Goodreads: Dead Souls

I loved Diary of a Madman, The Nose and The Overcoat. I did not love Dead Souls. The writing in the book is excellent. The story was less so. I believe Gogol might have been on to something when he set out to destroy the manuscript. The book reminds me of listening to an artist tell you how he came up with the song. A couple of great lines were written and then some filler was added. Slowly the filler was replaced and finally totally removed so that the final product can be presented. Dead Souls, which finishes mid sentence, is somehow considered a complete work. I don’t think Gogol would have considered it finished. It being unfinished reminds me of Kafka’s The Castle. His use of a narrator’s voice in providing author’s notes and context to the plot remind me of Vonnegut’s Timequake. Overall, I preferred both Kafka and Vonnegut to Gogol. Both Kafka and Gogol tackle the absurdity of the bureaucracy of their world in their works. What I found in Kafka was a resignation to the situation and a resolve to carry on a duty in the face of its futility. What I saw in Gogol’s approach was a stretch to create a moral imperative out of doing one’s duty. In that way I found Kafka’s book much more true to life. In Timequake I thought Vonnegut’s use of his narrator breaking the fourth wall was more effective because it fit in better with the overall feel to the book. Gogol’s use of it makes it feel as if the device has been superimposed on the story. While it informs the plot and deepens the story it feels like reading the book and a commentary on the book simultaneously. It loses something of its magic in the execution. What also made Gogol less entertaining to read compared to the other two was his lack of biting humor. He has it. He seems to have left it out to be more gentle to the subject he loves, Russia. Kafka and Vonnegut are much more ruthless in their satire of their respective worlds. Gogol’s lack of a cutting edge in the book makes it feel like a limp-wristed hand shake. But in shaking hands with this novel one can’t help but be impressed by the softness of its touch or the beauty of its form. That’s why it gets three stars instead of two for me. Plus, Chichikov is way less likable than K. or Kilgore Trout.

Kafka and Prague

From Goodreads

Franz Kafka and Prague
Harald Salfellner

As an introductory guide book and a brief biography this book did actually a pretty good job. But, it felt like a museum book more than anything too personal. I am glad to have read it after visiting Prague and not before, as my trip provided a bit of a rudimentary geographic context for me to understand the book a bit better. I found one of the sections containing obituaries written for Kafka to be fascinating. It was from Johannes Urzidil's There Goes Kafka. He noted, 'writing as a form of prayer', that was Kafka's definition of the writer, and: 'even if no redemption comes, I still want to be worthy of it every moment', this was his belief. Overall this was a solid read and I feel I understand Kafka a bit more because of it. Museums, when done well, are supposed to do that. I guess that's probably their entire point.

The Castle

From Goodreads

The Castle
Franz Kafka

I enjoyed The Castle more than I thought I would. Generally, in fiction, I like to be transported away from the minutia of life. Kafka drops you right into the nitty-gritty minutia without giving you a proper map. Like, K, you put together the facts you are given in a logical way only for it to make sense without having any relevance in reality. It's like Kafka has created the rationally inescapable, shown that the rationally inescapable is the real and then revealed the real to be completely false, but still might actually be true. Who is misinterpreting the events? Obviously, K because he doesn't understand the inner workings of how things are done. But, then again, the people he interacts with only understand the inner workings through their exceptionally narrow, provincialist eyes. Maybe K is right and everyone he talks to or interacts with in the town is wrong. Maybe K is obviously wrong and everyone from the town is right. Worse still, maybe everyone is wrong. Even worse, everybody is wrong and there being right or wrong is inconsequential. Kafka stretches out the inane to the absurd to the point where up is down and left is right. In that stretching his characters become obviously warped without them realizing they are warped. It perfectly sums up every day life.

It took me longer than I thought it would to finish this book. The book isn't that long, but it seems to be never ending. Kafka might still be adding to K's life if he were alive today. Given the manuscript ends mid thought, Max Brod's addition on to how Kafka thought it would end seems abrupt. But, it might be the abruptness that makes it even more real. Life is an endless cycle of strange and mundane events that take on their strange qualities, not by the inherent strangeness of the event itself and more from the strangeness our warping minds give it. This goes on indefinitely until death and then abruptly, there is no more mundane. There is only the end.

