.apache.org/ https://kafka.apache.org/
- dnc 4y ago
  > I read all his novels (and some of his short stories), he's one of my favorite authors That makes at least two of us. :) But, I suspect there are quite a few more HN readers who like Kafka's works and literature in general (the first is arguably very correlated to the other), judging from how often literature related articles appear on the HN front page. Often, when that is the case I also can't help but wonder the same about the correlation between being a fiction and HN reader.
  - blockwriter 4y ago
    To me, Kafka’s work is particularly axiomatic. It has an internal logic and tends toward involution. I could see how this would appeal to technically minded people, whereas Dickens, or Austen, authors whose work tends to be discursive, might seem boring or without basis.
    - zasdffaa 4y ago
      What do axiomatic and involution mean in this (presumably literary) context?
      - blockwriter 4y ago
        They are axiomatic in that Kafka's worlds are frequently built upon a set of conditions, and the development is contingent upon how these conditions interact, whereas other writers often depart from pre-established rules because they become cumbersome, or they introduce new ones as a matter of convenience. Kafka, in a story like The Burrow, seems to be in search of a complete system that becomes fully expressed by virtue of an exhaustive exploration of its potential, in accordance with its own stipulations. It develops like a drop of ink in a glass of water. Due also to a desire not to retread ground, as he criticizes Dickens of doing, this may be why much of his work went unfinished. By involution, I mean that Kafka's stories, to a greater extent than just about any other writer, forestall the influence of "outside" forces. His worlds do not rely on historical context, and his characters hardly, if ever, propose a new and narrative-changing idea from whole clothe, although the conclusions they draw are often strange, novel, and sudden. Kafka's land surveyor in The Castle is always circling back to the fact that he is a land surveyor as the basis for his behavior, even though he never actually fulfills or comes close to fulfilling his vocational imperative. I always recommend Reiner Stach's three volume biography of Kafka to people. The author does a great job of looking into the literature as much as he looks into the life.
        50 4y ago
        I recently watched an interesting conversation between Todd McGowan and Walter Davis on Kafka[1] which you might enjoy. There's a bit in the aforementioned interview where they mention if one is learning German, a good introductory route is reading Kafka and Heidegger's Being and Time. I've been contemplating whether I should learn German to read my favorite thinkers in their primary written language (and even potentially make a move to Germany, away from the weariness of California), or, rather, become more grounded in the English language. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdjx7ZanqAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdjx7ZanqAg
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  > But I can't help but wonder whether there is some kind of correlation between being an HN reader and liking Kafka's works, or whether people just see the word "Kafka" and somehow think it's related to Apache Kafka [1] and upvote. Curious about what others think about this. Kafka isn’t obscure. Everyone has heard of Kafkaesque. Why ask whether people just blindly/ignorantly upvote?
- uwagar 4y ago
  i cant begin to tell you how pissed off i am about the name of kafka used for a software project. is it just me?
  - anothernewdude 4y ago
    It'd be a more appropriate name for Nifi to be honest.
- anothernewdude 4y ago
  I think the kind of dystopia that Kafka wrote about is part of the zeitgeist.
uwagar 4y ago
anyone feel an eastern european oppressive brown-gray stone communist vibe reading kafka?
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Kafka's dates were 1883--1924. His experience and writing were all but entirely pre-communist, and certainly didn't reflect post-WWII Soviet Bloc eastern European experience. Rather more Austro-Hungarian / Habsburg Empire. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Joseph_I_of_Austria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Joseph_I_of_Austria>

