Understanding Kafka

[Anonymous No.19975175]

Kafka has been one of my favorite authors since I was a child; I have most of his works in my library, including all of his novels, the Blue Octavo Notebooks, all the short stories I could find, the letter to his Father and so on.

Despite liking his work so much, I don’t always understand it thoroughly, hence I am looking for some books analyzing his philosophy in depth.

[Anonymous No.19975277]

Read his biography by Reiner Stach first

[Anonymous No.19975383]

Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature by Deleuze and Guattari :^)

[Anonymous No.19976767]

>>19975175
Somewhat related but I read the Trial recently and have been thinking: Does anyone else think the book is almost ruined by its unfinished state? A number of characters who appear to have been set up to be quite significant to the story never end up appearing again in the novel after the first encounter, but then are the focus of many of the miscellaneous unfinished fragmentary chapters. It seems to me as though the real idea and meaning of the novel only ends up being barely delivered at the end of the unfinished manuscript. Given that the first and final chapters were written first, it follows that the intervening bulk of the work would be quite necessary to create the full effect of the whole, and so much of it is missing that it seems the novel we have can hardly be said to compare to the one that Kafka had in his head.

[Anonymous No.19976807]

>>19976767
you're reading a fucking unfinished work, what the fuck did you expect?

[Anonymous No.19976836]

>>19976767
>>19976807
OP here.
The incompleteness of Kafka’s work is actually one of the things I enjoy the most about his literature.

It makes his stories and novels feel very absurd and oneiric, as if they were the description of an irrational fever dream rather than the transcription of a well thought out idea.
I also enjoy that the incompleteness leaves room for interpretations (which can, however, be confusing sometimes; it also contradicts what I stated in the OP, i.e. my will to understand Kafka better).

[Anonymous No.19976847]

>>19976807
Why are you so angry?
There are clearly different degrees to which something can be unfinished. My point was that the Trial generally seems to be spoken about as though its unfinished state hardly matters, as though the main ideas and conclusion of the book are all there and intact. Perhaps they are, but it appears to me that so much has been left out that it renders the book a shadow of what it was intended to be, thereby calling in to question the worth of reading it at all.

[Anonymous No.19976901]

I hate his stories but I find the writing in the diaries and letters fascinating. I don't know why

[Anonymous No.19976928]

>>19976836
That's a compelling notion, but I still don't like the idea of us messing around trying to interpret a work when a number of the pieces necessary for properly doing so are simply not present in the text we have.

[Anonymous No.19976944]

My greatest realisation about Kafka's work is that he thought the shit he was writing was really, really, really fucking funny. Unfortunately, bring a speaker of the G*rman langauge he was tragically incapable of humour.