The Old Man in the Woods Or The Monkeys by fire We monkeys have sat by this ever-burning fire for generations because we are simply afraid to go outside the perimeter of its light into the dark. Although we have tried to look beyond into the darkness everyday hoping to find something; yet all of us are afraid to go outside in dark. And this fear is not baseless, for whoever has entered the darkness has never returned. Thus this fire has a very central role to play in our lives. It has been there for as long as memory goes back into the past. One is often tempted to ask who created it in the first place - you can depend upon monkeys to let their curiosity rule them. While over the years, the organized efforts have been made to increase it by feeding wood and thus increasing perimeter of its light - one must add 'quite successfully'; the question of its origins remain debate-able. Some argue that it was always there – but the imagination finds it hard to deal with infinities. These days it is even contested that it was a result of an explosion.However, a widely accepted view has been that the Old Man did it. The Old Man, who it has been claimed, lives outside the perimeter of light. Many monkeys have repeatedly claimed to ‘see’ him there - although their descriptions of him so different from one another that it render any explanation impossible. And they keep fighting among each-other as to whose description is better than other. Another thing for which you can depend on monkeys for - to form their opinions on things they know nothing about and then fight to prove they are right.They have formed factions – major as well as minor. There is, for example, a faction, J, which is sure there is an Old Man and he is very kind since as, so the legend goes, this old man first asked one of our ancestors to kill his son; but later out of total mercy told him he need not do so. Kind, isn’t it? There is another faction, C, which argues that the old man actually sent his son among us, named Jay Cee – after doing a plastic surgery on him to give him the form of a monkey. I personally think that that the son, if there is a son, wouldn’t have agreed to go through plastic surgery for monkeys like us.Yet another faction, I, will have it that Jay Cee was only Old Man's ambassador to our little land like many others, who had come to us to tell us about the day the fire will be dissolved and all bad monkeys will be punished. Kind of makes you feel like you are in a classroom where teacher has gone out on an errand and will punish in-disciplined souls on return!Another faction H tells you that there are more than one old man out there - It sounds very much like a monkey thing to do, to go out looking for many where you haven’t yet found one.And all these factions along with others have each a leave of its own. Each faction claims its leave to be THE LEAVE containing the message either narrated or written by Old Man himself. There are so many THE LEAVES containing so very different messages written in so many different languages one cant help but marvel Old Man’s creative talents. Me? I personally refuse to love a leave that doesn’t start with words, ‘Burn me before you kill an innocent on my account’. (If any of my fellow monkeys happen to be listening, forgive the mockery! that runs in our monkey blood.)There are a few who scorn at all these factions and say there is no Old Man at all – and these last are themselves scorned at in turn by rest, for others won’t be reminded of that possibility. There is no presence as painful as an absence - that is any absence ever felt … Which reminds me if any of my fellow monkeys asks, this meeting never happened, you don’t know me.Anyway, some of these last who say there is no old man at all, claim the old man is an illusion – the result of our vivid imagination which shows brain what it wishes to see. The argument is favored by the fact that despite large extension of illuminated land as the fire has grown over the years – even to areas where the Old Man was supposed to be; he is still not to be found. Instead he seems to have silently crawled back as if avoiding us, hiding from us. May be he has too many wrinkles and feels hideous. Instead, so these non-believing monkeys will have you believe, that Old Man was imagined back when fire was still new and fears high; our ancestors needed a human that could father them and in absence of such a father figure they might have imagined one. In fact, we monkeys have always found it difficult to get over our daddy issues. That could explain all those fights. Who daddy loves the most? We say “us”, they say ”us” and then the fight.Whether or not, this father figure is real, these infidels argue, it is high time we become independent of him – even if it is tempting to have believe in a higher figure, if only as someone to curse on a rainy day. He, if he is, definitely seems to be wanting to be forgotten – or wouldn’t he have explained beyond doubt how he wants to be acknowledged? At the moment, one cannot help but wonder whether he thinks of anything of our acknowledgement or further requests and gifts we keep on making. And one doubts if he did anything at all worth acknowledging. For example, how did he created the fire in first place? Some argue he used woods and stones; others argue that he used petrol and wood – you see even on this point there has been no clarity but most seems to agree that a fire implies an old man who started it - for fire, they say, can't create itself and monkeys, they all seem to be surely incapable of doing it.There is also the very nature of Old Man – in fact some people think that he is not old at all; still others, though very few, are sure that it is a woman and there are some who say he has a vulture head. These last are considered primitive by others. Also what is there to say that Old Man is not a bad guy? In fact, look at the facts – his messages have created only confusion and differences. We are fighting with each other stupidly – one could claim that he is making us fight each other for his entertainment; powerful have always made fun of powerless –the temptation is just too strong. Just look at how we monkeys play with insects. Yes, I insist upon it. The Old Man is just making fun of us; it sure must be hard for a man in his position not to laugh at our monkey-ish behavior. May be, may be Old Man is the biggest enemy we have. There is an old proverb among us – a good impostor is one that would have you cut your tail and that of others, give them to him/her and still have you believe that he/she is good and has done you a favor.Anyway the hard truth remains one can never be sure.And yet all these factions are so sure of being right they must kill others to prove it – in service to or protection of Old Man they say. At times, one walks along perimeter of the fire's light for a lone walk, dejected with all this barbarian behavior; and looks outside the perimeters; hoping – yes hoping for sometimes one can't help it; hoping to see him … And yet, all the while being sure that there would be nothing but darkness visible.