19 points by prismatic 4y ago

I'm not sure if this question is off-topic and if so I'm sorry, but I was really curious so I couldn't help but ask. I observe that articles about Franz Kafka end up in HN front page relatively frequently. Personally, I'm a huge fan of Kafka, I read all his novels (and some of his short stories), he's one of my favorite author, so I have no problem with this. But I can't help but wonder whether there is some kind of correlation between being an HN reader and liking Kafka's works, or whether people just see the word "Kafka" and somehow think it's related to Apache Kafka [1] and upvote. Curious about what others think about this. When it comes to the OP article: > Vladimir Nabokov was having none of it: in his teaching copy of the novella, he drew a sketch of a common beetle. I'm curious why Nabokov thought this would be accurate. The work itself intentionally doesn't mention what kind of "vermin" Gregor Samsa is.. [1] https://kafka.apache.org/ https://kafka.apache.org/

dnc 4y ago
> I read all his novels (and some of his short stories), he's one of my favorite authors That makes at least two of us. :) But, I suspect there are quite a few more HN readers who like Kafka's works and literature in general (the first is arguably very correlated to the other), judging from how often literature related articles appear on the HN front page. Often, when that is the case I also can't help but wonder the same about the correlation between being a fiction and HN reader.
- blockwriter 4y ago
  To me, Kafka’s work is particularly axiomatic. It has an internal logic and tends toward involution. I could see how this would appeal to technically minded people, whereas Dickens, or Austen, authors whose work tends to be discursive, might seem boring or without basis.
  - zasdffaa 4y ago
    What do axiomatic and involution mean in this (presumably literary) context?
    - blockwriter 4y ago
      They are axiomatic in that Kafka's worlds are frequently built upon a set of conditions, and the development is contingent upon how these conditions interact, whereas other writers often depart from pre-established rules because they become cumbersome, or they introduce new ones as a matter of convenience. Kafka, in a story like The Burrow, seems to be in search of a complete system that becomes fully expressed by virtue of an exhaustive exploration of its potential, in accordance with its own stipulations. It develops like a drop of ink in a glass of water. Due also to a desire not to retread ground, as he criticizes Dickens of doing, this may be why much of his work went unfinished. By involution, I mean that Kafka's stories, to a greater extent than just about any other writer, forestall the influence of "outside" forces. His worlds do not rely on historical context, and his characters hardly, if ever, propose a new and narrative-changing idea from whole clothe, although the conclusions they draw are often strange, novel, and sudden. Kafka's land surveyor in The Castle is always circling back to the fact that he is a land surveyor as the basis for his behavior, even though he never actually fulfills or comes close to fulfilling his vocational imperative. I always recommend Reiner Stach's three volume biography of Kafka to people. The author does a great job of looking into the literature as much as he looks into the life.
      - 50 4y ago
        I recently watched an interesting conversation between Todd McGowan and Walter Davis on Kafka[1] which you might enjoy. There's a bit in the aforementioned interview where they mention if one is learning German, a good introductory route is reading Kafka and Heidegger's Being and Time. I've been contemplating whether I should learn German to read my favorite thinkers in their primary written language (and even potentially make a move to Germany, away from the weariness of California), or, rather, become more grounded in the English language. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdjx7ZanqAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdjx7ZanqAg
avgcorrection 4y ago
> But I can't help but wonder whether there is some kind of correlation between being an HN reader and liking Kafka's works, or whether people just see the word "Kafka" and somehow think it's related to Apache Kafka [1] and upvote. Curious about what others think about this. Kafka isn’t obscure. Everyone has heard of Kafkaesque. Why ask whether people just blindly/ignorantly upvote?
uwagar 4y ago
i cant begin to tell you how pissed off i am about the name of kafka used for a software project. is it just me?
- anothernewdude 4y ago
  It'd be a more appropriate name for Nifi to be honest.
anothernewdude 4y ago
I think the kind of dystopia that Kafka wrote about is part of the zeitgeist.

uwagar 4y ago

anyone feel an eastern european oppressive brown-gray stone communist vibe reading kafka?

dredmorbius 4y ago
Kafka's dates were 1883--1924. His experience and writing were all but entirely pre-communist, and certainly didn't reflect post-WWII Soviet Bloc eastern European experience. Rather more Austro-Hungarian / Habsburg Empire. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Joseph_I_of_Austria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Joseph_I_of_Austria>