"Why make breakfast, when you can just read Kafka?"
November 29, 2014 4:14 PM Subscribe
I have come to the conclusion that anyone who thinks about Kafka for long enough inevitably develops a few singular, unassimilable and slightly silly convictions. (The graph may be parabolic, with the highest incidence of convictions – and the legal resonance is invited – found among those who have spent the most time thinking and those who have spent next to no time thinking.) My own such amateur conviction is that the life of Franz Kafka reads like a truly great comedy. I mean this (of course) in large part because of the tragedies in and around his life, and I mean it in the tradition of comedies like the final episode of Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson’s Blackadder, which, after episode upon episode of darlings and foilings and cross-dressings, ends in 1917 with our not exactly heroes climbing out of their trench and running towards the enemy lines.—What kind of funny is he? is an essay by Rivka Galchen on Franz Kafka's life, based on the recently translated three-volume biography by Reiner Stach.
I feel like we live in an age when intelligent people would rather read the biography of a great writer than read the great writer. What's with that?
posted by shivohum at 4:23 PM on November 29, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by shivohum at 4:23 PM on November 29, 2014 [6 favorites]
I love the diary entry from 1914.
-war declared
-went swimming
Thanks for posting this Kattullus.
posted by clavdivs at 4:26 PM on November 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
-war declared
-went swimming
Thanks for posting this Kattullus.
posted by clavdivs at 4:26 PM on November 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
Good question shivohum. What interests me is the biographers gift of separating the writer from the person and the times they lived from a historical and chronological perspective.
This is biog-tome and seems well done and it is fascinating to find humor were it is not expected.
posted by clavdivs at 4:31 PM on November 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
This is biog-tome and seems well done and it is fascinating to find humor were it is not expected.
posted by clavdivs at 4:31 PM on November 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
Good post. Excellent post title. Thanks, K.
posted by LeLiLo at 4:33 PM on November 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by LeLiLo at 4:33 PM on November 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Seems legit to me. I re-read The Trial af ew years ago, and I actually laughed out loud a few times. I think his use of the comic or ludicrous was downplayed for a long time by critics who wanted to treat him only as a very serious Cassandra of the totalitarian state, or as a grim existentialist writer.
posted by thelonius at 5:00 PM on November 29, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 5:00 PM on November 29, 2014 [6 favorites]
I feel like we live in an age when intelligent people would rather read the biography of a great writer than read the great writer. What's with that?
I have an idea that an excellent biography is essentially a good anthology of a writer's work and commentary on its meaning and context ... albeit an anthology with very short selections. In a time where a comfortable life requires working hours that don't allow for deep, extensive reading of a writer's body of work, a biography can be a quick way to get a really good taste of it.
I think biographies are unfairly maligned by literary purists.
posted by jayder at 5:17 PM on November 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
I have an idea that an excellent biography is essentially a good anthology of a writer's work and commentary on its meaning and context ... albeit an anthology with very short selections. In a time where a comfortable life requires working hours that don't allow for deep, extensive reading of a writer's body of work, a biography can be a quick way to get a really good taste of it.
I think biographies are unfairly maligned by literary purists.
posted by jayder at 5:17 PM on November 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
I feel like we live in an age when intelligent people would rather read the biography of a great writer than read the great writer. What's with that?
I don't read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelists' ideas as well as the critics' thinking. With fiction I can never forget that none of it really happened, that it's all just made up by the author.
posted by betweenthebars at 5:52 PM on November 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
I don't read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelists' ideas as well as the critics' thinking. With fiction I can never forget that none of it really happened, that it's all just made up by the author.
posted by betweenthebars at 5:52 PM on November 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
With fiction I can never forget that none of it really happened, that it's all just made up by the author.
But you are not bothered that criticism is all made up by the critics? I am sorry that sounds a little snide, but I really think that's interesting.
posted by thelonius at 6:56 PM on November 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
But you are not bothered that criticism is all made up by the critics? I am sorry that sounds a little snide, but I really think that's interesting.
posted by thelonius at 6:56 PM on November 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
I feel like we live in an age when intelligent people would rather read the biography of a great writer than read the great writer. What's with that?
