FabSwingers.com forum: Franz Kafka

By *ss2011 OP Man
over a year ago

Leeds/Bradford

Anybody else a reader of this man?

If so...what do you think was actually in The Castle!? Or what do you think it was going to lead up to? Absolutely devastated that he never got to finish it!!! The Trial is apparently very unfinished but atleast it kind of sealed off at the end, unlike The Castle. (Not going to say how The Trial ends just incase somebody decides to read it.)

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By *phroditeWoman
over a year ago

(She/ her) in Sensualityland

Always considered him slightly on the odd side but very interesting eg Metamorphosis. Did you read him in English?

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Metamorphosis is one very strange book.....but fascinating

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By *ss2011 OP Man
over a year ago

Leeds/Bradford

Metamorphosis is something that needs to be read over and over again before the real meanings hit. I never read him in English. A friend pestered me to read A Hunger Artist for months on end until I caved in and listened...now he is by far my favourite writer! They even made a word in memory of him! Kafkaesque!

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By *phroditeWoman
over a year ago

(She/ her) in Sensualityland

"Metamorphosis is one very strange book.....but fascinating

When I first came across it many years ago (I was still in education) I thought there was something very sinsister about a man who had thoughts like he clearly had in order to write what he did.

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By *phroditeWoman
over a year ago

(She/ her) in Sensualityland

"Metamorphosis is something that needs to be read over and over again before the real meanings hit. I never read him in English. A friend pestered me to read A Hunger Artist for months on end until I caved in and listened...now he is by far my favourite writer! They even made a word in memory of him! Kafkaesque! "
You know I just had to peep at your profile because Kafka is not a run of the mill writer and omg (please dont think this is patronising for it is not meant to be) but you are very young to have an appreciation of a "complex" writer like him - I am really impressed

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By *nnyMan
over a year ago

Glasgow

"Always considered him slightly on the odd side but very interesting eg Metamorphosis.

Did you read him in English? "

Reading Metamorphosis in English is a bit like reading The Prince in braille.

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By *phroditeWoman
over a year ago

(She/ her) in Sensualityland

"Always considered him slightly on the odd side but very interesting eg Metamorphosis.

Did you read him in English?

Reading Metamorphosis in English is a bit like reading The Prince in braille."
Maybe.. but how many would read Kafka in original language?

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By *ss2011 OP Man
over a year ago

Leeds/Bradford

His strangest has got to be The Penal Colony. Metamorphosis can be taken in many different ways. If you look into his life then Metamorphosis is probably the most autobiographical novel out there, albeit the strangest one too.

Read The Castle. It is very different to Metamorphosis. It is still very bizarre, just not to the point of people waking up as insects!

His best for me is A Hunger Artist. He describes Eating Disorders/Anorexia so perfectly in it...long before it became associated with the media and women only.

Absurdism 3 Hard finding others into this though...

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By *nnyMan
over a year ago

Glasgow

"Always considered him slightly on the odd side but very interesting eg Metamorphosis.

Did you read him in English?

Reading Metamorphosis in English is a bit like reading The Prince in braille.Maybe.. but how many would read Kafka in original language?"

All those keen enough.

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By *phroditeWoman
over a year ago

(She/ her) in Sensualityland

"His strangest has got to be The Penal Colony. Metamorphosis can be taken in many different ways. If you look into his life then Metamorphosis is probably the most autobiographical novel out there, albeit the strangest one too.

Read The Castle. It is very different to Metamorphosis. It is still very bizarre, just not to the point of people waking up as insects!

His best for me is A Hunger Artist. He describes Eating Disorders/Anorexia so perfectly in it...long before it became associated with the media and women only.

Absurdism 3 Hard finding others into this though..."
the best conversations and discussions always happen when I have to go to bed lol.. lets pick this one up another time.

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By *phroditeWoman
over a year ago

(She/ her) in Sensualityland

"Always considered him slightly on the odd side but very interesting eg Metamorphosis.

Did you read him in English?

