important, in this life, to have goals,
Sure, they are often a lesson in the enduring power of futility, our lack of free will as demonstrated by the everpresent arm of bureaucracy.
If your goal, for example, is à la our protagonist's, you will spend several years orpages or the rest of your life or a wasted afternoon attempting to extricate yourself from mysterious charges from an absurd institution, progressing not at all in the achievement of this objective but at least proving both of the above arguments as well as manage to psychically predict the pointless cruelty of the American justice system a hundred years later.
But if your goal, à la my own, is simply to be able to use the word "Kafkaesque" whenever your little heart desires, you can read this, draw on your memories of the two times you've read The Metamorphosis in school, and be on your merry way.
Both sorts of aim give us purpose, And without the drive they grant us, even though it merely distracts us from the reality of what we are putting ourselves through daily at the hands of society, the government, and what have you.
. . without the illusion of progress provided, . .
We have nothing,
Like our poor Josef K,
At least I have a whole new word to use,
Bottom line: This will make you look very melancholy and sophisticated when you read it on public transit especially if you have the same vintage Modern Library edition I do, which is one of the best compliments I can pay a book.
prereview
"the real treasure was the friends we made along the way," except the real bureaucracy was our own lack of free will.
you know
review to come /stars
currentlyreading updates
just trying to unlock the ability to use the word "kafkaesque"
clear ur shit book
quest: read a book you've been putting off Has this ever happened to you You're chugging your way through a book at a decent pace, it's down to the last legs, you've decided on the good ol' four star rating, it's true that it had some really good parts but ultimately you can't say that it was particularly amazing.
And all of the sudden the last part slams into your face, you're knocked sprawling on your ass by the weight of the words spiraling around your head in a merry go round of pure literary power, and you swear the book is whispering 'You know nothing, you snot nosed brat' through its pages of magnificence as the author leaves you far behind.
If you haven't, read this book, If you have, and crave more of the same, see the previous,
Now, what did the Goodreads summary call this book again 'A terrifying, psychological trip', Yes, I suppose you could say that, I mean, it is terrifying, it is psychological, and it makes for one hell of a ride, But, you see, those three words strung together convey the sense of otherworldliness, some diabolical satire that's made a nightmare of a reality that's usually pretty good about behaving itself.
The problem with that is the fact that this story adheres more closely to reality than most books dare to dream of doing.
There's no phantasmagorical twisting of the entire face of reality, This is reality, And it needs no aid in inspiring the most abject of terror,
Arrests of innocents, Hazy procedures. Courts obscured by other courts, Files disappearing into the dark,
"I see," said K, nodding, "these books are probably law books, and it is an essential part of the justice dispensed here that you should be condemned not only in innocence but also in ignorance.Judgment determined by accusation rather than by trial,
" "That must be it," said the woman, who had not quite understood him,
"We are only being punished because you accused us if you hadn't, nothing would have happened, not even if they had discovered what we did.Guilty until proven less guilty, Less guilty via the right connections rather than the right evidence, Innocence with an expiration date, Complaints about any of the previous injustices accelerating the inevitable, and for what The hope that the future might be better What difference will that make to you, the individual life currently at stake The invisible pendulum will still be suspended over the more invisible pit, and your every forthright movement will still be swallowed in the obscurity of the Law, and nothing will result but a building sense of anxiety and despair.
Do you call that justice
Look at the Law of the past and more importantly the Law of the present, and tell me none of this applies, in the days where banks are 'too big' to be brought to justice and everything from the individual to the government is held hostage from a better tomorrow by the inane struggles of today.
"No," said the priest, "it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary.History repeats itself,
"
History repeats itself.
History fucking repeats itself,
Get it Got it Good,
Doing something about it is another matter entirely, "A mind is like a parachute, It doesnt work if it isnt open, "
Franz Kafka
Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K, he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested,
This famous opening line becomes yet more intriguing as it pitches us directly into a scene whereby the first two protagonists are granted a degree of anonymity by the author, as he seeks to lure us into his philosophical daydream.
K is clearly under house arrest,
but his perplexing captors aren't at liberty to tell him if he has been arrested.
Who are they K wonders, They look as if they might be policemen, but neither he, nor the reader, can be certain, They could be pranksters for all he knows, Even the country he lives in isn't namechecked,
So many unanswered questions:
Who is he
Who are they
Why has he been arrested
Where are we
Does time have a beginning or an end
Why did the chicken cross the road
This, my fine bibliophilic friends, is an enigma burritoed in a paradox.
There is something farcical about the situation he finds himself in the ensuing cockeyed exchange of dialogue was almost Monty Pythonesque.
I shall paraphrase apologies to Mr Kafka, . .
"Take me to your superior!"
"He will see you as soon as he wants to see you, "
"Who are you"
"We're free, you're not, and you are going to be put on trial, "
"On trial, for what"
"Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, isn't it, eh Beautiful plumage, "
The absurdity continues,
There follows a kangaroo court and the comically surreal appearance of a whipman, whose job it is to give people a damn good flogging.
I don't know if I was meant to be outraged, but I found it really funny there's something wrong with me, I'm sure of it.
Kafka uses existentialism like Banksy uses a spray can, K is trying to remain rational while the world around him has become irrational something most of us have experienced at some stage in our lives.
As is also the case with Orwell's , this book hints at the totalitarian regimes that were likely to follow.
I don't profess to understand much of what Kafka hoped to symbolise in this allegorical mystery I suspect he didn't want anyone to unlock all of its secrets anyway, and one gets the feeling that he deliberately leads us into a literary culdesac of his own choosing.
The blurb describes the book as being "terrifying and chilling", I found it to be neither,
If anything, I found it rather droll,
Let me explain myself thus
I have a lugubrious friend, His name is Mark.
Mark is so overly pessimistic and melancholic, that he creases me up with laughter each time he speaks, Then, when he asks me what it is that's so funny with that glum look on his face, I crack up even more!
He's a hoot, and so is this book!
I thoroughly enjoyed being trapped in Franz Kafka's web and I must revisit Metamorphosis, his crowning achievement.
I read it years ago when I was too young to properly 'get' it,
Not that I'm likely to totally understand it even now! :,