Sic Semper Tyrannis

Kafka, my childhood hero....

it was said the kafka wrote his books inspired by his dreams, or rahter his dreams transformed to his novels. I loved Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, Sartre, soren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger and "existentialism" philosophy as a teenager and very much get attracted to their way of thinking in life in general. My peers used ot accuse me as having "bourgeoisie tendency" because they were mostly pro Gorky, sholokhov and Dickens. Reading Kafka and Camus really shaked my mind, my heart and my soul as Hedayat or Hemingway did. Interestingly Hemingway, Hedayat lost their lives due to suicide. There is a fine line between to be genius and insanity. Dissociation in characters and mixing fantasy with reality is a symptom of Paranoid Schizophrenic disorder. It has been labled as "intellectual illness" combined with great deal of Hallucinations.   

At the end, I have to say the writer is struggling greatly with the concept of "racism" , "superiority" , "inferiority" issues. The issues could be appropriately addressed in private therapeautic sessions and I think the writer could benefit from counseling and venting out or sorting out his/her feelings,

Siavash

TL -Interesting take. Thanks for sharing your thoughts

EA - Elitists are people

who wear tweed jackets with elbow patches over turtleneck sweaters, smoke pipes, sip brandy and have beards.  

Seriously, I wrote about Kafka because I like his work.  You, and everyone else are free to write about whomever you like and admire, from Michael Jackson to George Orwell.  

And I never had a discussion in Iran in Shah's time about Kafka.  I think I was too busy pooping in my diaper to worry about Kafka in the 1970s.  And I haven't had a conversation with anyone in Iran about Kafka recently either.  We mostly talk about what murdering idiots khamenei and Jannati are.  

Also, as others pointed out, Kafka's work is really not that complicated a read.  There are many, many other writers who can be debated in "elitist" circles who are, how shall I put it, esoteric,  in nature for "elitism" purposes.   

Azarin Jaan - Thank you for your wonderful contributions

to this blog.  Your take on The Trial is great.  Did not think of that apsect of it.  My interpretation is exactly what it is: my own, and I see his foretlling of an unaccountable system to be quite telling.  

I have to say that I really like the innate subtle darkness of his work.  Just enough to show us the helplessness of his world.  

Thanks again.  Your input is great!   

EA, thanks for explaining

I was on another roll, eg Iranians born or living in German-speaking countries and anyway, Kafka is relatively easy to read. .

If people use his name to show-off or score points, that's really beyond sad and pathetic and I'd agree with you.

Jobrani. 

EWWWWAAAWWWWWWW ! YUCK!

What the KAFKA "some parts of the world" have to do w/ Iran?!

TL, in Iran reading Saadi, Hafez and Ferdowsi is part of every child's national curriculum, does that mean in other parts of the world their names roll of elitists' tongues in those countries?!

My point is that apparently the word Kafka is synonymous with elitist conversations in Iran.  Somehow to mix your elitist status you throw in few Kafka here and there, aimlessly!  Like some (you know who :-) who make themselves pea in every soup!  Although, they are not elitist and are just dumb enough to "think" that being pea of every soup is sign of eliticism!  Perhaps some Isfahanis!

To explain even further let me use our good friend Maz Jobrani who was giving advice to Iranians flying aboard airplanes that because our language is suspicious to some and makes other passengers nervous about terrorist plots, use some naive English words here and there in between your conversations to ease their concern.  Like salam aziam halet chetoreh, chakeram, mersi maman halesh khobeh, STRAWBERRY, na be joon too aslan zahmati nis, STRAWBERRY ICECREAM, baleh emahsab na ....

Lastly, if you can't share someone's writings for the benefit of others, instead of just using the name Kafka, AND blame it on people's stupidity then something is wrong with this picture.  I am always suspicious of Kafka conversations not because of the man himself and I value Sadegh Hedayat for being Iran's father of Novels.  Without him we'd only have poetry!

Everything is sacred

EA

In some parts of the world, reading Kafka and yaping on about him is part of every child's national curriculum. Hardly elitist.

You have however hit on something that bothers me all the time and I question really quite often: if e.g. someone has read a lot of Kafka and enjoyed his writings, would it not be highly elitist of the person not to mention that joy, by assuming that others are too stupid/uneducated to read his work (and Kafka is comparitively, very easy to read)?

AO and Rea

Rea, in this case, I have a hunch that you didn't read his works in German, which would make me understand why you don't consider him a writer. I've tried to read a translation and was Eeeweeed. In german (and the themes are very largely contemporary and contextual) the language is highly onomatopoeic and consequently synaesthetic and quite "cinematic" and cut into memorable scenes...the crafts and skills of a writer are there. Whether you actually enjoyed the writings is another matter, obviously . ;)

AO, it's supposed to relate to the 'angst-ridden' states etc., but there is very little, if anything surreal in Kafka's writing, but is moreover an extention of Ovid within Kafka's contemporary environment of  portrayals of "grotesque realism"  ...

I suppose he's been buried in the world-famous Jewish cemetry there, but if I were so keen on a writer, I would have thought of visiting the house he wrote in, in the same city. Well, we're all different etc.. ;)

Re: Suicide

In my opinion the loss of Hedayat to suicide * was a great loss to Iranian literature.