The idea that there exists such thing as a 'must read' book is one of the great fallacies diluting literature. To judge a reader unfavourably because a certain book is not on his or her shelf, rather than to praise and learn from the idiosyncratic choices to be found there instead, is to wish for a literature of bland homogenity. To label a book 'must read' is to condemn it to being misunderstood. And when that book is by the strange, reclusive, haunted black-humourist Franz Kafka, and is given to students to pour over with grave seriousness for hints of political allegory or prophecy, the misunderstanding is so pronounced as to be, in itself, 'Kafkaesque'. All those young heads bowed over Metamorphosis, trying their damnedest to see in this giant bug the wisdom of the sage, when the sage himself must surely have been shaking his own head in disbelief at the balls-out irreverence of it, maybe even wondering, 'Is it too ridiculous?' It's as if some high official had ordained that a sacred text be read and reported on by all those seeking admission to the Castle, but when the applicants receive that text they find in it the trivial rantings of a madman. So, desperately, unwilling to crack a smile lest the Castle feel itself mocked, they eke out some tenuous thread of analysis and miss the sacredness, AKA the humour.In speaking of Kafka, Milan Kundera quotes Czech poet Jan Skacel: Poets don't invent poems The poem is somewhere behind It's been there for a long time The poet merely discovers itHe goes on to say:Indeed, if instead of seeking 'the poem' hidden 'somewhere behind' the poet 'engages' himself to the service of a truth known from the outset... he has renounced the mission of poetry. And it matters little whether the preconceived truth is called revolution or dissidence, Christian faith or atheism, whether it is more justified or less justified; a poet who serves any truth other than the truth to be discovered (which is dazzlement) is a false poet. At his best, Franz Kafka served this 'truth to be discovered', this 'dazzlement', as devoutly as any writer I know of. This is his legacy: freedom. Or what Kundera calls 'radical autonomy'. When occasionally, to the delight of the scholars, he bogs himself down in allegory ('In the Penal Colony', 'Investigations of a Dog', to some extent 'A Hunger Artist'), he fritters away his gift on grand ideals. But when in a moment of sheer wilful abandon his imagination takes over and propels him - like the country doctor unable to control his horses - into the unknown, he is unassailable. 'A Country Doctor' is five of the most kaleidoscopic and dizzying pages in history: the horses' faces lolling like cardboard cutouts in the bedroom window at the end are Kafka's own rebellious muses laughing at him as he curls up in bed with his wound. His Hunter Gracchus is a journeyer from beyond, washed up by mistake in the quotidian world. 'The Knock at the Manor Gate', 'The Test', 'The Helmsman' - everywhere there are things in flux on either side of the boundary of dreams. Unfinished stories abound, because Kafka does not do 'finished'. Even the near-perfect Metamorphosis ends with a non-ending, and frequently his neatest stories are his most facile. Kafka's gift is an inspired one, and inspiration, as we know, doesn't necessarily wait around while we add the finishing touches. These fragments are seeds, or bombs, and their author a wily rebel possessed by the Imp of the Perverse, unsure himself whether he is a gardener or a terrorist. Just, whatever you do, don't 'study' them. Live these stories or leave them alone. More dead readings will only clutter our view of them.Fact: Kafka is funny.Fact: He's not for everyone.Fact: He writes to the dictates of his heart, not to preach politics or predict the future. And if you don't get him, no-one but the most pretentious snob is going to judge you for it. There are no 'must read' books.'The Vulture'A vulture was hacking at my feet. It had already torn my boots and stockings to shreds, now it was hacking at the feet themselves. Again and again it struck at them, then circled several times restlessly around me, then returned to continue its work. A gentleman passed by, looked on for a while, then asked me why I suffered the vulture. 'I'm helpless,' I said. 'When it came and began to attack me, I of course tried to drive it away, even to strangle it, but these animals are very strong, it was about to spring at my face, but I preferred to sacrifice my feet. Now they are almost torn to bits.' 'Fancy letting yourself be tortured like this,' said the gentleman, 'I've only got to go home and get my gun. Could you wait another half-hour?' 'I'm not sure about that,' said I, and stood for a moment rigid with pain. Then I said, 'Do try it in any case, please.' 'Very well,' said the gentleman, 'I'll be as quick as I can.' During this conversation the vulture had been calmly listening, letting its eye rove between me and the gentleman. Now I realized that it had understood everything; it took wing, leaning far back to gain impetus, and then, like a javelin thrower, thrust its beak through my mouth, deep into me. Falling back, I was relieved to feel him drowning irretrievably in my blood, which was filling every depth, flooding every shore.