Amerika

From Goodreads

Amerika: The Missing Person
Franz Kafka

I'm not sure how to describe Amerika by Franz Kafka. Through what lens do I see the work? On the one hand it seems like it's a story about Karl, the main character, and his struggles against the fates. In that way Karl seems like Odysseus and each episode in Karl's life is another obstacle between he and his home. But, if it's a travelogue style book, Karl seems much more like Candide than anything Homeric. The suffering in this book seems more intense than in Voltaire, but Karl is just as naive and optimistic. It's a strange mixture of cheery fatalism and abject horror. Maybe it's the plodding pace of Amerika that allows the reader to feel each injustice and injury Karl faces that gave me the crawlies, but Kafka's meanderings have a more devastating effect than Voltaire's relentless pace.  The ending, with Karl being rewarded for accepting his fate with biscuits from Delamarche and Brunelda seems like a perverse, if fitting iteration of one's citrons and pistachios.

But, I often compare books I like with Candide, still one of my favorites. Delamarche and Robinson don't have quite as good of a reflection in Candide so I won't try to and shoehorn it in here. I loved this book, but I can't help thinking about how incredibly sad Kafka's works are. I was glad it ended, for Karl's sake. Even in the fragments (as Kafka never actually finished the book) I found myself grimacing as to what horrors awaited Karl in Oklahoma. Mercifully, I can imagine that he and Fanny lived a happy life out there, but I fear that Delamarche, or the specter of his uncle would somehow have robbed Karl of pleasant circumstances. The question I don't have the answer for though is could a Delamarche or his uncle or any rapidly deteriorating situation ever have robbed Karl of his spirit? In a way, Karl could be seen as a saint in Camus' views. He stared at the absurd and remained firm, seeking neither negation nor escape. He simply accepted fate and went about his business.

The Transformation and Other Stories - Kafka

From Goodreads

I thought I had read Metamorphosis before, but if I had it made no lasting impression on me. The same cannot be said this time round. Metamorphosis is, above everything else, very sad. It has a bleakness that is palpable. While this may be the best and most well known story in this anthology there are other very good ones as well.

In particular I enjoyed The Stoker, The Judgment and A Report to the Academy. In The Penal Colony and A country Doctor were interesting as well. The latter two had some great bizarre moments. This anthology ended with Josephine, the Songstress. It somehow combines a weariness with strength in the face of futile existence. I don't know if it was intended as a surveying of the political atmosphere of his time, but it could be read as such by today's readers, who have resigned themselves to ineffectual governance.

Prague: A Cultural and Literary History

From Goodreads

Prague: A Cultural and Literary History

As far as a history book goes this one is your fairly typical, textbook like work. It's informative, covers a lot of ground quickly, but deep enough to give you more than some pop history or a travel guide. This was probably the biggest problem with the book for me. That sentence would be more accurately rendered as, I was the biggest problem for the book.

I'm going to Prague soon (hopefully) and am trying to get as much history of it as I can. I had a basic understanding of the history of Rome and London before traveling there. I didn't know much of the history of Barcelona. My trips to the former two cities were made so much richer by having a deeper understanding of their history. I made the mistake of studying the cultural history of Prague before studying the more general history. I felt, at times, that the author assumed I knew more than I did - which, was my problem more than the author's.

My deficiencies aside, the book was fascinating and if, as is a big strain of this book's thesis, that the arts truly preceded the revolution, then perhaps I have embraced learning about Prague in the way it ought to be done. I have another three history books on Prague (plus a number of Kafka novels) to read before in the next two months. Maybe then I'll have a richer understanding of this book.

Notes on Sisyphus (The Myth of Sisyphus)

(Originally Written October 14, 2008 in the Journal)

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

Sisyphus is an absurd hero. He has contempt for the gods and a passion for life.

His punishment was eternal labor to a futile end. "This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth" (Camus).

Sisyphus had to push a rock up a hill only to have the rock roll back down when it reached the top. Camus admires Sisyphus on the way down the hill. He leaves the heights and goes back to the valley. He marches to his torment and in that moment, he is stronger than his rock.

The walk to the rock from the top is his conscious moment. To be conscious is to overcome the torment.

Scorn your fate and you overcome the depth of it.

The absurd man is the master of his days.

Appendix

(Hope and the Absurd in the work of Franz Kafka)

The human heart only labels as fate that which crushes it.

It is through humility that hope enters in. (These are detestable to Camus. The philosophers who leap by deifying the absurd, i.e. Kierkegaard, Kafka, or Chestov).

To the philosophers like Kierkegaard, Kafka and Chestov the absurd of their existence assures them of a supernatural reality. The absurd leads them to God.

The Absurd man seeks what is true, not what is universal