* There is a question of whether it was suicide here I am not getting in that debate.

I have read

Kafka just not his whole works. I did read Metamorphosis translated by Hedayat. Among other things. However I value what little sanity I have left so I take it in small doses.

to vpk

Since you haven't yet read Kafka, I see no point in discussing anything with you. Please feel free to keep your absurd opinion...:-)

Suicide is underrated

It should be up oneself to decide when it's time to go, and not some disease or accident.  When that determination is made, suicide is not a bad option.  After all, who better than a person himself / herslf to determine that their useful time on this planet is over, or that they have had enough of "life?"  

I will respond to others later.  Have to do some work now.   

Dear Azarin

My first copy of the Metamorphosis was translated by Hedayat

See my very point and how did he end up? Dead. Kafka is the way to suicide!

Dear AO, voila another long comment!

My first copy of the Metamorphosis was translated by Hedayat and I still remember how it looked and I’d never forget the moment I finished reading that book! If I’m not mistaken, I think he also translated a few other short stories in that same book such as The Hunter Gracchus, and maybe the Village Schoolmaster or The Great Wall of China, I’m not sure anymore..:-)

I absolutely agree with you about the strong presence of this sense of alienation in many of his works, but considering the time period he lived in as a Jewish – a Jewish who wasn’t even religious --we shouldn’t be surprised. What I loved about Nabakov’s analysis of Kafka’s the Metamorphosis was his conclusion that Gregor Samsa was a human trapped in a vermin’s body, but surrounded by vermins who were disguised as humans.

But I think that the Trial reflects Kafka’s deep fear and disgust from the bureaucracy (let’s not forget that the man has studied law) and his ongoing struggle with the self-indulged guilt over the original sin. I personally find his work dark and gloomy (in a good way) because I can’t find any traces of hope in any of his works in spite of his incredible (and subtle) way to use humor to describe surreal and absurd situations.

 As he says in Conversations with Kafka:

[Janouch:] “…You said art is a mirror which, like a clock running fast, foretells the future. Perhaps your writing is, in today’s Cinema of the Blind, only a mirror of tomorrow.”

….

[Kafka:] “…You’re certainly right. Probably that’s why I can’t finish anything. I’m afraid of the truth. But can we do otherwise?..one must be silent, if one can’t give any help. No one, through his own lack of hope, should make the condition of the patient worse. For that reason, all my scribbling is to be destroyed. I am no light. I have merely lost my way among my own thorns. I’m a dead end.”  

 ..."

Thanks again for your wonderful blog and sorry for my really long comment!

Azarin

PS to Esfand: I am sure if you let go of your doubts and try to read Kafka, you would actually enjoy it. His writing is not difficult (unlike Nietzsche) but the difficult is our own acceptance of the world he depicts.

Kafka the way

to depression and suicide. No thanks I read a bit and that was enough. If I want to be miserable I watch the latest executions by IRI. Why bother digging up 100 year old writings? Just turn on your tv and you will be depressed.

Actually Iranians are one of the better read nations.

We are land of poetry and have plenty of authors and bookstores, not to mention the many who are better educated that PAIIA constantly refers to them!

Reading Kafka was frowned upon during the Shah as it meant your heads smells ghormeh sabzi!  It was after the revolution that there was an explosion of banned books that made people read all kinds of books and the elitist discussions about Kafka started after the revolution.

To be sure we're talking about the same thing and not comparing apples and oranges, have you ever participated or been in an Iranian elitist conversation?  Who or what would you consider or have heard elitists talk about?

Case and point, not that any of us are god forbid elitist by any means, but see how quickly a Kafka conversation turned into what the bottom feeder Iranians do or don't do! 

Everything is sacred

Thank you RG and Anahid

To follow on what RG said about Iranians and preconceived notions about those who read classical literature, I had the very same conversation with a friend not too long ago.  We really aren't a nation of readers.  Look at book sales in Iran.  The numbers are so low compared to other nations, they are embarrassing.  Part of it has to do with 32 years of IR opposition to enlightenment.  Part of is our own culture.  

The good news is that we do have some very well read Iranians among us as well, such as HTG and Azarin below.   

Dear Anonymous Observer, I enjoyed this blog too

 I don't know if I will read Kafka's books any time soon, since there are other writers whom I am interested in more.   However, this was a great blog. Thanks for sharing.

Reading & enjoying calssical literature is not elitism!

In fact bringing art and literature to the ordinary masses of people should be the duty of any half decent government, as means of raising cultural awareness of the nation. 

I was watching a documentary a few nights ago showing that during Nazi invasion of Soviet Union, In city of Leningrad, the soviet factory workers, working round the clock, with meager food rations,  at their breaks inside the factory were entertained by top soviet classical bands playing Mozart, Beathoven, or reading and discussing  Tolstoy. This kept their moral high.

We, Iranians as a whole seem to believe that reading, listening to classical music, enjoying art are displays of elitism. This mindset needs to be changed, not only amongst a few "intellectuals", but amongst the ordinary Iranians.