I don't know about other people, but I've found that more and more as time goes on I am more interested in thinking about why people do things (including write particular works of fiction) than in looking at the things themselves.
posted by AdamCSnider at 7:38 PM on November 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
I don't know about other people, but I've found that more and more as time goes on I am more interested in thinking about why people do things (including write particular works of fiction) than in looking at the things themselves.
posted by AdamCSnider at 7:38 PM on November 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
With fiction I can never forget that none of it really happened, that it's all just made up by the author.
This is definitely an interesting perspective, and I can see where you're coming from. Oddly, though, the wall I come up against with some fiction is the exact opposite. I am too easily drawn into suspending my disbelief in the reality of a story's protagonists, which means that some books simply become too painful or stressful to continue.
If you wanted (you might reasonably not want) to read more fiction, given your current scepticism about it, would it be possible to look at a novel in the same way as you might a very detailed illustration of a design? Not as the thing itself, but as an illustration of how that thing might function in the real world. You may then disagree with the author's claims, but I would think that disagreement would itself be potentially productive of insight.
On the other hand, I can see that, without emotional engagement, novels may simply be insufficiently compelling to justify the energy put into reading them. I wonder how much one misses out on in this situation. I think that certain aspects of thought and emotional experience are best explained through detailed illustration and example. I also think that fiction provides an unusually broad range of opportunities for demonstrations of writing technique, which may provide a justification for reading it, other than exposure to the author's ideas.
posted by howfar at 2:32 AM on November 30, 2014 [2 favorites]
This is definitely an interesting perspective, and I can see where you're coming from. Oddly, though, the wall I come up against with some fiction is the exact opposite. I am too easily drawn into suspending my disbelief in the reality of a story's protagonists, which means that some books simply become too painful or stressful to continue.
If you wanted (you might reasonably not want) to read more fiction, given your current scepticism about it, would it be possible to look at a novel in the same way as you might a very detailed illustration of a design? Not as the thing itself, but as an illustration of how that thing might function in the real world. You may then disagree with the author's claims, but I would think that disagreement would itself be potentially productive of insight.
On the other hand, I can see that, without emotional engagement, novels may simply be insufficiently compelling to justify the energy put into reading them. I wonder how much one misses out on in this situation. I think that certain aspects of thought and emotional experience are best explained through detailed illustration and example. I also think that fiction provides an unusually broad range of opportunities for demonstrations of writing technique, which may provide a justification for reading it, other than exposure to the author's ideas.
posted by howfar at 2:32 AM on November 30, 2014 [2 favorites]
I really enjoyed that review. I don't know that it's always representative, but I really respond to criticism that pursues this kind of essentialist line; it has a thesis, it makes a case for a particular facet of a writer. I often find myself either nodding in delighted recognition, that something I sense and value in a writer is shared by others, or otherwise turning musingly back to a writer whose depths I thought I had plunged ; a rediscovery that adds a new flavour or dimension.
If I don't know the writer, I always find these pieces quite alluring - oft-times more alluring than the works themselves, distilled as they are to fit the thesis, filtered through the affection or affinity of a critic. Michael Dirda regularly pulls this trick on me; his rapturous and pithy summaries ignite a curiousity and willingness that is sometimes crushed under the weight of the novel in question. He is more omnivorous than I; though I can always appreciate his - and his contemporaries - appreciation.
posted by smoke at 3:20 AM on November 30, 2014
If I don't know the writer, I always find these pieces quite alluring - oft-times more alluring than the works themselves, distilled as they are to fit the thesis, filtered through the affection or affinity of a critic. Michael Dirda regularly pulls this trick on me; his rapturous and pithy summaries ignite a curiousity and willingness that is sometimes crushed under the weight of the novel in question. He is more omnivorous than I; though I can always appreciate his - and his contemporaries - appreciation.
posted by smoke at 3:20 AM on November 30, 2014
> I don't read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelists' ideas as well as the critics' thinking.
The novelists' ideas? If that's what you think novels are for, and why people read them, no wonder you don't like them. But you're missing a lot.
posted by languagehat at 6:56 AM on November 30, 2014
The novelists' ideas? If that's what you think novels are for, and why people read them, no wonder you don't like them. But you're missing a lot.
posted by languagehat at 6:56 AM on November 30, 2014
Oh, I missed an unattributed quote from a movie I haven't seen. Not sure what the point of posting the quote was, but yes, my response shows I am not cool enough to recognize it. Thanks for the link.
posted by languagehat at 8:39 AM on November 30, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by languagehat at 8:39 AM on November 30, 2014 [1 favorite]
Was there a reason for posting the quote? I think plenty of people do have a functional or communication-based approach to art.
