/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.21991489]

What makes something specifically 'Kafkaesque'? Are there other authors who manage to capture the essence of it?

[Anonymous No.21991838]

>>21991489
Kafkaesque is a meaningless word made up by academics to generalize and avoid talking about what make's Kafka's prose or stories unique or special. Since academics are usually restricted to a certain amount of pages, and they are pressured into covering an author, not an author's work, they cannot talk about the book line by line or even paragraph by paragraph, so retarded words like this-equivalent to the zoomer "its giving hmmmmmmm depressing vibes"- make there way into the world.

[Anonymous No.21991846]

>>21991489
I take it to be like waking up in a nightmare that is very realistic.

[Anonymous No.21991902]

>>21991489
Things (usually social phenomena) that are nightmarish but in an official capacity. .e.g. gang violence is nightmarish, but it's a well known that it's savage violence and is almost universally regarded as bad. Think bureaucracy, social customs, the misapplication of tech, etc.

For example - say you had a large fire in your home, and also lost your job. You stop paying property taxes, so the state puts a lien on your property. Fortunately for you you have a home insurance policy. Unfortunately for you, the insurance company states that the last appraisal of your home was fraudulent, so you take them to court. After a year or two of legal battling, you finally prevail in getting your claim resolved at a reasonable rate (after some settling of course) – but by the time the case is closed, the state has already seized and sold your home to a black family who have let it go completely to shit.

Other kafkaesque scenarios:
Being detained by the police because you look like a suspected murderer, but when you’re show the sketch it is of a man that looks nothing like you. You protest, but both of the cops just say “nah looks like you”. You appeal to the secretary at the station, but even she says “You found the guy” with a hint of snark.

Pretty much any legal situation where common sense is ignored can be considered to be Kafkaesque - imagine you got a parking ticket in Omaha, NE in 2006 and never paid it off. One day, you steal a loaf of bread in Nebraska and you are promptly caught by an AI-powered guard robot in the shop. It repeatedly states that it has no right to restrain you, but instead it uses its large frame to block the exit until the police arrive. The police arrive, and they arrest you on charges of “attempted theft”, despite the fact that you hadn’t even left the store yet. Finally, you have your trial, and unfortunately because you never paid off that parking ticket some law written in 1945 states you must serve a minimum sentence of 5 years in the shittiest prison in Nebraska.

[Anonymous No.21991913]

>>21991838
Kafkaesque isn't usually used to refer to the author and his works

[Anonymous No.21991928]

>>21991902
But you seem to be forgetting the part whence upon waking up, one realizes that they are in fact, a bug. Hardly any bureaucratic red-tape in this.

[Anonymous No.21991942]

>>21991489
>>21991902
Is Kafka's work an opus about a man who hated his job?

>>21991928
This one doesn't fit in, yeah.

[Anonymous No.21991983]

>>21991489
"Kafkaesque" is a form of bureaucratic horror. For something to be Kafkaesque, it must evoke the banality of evil through uncaring systems.
It is somewhat impossible to understand Kafka without understanding the cultural context of Soviet communism.

He finds humor and absurdity in how casually cruel humans are willing to be to each other when given "permission" by some higher authority, even though the situation is entirely arbitrary and positions may as well be reversed. The whipper and the whipped are as one, under the law.

[Anonymous No.21992402]

>>21991913
what? of course the term refers to kafka. it literally means "the property of resemblance to the works and themes of kafka's body of work".

[Anonymous No.21992761]

>>21991489
Robert Walser's The Assistant is Kafka before Kafka

[Anonymous No.21992891]

>>21991489
This thread is filled with a surprising amount of retardation.

The word "Kafkaesque" does not really have an exact meaning other then that its saying X thing contains characteristics of Kafka's works.

Kafkaesque does not only applies to things like examples given by >>21991902 Thought that may be the way plebs use the word. Anyone who as actually read more of kafka beyond The Trial, would probably think the word means something closer to "dark surrealism" I think a country doctor and In the Penal Colony are both great examples of this.

[Anonymous No.21992914]

>>21992891
being willfully ignorant to the common usage of a term is the telltale sign of a midwit

[Anonymous No.21992970]

>>21992914
Im not ignorant of it thought I literally said thats how plebs use it kek