Der Process(The Trial) By Franz Kafka

Der Process(The Trial) By Franz Kafka
                            …it is often better to be in chains than to be free.

The Trial is an incomplete novel by Franz Kafka. It is incomplete, not only in the sense that the author did not fully write what he intended to write but also that the story is intentionally devoid of content. The missing component of the story is arguably more obtrusive than what is in it. And thus, the void of the story actually defines it.

The Trial brings to light the indictment of Josef K., who is the chief clerk at a bank. From the character development of Josef K., it would seem that he sees himself as a morally and socially upright person who is well respected in the society. One day, out of the blue, he finds himself indicted for a crime that he believes he is not guilty of committing As the story unfolds, Josef begins to see how ‘the court’ that will conduct his trial works and finds himself entangled in the web of a surreal, cold and grotesque bureaucratic world where ‘reason’ and ‘law’ are misplaced.

Through his silence-rather than words- Kafka has brought to life a world that is thronged with paranoia, surrealism, and absurdity. As Josef comes in terms with this Kafkaesque world, the readers may find themselves coming to terms with it. And as Josef begins to submit to this world without knowing what it really is, the reader must start to appreciate the insignificance of meaning and content in the horror of syntax and form.

I recommend this work to readers who appreciate surrealism and who are comfortable with unstructured plots.

The metamorphosis By Franz Kafka

The metamorphosis By Franz Kafka

                               …Was he an animal if music could captivate him so?

The metamorphosis is a surreal story of transformation. And, even more so, it is a story of the unchanged in the context of transformation. Through the unvocal, insignificantly fading-in world that he has created by his economically worded lines, Kafka highlights how albeit the character remains constant the personage itself changes when external world does not identify the character. It seems in the story that the acknowledgement of existence of a person by the external world is more significant than the existence of person itself.

It would appear, if one interprets the transformation as purely figurative, that Gregor, the protagonist of the story, transforms one day because he realizes that he is stranded in a meaningless, dreadful existence. He is a travelling salesman who goes to work, where he is presumably not treated well, to pay off his family’s debts and comes home to, if not an ungrateful, a nonchalant family. It seems that through this transformation he has not become something else but merely aware of what he already is. And this awareness coerces him to exist as someone who is aware of themselves as a weary, dreadful creature.

Perhaps the family can no longer find the Gregor who was unaware of his life, and whom they identified as Gregor ; perhaps Gregor's body transformed into something that he already was.

Kafka’s character development and story building are commendable. I couldn't stop reading the story once I started reading it. The language was flowing uninterruptedly from line to line in the translation by David Wyllie.

This work is a must read for readers who have enjoyed works of famous existentialists such as Sartre, Camus and Dostoevsky. General readers are likely to enjoy it too if they ruminate after reading it.

Also sprach Zarathustra Book 1 to 4 By Friedrich Nietzsche

Also sprach Zarathustra(Thus spake Zarathustra)- Book 1 to 4 by Friedrich Nietzsche

…Every day I count wasted in which there has been no dancing.

Nietzsche’s magnum opus Also sprach Zarathustra is definitely one of the obscurest and most magnificent literary works that I’ve read. It is one of those things in life that one grows to love and loathe at the same time.

The work’s meta-satirical plot revolves around its protagonist ‘Zarathustra’ who preaches people as solemn saints do and yet his enunciations mock themselves. In this way, Nietzsche has given much depth and humor to his work and adorned it with unique metaphors and characters that, at least superficially, seem to be saying something to the reader. Through these characters Nietzsche explores his theories and maxims of eternal recurrence, importance of courage, laughter and dancing, and a benign-playful malice. He condemns prolonged peace, gift giving and pity. Even before the chapters on pity turn up, his hatred for it is betrayed when Zarathustra whispers to himself the words that are oft-found in pop culture- ‘God is dead’ and ‘he died of man’s pity’. He then goes on to exposit his idea of the Ubermensch (Overman) and builds on this idea as the work advances. Zarathustra then embellishes the concept of Overman with several ideas that Nietzsche himself stood for.

This work is broken down into four books and around twenty chapters in each book. The reader should not hope for these books or chapters to give structure or a storyline to this work because the work is not linear or tree like syntactically. It is rather a dimensionless poetic meta-sarcastic overflowing biased harsh honey filled raw hodgepodge of ideas, insults, and verses.

Reading about Nietzsche’s life and one of his works (such as the twilight of the idols) before reading this work would help the reader dig out the latent ideas of Nietszche from this work.

Thus spake Zarathustra is recommended only to those who can appreciate the brilliance of chaos and non-sense in literature. It is truly A Book for All and None.