If there was no reason..well..OK...quotes ahoy, I suppose.
posted by howfar at 8:47 AM on November 30, 2014
If there was no reason..well..OK...quotes ahoy, I suppose.
posted by howfar at 8:47 AM on November 30, 2014
Was there a reason for posting the quote? I think plenty of people do have a functional or communication-based approach to art.
The more you read about Whit Stillman the more you being to realize that he actually believes the asinine things the characters in his movies say, the things you thought were satire or mockery played very straight. I sort of like those movies... which is sort of like Kafka, his work tends to transcend the impulse to laugh at the creator. Works which are both ironic and utterly sincere.
posted by ennui.bz at 10:21 AM on November 30, 2014 [1 favorite]
The more you read about Whit Stillman the more you being to realize that he actually believes the asinine things the characters in his movies say, the things you thought were satire or mockery played very straight. I sort of like those movies... which is sort of like Kafka, his work tends to transcend the impulse to laugh at the creator. Works which are both ironic and utterly sincere.
posted by ennui.bz at 10:21 AM on November 30, 2014 [1 favorite]
Was there a reason for posting the quote?
It was my response to the New York Times Sunday Styles me & my friends = trend comment: I feel like we live in an age when intelligent people would rather read the biography of a great writer than read the great writer.
The people I know who have picked up the new biography of Penelope Fitzgerald are reading it because they've already read Penelope Fitzgerald's novels and they're curious about how the reality of boat life matches the Booker prize version.
Out of the approximately 140 books I've read this year, only one was a biography (George Eliot: The Last Victorian). Based on my experience, literary biographies are relatively unpopular.
I'm sorry my comment distracted from discussion of the article because it is a good one - I've been planning on stopping my subscription to the LRB, but they keep publishing good stuff.
posted by betweenthebars at 10:46 AM on November 30, 2014
It was my response to the New York Times Sunday Styles me & my friends = trend comment: I feel like we live in an age when intelligent people would rather read the biography of a great writer than read the great writer.
The people I know who have picked up the new biography of Penelope Fitzgerald are reading it because they've already read Penelope Fitzgerald's novels and they're curious about how the reality of boat life matches the Booker prize version.
Out of the approximately 140 books I've read this year, only one was a biography (George Eliot: The Last Victorian). Based on my experience, literary biographies are relatively unpopular.
I'm sorry my comment distracted from discussion of the article because it is a good one - I've been planning on stopping my subscription to the LRB, but they keep publishing good stuff.
posted by betweenthebars at 10:46 AM on November 30, 2014
Yeah, I had a real battle with myself when I got a recent offer to subscribe to the LRB for the ridiculously low rate they offer once a year or so (that's the only way I'll subscribe, since I can't afford their normal rates); I finally forced myself to throw out the offer so I wouldn't be tempted, because although I love the LRB better than any of its competitors it takes up time I should be spending reading the books that are piling up. Of course, I could always call and tell them about the offer and ask if I can get the low rate... Stop that! Shut up, traitorous brain!
Anyway, thanks for explaining about the reason for quoting the movie. I do think it's more polite to acknowledge the source, even with only a discreet link, for the benefit of those who won't recognize it.
posted by languagehat at 1:52 PM on November 30, 2014 [2 favorites]
Anyway, thanks for explaining about the reason for quoting the movie. I do think it's more polite to acknowledge the source, even with only a discreet link, for the benefit of those who won't recognize it.
posted by languagehat at 1:52 PM on November 30, 2014 [2 favorites]
I feel like we live in an age when intelligent people would rather read the biography of a great writer than read the great writer. What's with that?
How about the notions of reading both and not valuing one over the other sight unseen.
Novel concept, I know.
posted by blucevalo at 2:31 PM on November 30, 2014
How about the notions of reading both and not valuing one over the other sight unseen.
Novel concept, I know.
posted by blucevalo at 2:31 PM on November 30, 2014
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posted by Kattullus at 4:15 PM on November 29, 2014 [1 favorite]