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/lit/ - Literature

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22578486 No.22578486 [Reply] [Original]

I thought this was supposed to be funny but it's just fucking sad.

>> No.22578556

>>22578486
It was funny for me because I knew Kafka was a socialist jew.

>> No.22578674
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22578674

Kafka was the absolute master of ennui. RIP king.

>> No.22579817

>>22578486
Depending on translation it can be pretty funny. The Dutch version I read got disturbingly light-hearted at times. (My German isn't good enough to judge the original.)
But it's tragic foremost, yeah.

>> No.22579820

>>22578486
the appeal of the library is simple but you don't need to own it, yada yada

>> No.22579835
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22579835

i had a similar experience with this. more dread than fun

>> No.22579859

I clapped when he turned into a cockroach and said "I'm turning myself into a cockroach, I'm cockroach Gregor!"

>> No.22579891
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22579891

>>22579859
A cockroach is an insect that is flat in shape with large legs, and Gregor is anything but flat: he is convex on both sides, belly and back, and his legs are small. He approaches a cockroach in only one respect: his coloration is brown. That is all. Apart from this he has a tremendous convex belly divided into segments and a hard rounded back suggestive of wing cases. In beetles these cases conceal flimsy little wings that can be expanded and then may carry the beetle for miles and miles in a blundering flight. Curiously enough, Gregor the beetle never found out that he had wings under the hard covering of his back. (This is a very nice observation on my part to be treasured all your lives. Some Gregors, some Joes and Janes, do not know that they have wings.) Further, he has strong mandibles. He uses these organs to turn the key in a lock while standing erect on his hind legs, on his third pair of legs (a strong little pair), and this gives us the length of his body, which is about three feet long. In the course of the story he gets gradually accustomed to using his new appendages—his feet, his feelers. This brown, convex, dog-sized beetle is very broad.

In the original German text the old charwoman calls him Mistkäfer, a "dung beetle." It is obvious that the good woman is adding the epithet only to be friendly. He is not, technically, a dung beetle. He is merely a big beetle. (I must add that neither Gregor nor Kafka saw that beetle any too clearly.)

>> No.22579897

>>22578486
I had quite the opposite experience.

>> No.22579903
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22579903

>>22578486
It's kafkaesque

>> No.22579936

>>22578486
The bit in the beggining when his employer shows up is fucking hilarious though

>> No.22580075

>>22578486
the apple thing was funny tho

>> No.22580202

>>22579817
>>22579936
>>22580075
Kys.
>Hurrr he laughed while writing it did you know that xDDDDD
That doesn't mean you have to forcefully look for humor in every single detail. Pretentious pseuds.

>> No.22580222

>>22580202
I thought it was funny, simple as

>> No.22580317

>>22578486
>I thought this was supposed to be funny
How did you get that conclusion?

>> No.22580326

>>22579891
Nabokov said The Metamorphosis was the second best novel of the 20th century behind Ulysses

>> No.22580373

>>22580202
You are a humorless fool if you don’t see some comedy in this story

>> No.22580381

>>22578486
It's funny if you read it as a joke. Kafka wrote the entire thing to be read while guffawing

>> No.22581035

>>22580202
>Blatantly comedic scene of gregor ranting for a full page about how hes has been a great worker only for his boss not understand him because hes now a insect and then also say his performance has been lacking

Yeah okay there is 0 comedy in it for sure anon. I strongly suspect you are an American if you cant find atleast some humor in Kafka.

>> No.22581520

>>22581035
I'm German and read it in its original language. It's just cringe to forcefully look for humor in his works and think of yourself as a genius for finding some things funny.

>> No.22582623

>>22581520
>Forcefully look

Think you might be retarded

>> No.22583916

>>22581520
>think of yourself as a genius
Who's saying that?
It's not sophisticated when it says that Gregor has trouble waddling under the couch because he ate too much and his eyes are bulging, that's Looney Tunes tier

>> No.22583997

>>22578486
No shit

>> No.22584013
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22584013

>>22578674
Socialist Jews are usually fat and ugly but Kafka was so pretty and twinkish
I have never read the roach story he wrote but I have fapped to this anorexic kike like you wouldn't believe
I like to look straight in his eyes

>> No.22584019

>>22578674
Belonged to some Egyptian woman in a reincarnation and couldn't handle freedom