Reading Metamorphosis in English is a bit like reading The Prince in braille.Maybe.. but how many would read Kafka in original language?

All those keen enough."

Would you be able to?

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By *ss2011 OP Man
over a year ago

Leeds/Bradford

Ha, thanks! He definitely changed my life for reasons I ain't going to delve into on a public forum :P

Add Virgnia Woolf, Charles Dickens, Anne Sexton, Joseph Conrad, Robert Lowell, The Bronte Sisters, Albert Camus, Sylvia Plath and Mary Shelley to that list...and a couple more!

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By *phroditeWoman
over a year ago

(She/ her) in Sensualityland

"Ha, thanks! He definitely changed my life for reasons I ain't going to delve into on a public forum :P

Add Virgnia Woolf, Charles Dickens, Anne Sexton, Joseph Conrad, Robert Lowell, The Bronte Sisters, Albert Camus, Sylvia Plath and Mary Shelley to that list...and a couple more!"
Camus and Sartre for me as well. I am going to have to drag myself away now....

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"Ha, thanks! He definitely changed my life for reasons I ain't going to delve into on a public forum :P

Add Virgnia Woolf, Charles Dickens, Anne Sexton, Joseph Conrad, Robert Lowell, The Bronte Sisters, Albert Camus, Sylvia Plath and Mary Shelley to that list...and a couple more!"

Sylvia Plath....now there's a complex woman. Her poems remain my favorites x

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

I like Kafka, but have always felt a bit empty after reading his works; something seems missing - and he's also too surreal for my tastes.

Big fan of existentialism, but prefer Camus who developed the ideas further (try "The Outsider" as a good starter work) or the grand master Dosteoevsky - no-one has yet improved on "Crime and Punishment" in the genre.

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By *ss2011 OP Man
over a year ago

Leeds/Bradford

She was great! Like Kafka...gone far too soon. Her gravestone is very near me actually! Mad Girls Love Song or The Colossus are my favourite poems by her...at the moment ha!

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By *ss2011 OP Man
over a year ago

Leeds/Bradford

Only read the first two parts of Crime and Punishment so I can't properly agree or disagree. Something I keep putting off to go back to and complete for some reason. I feel the thing that is missing to you will be the fact most are incomplete? Although, as you said, it is all too surreal for your tastes anyway so it probably isn't.

Agreed, The Outsider is a good starting point. Had a fair few people tell me that one changed their lives forever...

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By *icketysplitsWoman
over a year ago

Way over Yonder, that's where I'm bound

I don't want to sound matronising either, but I know I will with this comment. It is lovely to have a post on here from a well read young man.

I'm just about to start Metamorphosis again as my soon to be 12 year old nephew is directing a production at school. It has been interesting discussing the ideas in the book with him.

Thanks for making me think about The Trial. I haven't got an answer to your OP as I read it a very long time ago.

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By *ss2011 OP Man
over a year ago

Leeds/Bradford

"I don't want to sound matronising either, but I know I will with this comment. It is lovely to have a post on here from a well read young man.

I'm just about to start Metamorphosis again as my soon to be 12 year old nephew is directing a production at school. It has been interesting discussing the ideas in the book with him.

Thanks for making me think about The Trial. I haven't got an answer to your OP as I read it a very long time ago."

It isn't at all! But I sure haven't met anybody else my age who knows anything about him! I bet it is interesting...countless interpretations out there.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

The older I get the more life becomes like the plot from the trial. Running round in circles

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"She was great! Like Kafka...gone far too soon. Her gravestone is very near me actually! Mad Girls Love Song or The Colossus are my favourite poems by her...at the moment ha!"

Lady Lazarus and Tulips for me. She was amazing.....trust a man to screw it up lol

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By *bbandflowCouple
over a year ago

South Devon

Interesting thread..Sartre, Camus, the whole existential milieu seems unfashionable now, much like Marxist theory. Maybe today's students live existential lives now instead of agonising over it..lol

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By *icketysplitsWoman
over a year ago

Way over Yonder, that's where I'm bound

"Interesting thread..Sartre, Camus, the whole existential milieu seems unfashionable now, much like Marxist theory. Maybe today's students live existential lives now instead of agonising over it..lol "

That's such an interesting point. Although I seem to know lots of young people agonising over lots of things. Reading, generally, seems to be lower on their list of things to do as they spend so much time being stimulated visually.

