Kafka: Good or Meme?

Professor gave me a short story collection for Christmas.

I’ve been reading it and I’m not sure what to make of it, to be honest. I can’t decide whether the stories are genius or retarded.

So, Veeky Forums, it kafka good or just a hack?

Kafka fucking sucks, bitch.

He's a jew and jews are subpar writers from a creative perspective.

Kafka is very good, but you should discover this for yourself.

Just got sixty pages into The Trial today and I am enjoying it, though I'm assuming the work as a whole defines it's acclaim. I find the prose wanting in some areas, whereas when it hits, it is good indeed. Not particularly sold as of yet, but am curious enough to continue.

Is his work memed, or truly worthy of the praise? I suppose I leave it to subjectivity, for relying so let on the opinions of others defeats the worth of literature.

I find him incredibly unique and talented in his prose and on his ability to represent an absolute state of uneasiness and bizarre, he does this even in his letter to his father, for god's sake.

But he's definitely not very easy to grasp, we all could be misunderstanding him completely by how he found the works utterly funny.

The Trial can feel fairly disjointed at times, but even if you pick out isolated moments (like that one excerpt about The Law that became one of Kafka's most famous "parables), it's a great encapsulation of what makes his fiction great.

He just had a dark sense of humor about the absurd

Brilliant, but not maximalist (so immediately goes against the Veeky Forums grain)

Read his diaries - his best work

Kafka and Humor is a meme and it's usually way overestimated by scholars who think its a cool pet theory

Read Deleuze&Guattari. Some interesting thoughts concerning Kafka to be found there.

If you read Kafka and have no strong opinions, you are a brainlet

The Trial, and the Castle were published posthumously from a collection of notes his friend organized. Some chapters can be read in different orders and occasionally some characters will say things that make more sense if you read it with the knowledge of a later chapter. They're still amazing works of fiction despite being incomplete or unedited as Kafka would've wanted them to be.

Most people make the mistake of taking Kafka too seriously, he’s best read as a humorist.

Veeky Forums loves Stoner

t. user who can’t form his own opinions ask others what he should think of an author

The Metamorphosis is Kafka’s coming to terms with being a jew.

It's not difficult to read him as a humorous writer, and it's not necessary either.

>it's
If we weren't on Veeky Forums I'd vow to castrate you.

He’s good, but he’s only babby-tier.

kafka got memed into oblivion by arthoes who never even understood what he was talking about. just like his life, as soon as he gained credibility in the afterlife it was taken away from him. This is a common theme in his stories, taking away. In the Castle, K's hope of ever getting in is taken away.

I found his diary to be very similar to the Book of Disquiet, even less autistic in some ways. Definitely good stuff.

I am becoming more and more convinced that reading a translation of any literature in translation is as good as having never read it at all. Now I am questioning the opinions of everyone who ever liked authors they don't share a language with, professional critics and friends alike. It makes me feel like this is all just a bunch of bullshit, and I'll only ever be able to truly know the literature of my own English plus like 2 other languages at best. Reading translations is a meme.

Of course you should get a very own opinion about Kafka himself, yet I have to say he is, at least for me, one of the best authors I've ever read and therefore was the author - beside Hermann Hesse - who moved me to read when I was younger. Fortunately I got myself the benefit to read both authors in their original language but I do think one could enjoy them as translated books anyway.

Kafka himself got a very absurd way to deal with the certain sujet, wherefore it may be hard - if not impossible - to determine the exact message, especially since the details contain a vivid language.

In your position I'd read one of his short stories and just let it have it's own effect to you but if you do not enjoy it overthink the different interpretations

What makes you so sure about it? Of course literature partially looses the style of language, yet , at least with a decent translation, it can be enjoyed as well I guess.

I've only read The Trial. It was an interesting plot with a couple interesting ideas in it concerning the law, but overall I failed to see the acclaim. I also wasn't impressed by Kafka's writing ability -- thought it was average.

Proces is my favourite book, its whole integration is something above mine imagination.

I can actually be made more worth with a good translation. Some books not as good in original came as gems in mine language(slovak). You just need to find a good translator, some, of course, destroy all the value a book can hold.

>I
It*

As far as I can read books in their origin language I, too, do it this way, to get more of the author's very own spirit, to get the natural spirit of the book like it's meant to be and is. Therefore I am not sure if I can agree with your point that it can be made more worth with a good translation. But maybe I'll have the opportunity to read such a gem (or is it even a gem when it's in need of a translation to become even better?) in two languages.

on a tangent: im 2/3 of the way through the trial right now and it's nice but god i wish this fucker would use some paragraphs

My point is if your are a good translator, you are able to preserve the good and add more yourself.
Of course the original is usually better, but I hate it when people seem to be disgusted by someone reading a translated book. I mean it always depends. Sometimes it can get much better. A famous example is Terry Pretechet's Discoworld tranlated to Czech, which is better in Czech. I read around several books in both languages. On the other hand, it is terrible in Slovak. I just want to say it happens.

wait, till the end, it gets better. But it took me about 2 months after to realize the thoughts hidden in the text. It complicated to understand and I would advice to read it more times and give yourself enough time and space to think it through properly.

Gave John Cheever's Brigadier collection of short stories to my quasi-lit boss. He's eating it up..
One can get lost in Kafka forever, user.

Good AND a meme.
Didn't expect that, did you?

I thought about reading Discworld a long while ago but I'm unsure about the language I'll read it in. Do you have any informations about the german translation of it?