What do You think about The Complete Stories (1995)?
This is the most authoritative collection of Kafka's immortal short fiction; it includes the most respected translations of each story (mostly by Willa and Edwin Muir), and a fair introduction from John Updike. Kafka was the greatest writer of short fiction of the modern era. Such stories as 'The Metamorphosis,' 'In the Penal Colony,' 'The Hunger Artist,' and 'The Great Wall of China' encapsulate the tyrannical, dehumanizing regimentation of the modern world. Kafka may be difficult to read, and the allegorical form is not enjoyable for everyone. However, it is impossible to not be drawn into the strange madness of 'The Hunger Artist,' or 'The Country Doctor,' surely two of the most terrifying works of literature of the period. In many ways, Kafka was a precursor to the sort of self-reflexive artistry that would later be found in Beckett, Sartre, and Brecht; Kafka is always aware that he is working within the literary realm, and he knows that he cannot escape it. Therefore, (brilliantly), he turns it into an advantage, by intoning the mystical, the metaphysical, and the surreal. His characters are often animals, metaphors, or simply moods. This approach
—Mr.
The key to reading Kafka is, of course, suspension of disbelief. You’re likely familiar with the central conceit of his masterpiece, “The Metamorphosis,” one of the greatest stories ever written. A hapless traveling salesman, poor fellow, wakes up as an insect. This happens in the first sentence, and it just is. There’s no disputing it. It’s a thread that winds through all his work -- Kafka’s incomparable ingenuity relentlessly drives his subjects into regions of the universe heretofore unexplored. If a man wakes up with two bright balls hovering about him, and they follow him everywhere he goes? If a creature resembles a broken-down spool of thread (that talks)? If an ape one day decides to become a man? If it’s Kafka, you go with it. After all -- unbelievably, perhaps -- these scenarios are full of deeply insightful metaphors for the human condition.Thus in Kafka everything is uncertain. Even (especially) the most basic facts of reality. Characters frequently don’t even know where they are, or who they’re with. They change their minds constantly. Things talk which should not talk, while people remain silent. Servants are unable to serve, traveling salesmen are unable to travel, architects are unable to build, grooms are unable to get married.“The Metamorphosis” is the crown jewel of his work, but it’s only the beginning. Like stories written from the perspective of a roach? There are stories here where the narrator is an ape. A dog. A burrowing rodent. A bridge (yep). Kafka summarizes the whole of Don Quixote in one paragraph. He makes Poseidon, the great God of the Sea, into an accountant, and Bucephalus, Alexander the Great’s trusty steed, into a lawyer.Kurt Vonnegut famously plotted stories on a 2D plane, the X-axis being time and the Y-axis being good fortune vs. ill. According to Kurt, Kafka’s work progresses thusly:He was referring specifically to “The Metamorphosis,” but the pattern recurs. The dominant emotion is often shame, which Kafka himself was full of. In these stories, it feels like bad things happen simply because they are inevitable.A note: this collection is truly complete, and thus it is for completists. Many of these stories are literally unfinished, and others only read that way, unpolished as they are. There are probably many abridged collections that contain nothing but the cream, in which I would include these stories:“The Metamorphosis”; “In the Penal Colony”; “A Hunger Artist”; “A Dream”; “The Burrow”; “The Judgment”; "Eleven Sons"; "The Warden of the Tomb"; "The Great Wall of China"Another note: John Updike’s forward to this collection is sublime.At the end of “Prometheus” Kafka writes:The legend tried to explain the inexplicable. As it came out of a substratum of truth it had in turn to end in the inexplicable.Couldn’t have said it better himself.
