What makes something Kafkaesque? - Noah Tavlin
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Date: 2020-08-22
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Comments and reviews: 10
Anahit
I dont agree with the videos example. Does standing in a long line to fill out confusing paperwork really capture the richness of Kafkas vision?
There was always some buzz around this word and I am familiar with some of the very different definitions and I am happy to see that Ted ed referred to this point now. The first thing I did after watching the video was searching its definition in dictionaries. As the Oxford Dictionaries would put it, oppressive or nightmarish qualities, or as Merriam-Webster suggests, having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality. but what is it actually and how should it interpreted? I think people search for hidden contexts and some special meaning in the word because the author Kafka himself had a very interesting and tragic life, and lots of scholars try to find the real meaning of the word taking into account his life. His life indeed was very sad. His father emotionally abused him because he wasn't the son he wanted, and so Franz thought anything he did was terrible. His books weren't published till he died, and they led to astonishing changes for the literary world. If we look at things from this perspective I think by this standard, perhaps we should only call Kafka himself Kafkaesque.
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I dont agree with the videos example. Does standing in a long line to fill out confusing paperwork really capture the richness of Kafkas vision?
There was always some buzz around this word and I am familiar with some of the very different definitions and I am happy to see that Ted ed referred to this point now. The first thing I did after watching the video was searching its definition in dictionaries. As the Oxford Dictionaries would put it, oppressive or nightmarish qualities, or as Merriam-Webster suggests, having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality. but what is it actually and how should it interpreted? I think people search for hidden contexts and some special meaning in the word because the author Kafka himself had a very interesting and tragic life, and lots of scholars try to find the real meaning of the word taking into account his life. His life indeed was very sad. His father emotionally abused him because he wasn't the son he wanted, and so Franz thought anything he did was terrible. His books weren't published till he died, and they led to astonishing changes for the literary world. If we look at things from this perspective I think by this standard, perhaps we should only call Kafka himself Kafkaesque.
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iconoclast
We've had a chance to observe a prisoner of his own ego creating Kafkaesque situations on a daily basis in America for the past five years:
- Someone who never admits he's wrong
- Someone who never takes responsibility
- Someone who thinks seriously and even says openly that he's a stable genius
- Someone who constantly lies because he's unable to face the truth
- Someone who thinks he knows everything better than anyone else
- Someone who's empty inside and has a malignant obsession with filling that void with self-praise and praise by others
- Someone who likes conspiracy theories because discovering real truth is too hard
- Someone who values others only inasmuch as he can use them for his own financial or political interest
- Someone who doesn't care one bit about the life and death of his own subjects unless he can use their plight for his own political interest
- Someone who is willing to sell his country down the river to the highest bidder as long as this might help him in his future business ventures
Feel free to add other features of his egomania that I've omitted.
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We've had a chance to observe a prisoner of his own ego creating Kafkaesque situations on a daily basis in America for the past five years:
- Someone who never admits he's wrong
- Someone who never takes responsibility
- Someone who thinks seriously and even says openly that he's a stable genius
- Someone who constantly lies because he's unable to face the truth
- Someone who thinks he knows everything better than anyone else
- Someone who's empty inside and has a malignant obsession with filling that void with self-praise and praise by others
- Someone who likes conspiracy theories because discovering real truth is too hard
- Someone who values others only inasmuch as he can use them for his own financial or political interest
- Someone who doesn't care one bit about the life and death of his own subjects unless he can use their plight for his own political interest
- Someone who is willing to sell his country down the river to the highest bidder as long as this might help him in his future business ventures
Feel free to add other features of his egomania that I've omitted.
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ted_ed
After a rainy morning, the sun has emerged mid-afternoon as I'm lying down, reading on the porch-couch, whence I notice a green bug crawling along the brown fabric. Seeing as it's bedbug-shaped and I recoil at the memory of them, I press a fingertip to the fabric ahead of it. After it mounts my fingernail, I shift my hand away from the couch and flick it. About a foot and a half away, the bug lands in the sunshine, upon one of the porch's timber boards. As it commences to scamper along, into the shade of a post, I watch, wondering about how that bright sunshine must have felt to it after the drowsy grey-light of the morning. Then, as I speculate as to whether or not it will live long enough to or is destined to grow wings, at all; if not, then, if it's body's long enough to cross the gaps between the boards and whether or not it's aware of the perilous underworld beneath, a skink suddenly scampers across the timber and gobbles it up. Bugslaughter; what a world!
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After a rainy morning, the sun has emerged mid-afternoon as I'm lying down, reading on the porch-couch, whence I notice a green bug crawling along the brown fabric. Seeing as it's bedbug-shaped and I recoil at the memory of them, I press a fingertip to the fabric ahead of it. After it mounts my fingernail, I shift my hand away from the couch and flick it. About a foot and a half away, the bug lands in the sunshine, upon one of the porch's timber boards. As it commences to scamper along, into the shade of a post, I watch, wondering about how that bright sunshine must have felt to it after the drowsy grey-light of the morning. Then, as I speculate as to whether or not it will live long enough to or is destined to grow wings, at all; if not, then, if it's body's long enough to cross the gaps between the boards and whether or not it's aware of the perilous underworld beneath, a skink suddenly scampers across the timber and gobbles it up. Bugslaughter; what a world!
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education
The Trial is real. When I read it, I kept thinking how messed up it is that police and district attorneys don't care about about finding the person who committed the crime, all they care about is finding a person that they can most easily convict of the crime. It's scary because it's true and can happen to anyone at any time.
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The Trial is real. When I read it, I kept thinking how messed up it is that police and district attorneys don't care about about finding the person who committed the crime, all they care about is finding a person that they can most easily convict of the crime. It's scary because it's true and can happen to anyone at any time.
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Nerex
There is the aspect of something simply being surreal in the word kafkaesque, too. It is not only about things being unnecessarily complicated. When you read the Trial, you will sometimes not know what is real and what isn't. Some of the things Josef witnesses simply never get picked up again. It is very nightmarish.
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There is the aspect of something simply being surreal in the word kafkaesque, too. It is not only about things being unnecessarily complicated. When you read the Trial, you will sometimes not know what is real and what isn't. Some of the things Josef witnesses simply never get picked up again. It is very nightmarish.
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M_B_L
The sad part of the story is that the guy flying with his wings will end in another line, behind someone else thinking is free but he will never be free. He jumped from one whole to another.
Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think
Horace Walpole
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The sad part of the story is that the guy flying with his wings will end in another line, behind someone else thinking is free but he will never be free. He jumped from one whole to another.
Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think
Horace Walpole
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dafullclip
Monty Pythonesque is a better term for describing the overrated and absurd drivel that the author passed off as storytelling. That said, I really like the video's animated presentation.
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Monty Pythonesque is a better term for describing the overrated and absurd drivel that the author passed off as storytelling. That said, I really like the video's animated presentation.
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Oh
The book the trial doesnt work so well in the english translation. When reading them in german, the language and style of writing adds to the story. I love it.
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The book the trial doesnt work so well in the english translation. When reading them in german, the language and style of writing adds to the story. I love it.
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Kuroso
Fun fact: Kafka and all of this information is something most Germans learn in school. I feel like that's one of the things that actually matter
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Fun fact: Kafka and all of this information is something most Germans learn in school. I feel like that's one of the things that actually matter
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BungyStudios
He basically writes about that feeling when you first see the old finals exams before you learn any of the content of the course.
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He basically writes about that feeling when you first see the old finals exams before you learn any of the content of the course.
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