Trying out Kafka

I was in the mood of reading a classic novel, so I watched a couple of introductory videos about an author called Kafka, whom I know only by name.

The topic that comes out first about his works that he has a style of writing called

Kafkaesque, which is according to Google it means:

"characteristic or reminiscent of the oppressive or nightmarish qualities of Franz Kafka's fictional world"

 Oh, Lord!..

Oppressive?.. Nightmarish?

There is noway that I would read such works! I was traumatized since trying out George Orwell's 1984 while I was in Syria. It was way too triggering for my depressive tendencies!. The world of 1984 is a carbon copy of a country like Syria, with our Big Brother posters hanging everywhere.  

Therefore, I avoided reading Kafka for a while…

…but watching an essay about his life and work was quite intriguing for me.

One of the central ideas of Kafka's work that he describes our today's bureaucratic world as a prison for the modern human. And that could be possibly a reflection of his life. He used to work for a boring office job by an insurance company. And he tried to publish his works, but kept failing. So this guy seems to know what is he talking about!

Alright, let me give him a try.

So I picked up his most famous short novel.

"Metamorphism"

And I started reading it while preparing myself mentally. I already have a small idea to what it could be about. I know it is about a person turning into a bug. And it is about how people in his life, from family, boss, neighbors will react to this change.

Trigger warning! This novel is known to be a symbolic tale of going under due to mental breakdown and how people don't understand those who were "transformed" because of that.

So bracing yourselves!

***

I started reading the first few lines…

Then the first page, and the following page..hhh!

Wow ok! I am finding myself smiling more and more

and with each preceding sentence, I have this "inner laugh" inside of me.

It is not that this novel not tragic. But it is tragic AND comedic!

Sure, It does not make you lol!

But it lends you this inner smile, while in the same time you are reading a tragedy!

and it is not a big spoiler, but the first two pages are literary saying :

"ah ..I have become an insect

oh no.. I am so late to work!"

 
***

From my experience with Metamorphism

I could imagine Kafka amusing himself while he was writing. Just trying to describe the movements of a bug with a human mind is a funny game of words. And I am sure that Kafka as a person has some high sense of humor.

I was actually curious about that, so I looked on the internet, and I was happy to find that there is this comic artist who did a graphic novel on the humor side of Kafka:

from Kafkaesque: Fourteen Stories

by Peter Kuper

 

The greatness of Kafka is not because of his descriptions of the tragedy of the modern man.

Kafka greatness is because of his sense of humor in the face of this tragedy!