Dear AO, Although not a Kafka fan myself, I like your blog and been following it and learning from blog itself and the comments. I wish we had more of this kind of blogs on this site.

Thank you very much.    

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."

Not an elitist at all

And don't hang out in "elitist" circles.  Just don't fit in. :-)

I just happen to like Kafka.  There are many other excellent authors that I have not read (wish I had the time to), such as (as mentioned below to HTG) Bahram Sadeghi.  Perhaps some day will get the time to read them.

You may want to read The Trial by Kafka when you get a chance.  It's a pretty short read (about a 140 pages).  You will see many parallels between what he envisions in the book and what is going on in our homeland today.    

Kafka is just a word you use in "elitist" conversations!

Or as we call it in Farsi, roshan fekri!  BTW that's one reason Obama is not an "elitist", have you ever seen him use Kafka before?!  Not that you are an elisit AO, but just saying!

I don't even need to know Kafka, actually never read anything about him (including this blog ;-) but can throw in a few Kafka here and there!  You don't believe me?! How about:

I LOVE Kafka, he takes you to places you've never been before.  He is such a genius.  Other than Kafka, I LOVE Nietzsche and Gothe.   

Everything is sacred

Thank you as well HTG-e gerami

I am personally not aware of Hedayat's translation of Kafka, but you may be correct.  I will look into it.  And thank you for the link to Sadeghi's works.  I will start to read his writings at the first chance I get, now that you have peaked my curiosity.

Thanks again. 

Thank you Azarin

For the wonderful post.  I am glad that you have enjoyed the blog.  The thing that I also find fascinating about Kafka (as I mentioned in the blog) is his understanding of the cocept of modern man, as is illustrated quite artfully in The Trial.  He foresees a modern day police state which is the product of a an industrial, machine like society.  It is quite ironic that he didn't live to see his imagination come to life in Nazi Germany, where his own people where the target of such a system.  Interestingly, some of his writings where confiscated by the Gestapo in 1933, and are yet to be found.  

In terms of the "cage" and the bars, Kafka certainly had many inner conflicts.  His life story is riddled with clues about his inner struggles, from his near suicide to his strange requests for his writings to be destroyed after his death, all of those point to a severe mind and really, and an even more severe intellect.  I think he somehow found himself "contained" by something that he could not get rid of, and that feeling bothered him the most.  

This is a great blog.

thanks AO and Azarin khanom. And a great question, the parrallels between Kafka and Hedayat are many, isn't there a Persian translation of Kafka by Hedayat?

Below is our own Majnon's intro to Bahram Sadeghi.

//iranian.com/main/blog/divaneh-36

Iranian surrealism is an amazing treasure trove yet to be explored.

Conversations with kafka by Gustav Janouch

Dear AO, thank you so much for writing this wonderful blog! It is so rare for me to feel this excited about anything on IC...:-)

Being a Kafka fan since 15, I have to confess that back then I was totally fascinated by Kafka, but I wasn't sure how to interpret his work...until years later, I read Conversations with Kafka by Janouch, and it helped me a lot to understand my beloved writer. Of course I’m aware of the polemic around the authenticity of this memoir, but there are passages in the book that could be extremely insightful into the puzzling world of this man who is one of the most important literary figures of the 20th century.

I still remember how much I was affected by reading this dialogue between Kafka and Janouch:

"...

[Kafka:] “…I, who am in the cage.”

[Janouch:] “That’s understandable. The office…”

Kafka interrupted me. “Not only in the office, but everywhere.” He laid his clenched fist on his chest. “I carry the bars within me all the time.”

..."

Kafka's work (and life) has been studied and interpreted in so many ways. Considering his diary and his letters, it is obvious that he never considered himself to be a genius. And, in my humble opinion, this is the real tragedy of Kafka's life: his lack of confidence in his own ability as a writer. 

Voila what the GREAT Nabokov tells about Kafka: 

"The beauty of Kafka's (and Gogol's) private nightmares is that their central human characters belong to the same private fantastic world as the inhuman characters around them, but the central one tries to get out of that world, to cast off the mask, to transcend the cloak or the carapace."

To end my endless comment, I am posting the link to one of my favorite pieces by my beloved Kafka:

//www.thestories.net/stories/link/37/37/print/

An Iranian's take on one aspect of Kafka's work

Thanks HTG - Question

Do you also see any similarities between Kafka and Sadegh Hedayat?  I think that Hedayat was a little less abstract than Kafka, but still...

One of the greatest writers of the 20th century

I kept looking for this essay by Walter Benjamin on Kafka, but couldn't find it right now. At some future point when I find it, it'll get posted. Meanwhile thanks for your blog. Indeed Kafka is  one of the giants of 20th century.

In Iran, we also have our own late Bahram Sadeghi  whome always reminds me of Kafka: the same type of very dark humor, surreal surroundings, and an incredible imagination. thanks again, cheers

Azarin Jaan

Interesting.  His picture is my screen saver.

Rea

I understand and see your point of view.  For some people, Kafka is an aquired taste, and they just don't connect with him.  I have heard the same sentiment from a few others.  Nothing wrong with not liking his writings.:-)