BodyLanguage

Kafka, the enigma (it rhymes!)

Reading Kafka is a refreshingly new experience for me. Recently while preparing for my midterm on "Twentieth Century", I came across some notes which listed Franz Kafka as one of the writers of the Modernist Period! Interesting, I thought. And so far, after reading two of his short stories, The Metamorphosis and In the Penal Colony, I find him a very thought-provoking writer. His stories also seem rather elusive, and I am inclined to think of him as an enigma of some sorts :) This enigmatic quality seems to extend to his writing.

For instance, as Dr Yeo mentioned, he writes, "The Metamorphosis is not a confession, although it is - in a certain sense - an indiscretion." That's very clever, I thought. And in Week 8's spiel, as Dr Yeo is so fond of calling it, Theodore Adorno presents more mysterious statements about Kafka: "Each sentence is literal and each signifies...Each sentence says 'interpret me', and none will permit it."

Certainly, though, what impressed me was Kafka's passion for writing. Writing, for him, is, a bodily experience. His whole body, mind and soul seem to participate, in as much as they can, in writing. He possesses a strong bodily impulse to writing which amazes and, at the same time, impresses me:

"It is easy to recognize a concentration in me of all my forces on writing. When it became clear in my organism that writing was the most productive direction for my being to take, everything rushed in that direction and left empty all those abilities which were directed toward the joy of sex, eating, drinking, philosophical reflection and above all music. I dieted in all these directions..." (Pg 94, Anderson)

And his absolute passion for literature: "I have no literary interests, but am made of literature. I am nothing else, and cannot be anything else." (Pg 95, Anderson)

I believe that Kafka's elusive nature is perhaps due to his desire to escape concrete classification, to escape mere simple categorisation or analyses of his short stories. Thus we are unable to put definite or absolute meanings to his symbols. The bug which is Gregor remains a mere mysterious vermin of some sort; we are not given specificities. The apparatus of torture can be visualised as one pleases; only the vaguest, most general outlines are provided. Such schemes of writing de-familiarise our common attempts to 'box' things into maneagable categories. Kafka seems to want us to keep our minds open to what he has to offer.

posted by sarah @ 11:58 PM