—Aaron Wolfson
Las narraciones de Franz Kafka me gustan más que sus novelas, pero no tanto como sus diarios, cartas y escritos personales. Kafka es uno de mis escritores favoritos, uno con los que tengo una relación más especial e íntima, y también es uno de los que más me cuesta hablar. Cuando me siento a escribir una reseña sobre Kafka no sé nunca qué decir (y siempre acabo diciendo que no sé qué decir). Kafka se tiene que leer. Al explicarlo se pierde toda la magia y toda la fuerza. Pongamos como ejemplo el relato 'Ante la ley'. Va de un hombre que quiere presentarse ante la ley para reclamar justicia (nunca se nos dice qué exactamente). Ante la puerta hay un guardián que le impide el paso. Le dice que espere y el hombre espera y espera. Pasan los años y al fin muere. Antes de morir le pregunta al guardián por qué durante todo este tiempo nadie más se ha presentado y el guardián le dice que es porque esa puerta era sólo para él y que ahora la cerrará. Y está claro que este relato quiere decir lo que dice y mucho más, que es una alegoría de algo mucho más grande pero no sabemos exactamente qué e intentar explicar en voz alta lo que quizás quiere decir sería simplificarlo, porque nunca podremos abarcar todas las interpretaciones y toda la complejidad que reside en la simplicidad de las narraciones de Kafka. No me parece que sea justo soltar unos cuantos adjetivos (incluyendo kafkiano) intentando explicar cómo es Kafka y quedarme tan ancha, porque ni todos los adjetivos del mundo podrán describir lo especial para mí que es Franz.La edición que he leído esta vez de las narraciones de Kafka no son las narraciones completas, sino las narraciones que Kafka publicó en vida o autorizó publicar (y salvar de la quema): el librito 'Contemplación', el relato 'La Condena', 'La Metamorfosis', 'En la colonia penitenciaria' y las colecciones 'Un médico rural' y 'Un artista del hambre'. La más floja es 'Contemplación', los relatos son algo torpes y blandengues, parecen más probaturas que otra cosa; de hecho Kafka le dijo su amigo Max Brod que no era necesario que quemara todos los ejemplares existentes porque sería demasiado trabajo (¡menos mal!), pero le pidió que no se reeditara nunca. Y dejando a parte el clásico de 'La Metamorfosis', mi favorito es 'Un médico rural'. Es el Kafka más angustiante y más desconcertante. Pura pesadilla. Y aún así nunca deja de tener cierto sentido del humor, incluso en los momentos más grotescos (especialmente en los momentos más grotescos). Creo que habla de relaciones de poder y sumisión y como estas relaciones envilecen tanto al sometido como al que somete. Sus relatos son secos y austeros, pero a la vez tan ricos.Adoro también 'La condena', me parece una Metamorfosis en miniatura. Empieza como una narración más bien realista y costumbrista sobre las dificultades de escribir una carta y luego da un giro inesperado y magnífico y se convierte en un juicio en el que padre e hijo se acusan, nunca sabemos de qué, pero no importa. Lo que importa es la condena y como el hijo la asume sin protestar. También me encanta 'Un artista del hambre'. Sus cuentos, aunque no lo parezca, hablan de arte, literatura, márketing y del escritor como inadaptado social rechazado por intentar ser original y valiente. Creo. Quiero especialmente 'Una mujercita' sobre la relación de odio entre el narrador y una mujer que apenas le conoce. Kafka se adentra de manera brillante en la psicología de estos dos personajes, de una manera tan detallista y tan certera que produce vértigo. Creo que la grandeza de Kafka está en que habla de cosas universales desde un punto de vista personal, habla de la angustia que produce estar viva y ser un simple engranaje de algo mayor que no te tiene en cuenta, del dolor particular de todos y cada uno de nosotros porque todos y cada uno de nosotros está sometido a una serie de circunstancias y es víctima de cosas que no puede controlar.Pero no olvidéis que he vuelto a fracasar porque Kafka es mucho más de lo que se puede decir sobre él.Una página con algunos relatos de Franz Kafka.
—Núria