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By *bbandflowCouple
over a year ago

South Devon

"Interesting thread..Sartre, Camus, the whole existential milieu seems unfashionable now, much like Marxist theory. Maybe today's students live existential lives now instead of agonising over it..lol

Was meant to be a tad flippant re young people agonising, I'm sure you are right..What might be relevant though is that high interest in Existentialism peaked soon after the horrors of the second WW. Sixty years on, this generation, and I'm of course generalising, don't carry that crushing burden on their pysche..just a thought!

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By *rtemisiaWoman
over a year ago

Norwich

"Ha, thanks! He definitely changed my life for reasons I ain't going to delve into on a public forum :P

Add Virgnia Woolf, Charles Dickens, Anne Sexton, Joseph Conrad, Robert Lowell, The Bronte Sisters, Albert Camus, Sylvia Plath and Mary Shelley to that list...and a couple more!"

The eternal fascination with Wuthering Heights, for example, is just how the daughter of a country parson came to be able to understand such violent passion and longing. Same for Jane Eyre. Perhaps that longing is inherent in all of us and it simply took a vibrant imagination to put that into words.

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By *ss2011 OP Man
over a year ago

Leeds/Bradford

Yeah, good point! I must add though that Irvine Welsh is a true existentialist and has carried on that torch...in my eyes anyway. But then again, I also regard him as the greatest living writer out there. Acid House and Trainspotting are off the chain existentialism! Some will disagree though.

Talking about Sartre...I'm looking forward to buying She Came to Stay by Simone de Beauvoir. Something I really want to read. Sounds as twisted as no tomorrow. Have heard some bad reviews about it though? But what book doesn't have them?

Oh, I'm a 20 minute bicycle ride away from the Bronte Museum and moors where the Wuthering Heights inspiration is from

Think I might be the only male in the local area who goes up there actually thinking about the Bronte sisters

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By *rtemisiaWoman
over a year ago

Norwich

"Yeah, good point! I must add though that Irvine Welsh is a true existentialist and has carried on that torch...in my eyes anyway. But then again, I also regard him as the greatest living writer out there. Acid House and Trainspotting are off the chain existentialism! Some will disagree though.

Oh, I'm a 20 minute bicycle ride away from the Bronte Museum and moors where the Wuthering Heights inspiration is from

Think I might be the only male in the local area who goes up there actually thinking about the Bronte sisters

It sounds as though you think about a lot of things! Have you read any Haruki Murakami? Kafka on the Shore is a total fascination.

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By *ss2011 OP Man
over a year ago

Leeds/Bradford

It sounds as though you think about a lot of things! Have you read any Haruki Murakami? Kafka on the Shore is a total fascination."

That is true :/. Funny you mentioned him! The same girl who pushed me to read Kafka went on and on about that book too. He won the Franz Kafka Prize, didn't he? I'll definitely check it out eventually. Thank you for reminding me about it

If you haven't read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad yet then get to it! Too good!

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By *rtemisiaWoman
over a year ago

Norwich

It sounds as though you think about a lot of things! Have you read any Haruki Murakami? Kafka on the Shore is a total fascination.

If you haven't read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad yet then get to it! Too good! "

Read Heart of Darkness at uni. A powerful and unsettling book. You'll love Kafka on the Shore I reckon.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

It sounds as though you think about a lot of things! Have you read any Haruki Murakami? Kafka on the Shore is a total fascination.

If you haven't read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad yet then get to it! Too good!

Read Heart of Darkness at uni. A powerful and unsettling book. You'll love Kafka on the Shore I reckon."

Read Heart of Darkness at uni too, and also Trainspotting...loved them both

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