h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Franz Kafka - A2285499
Author: Yuvi~ "Good mornin everyone! Look at me! I'm writing on the walls! Bad bad me" - U249631

I tried to get my facts straight, but I could use a little extra help.

I wonder what sort of upbringing he had to have turned out like this?

http://www.levity.com/corduroy/kafka.htm

http://www.kafka.org/

http://www.pitt.edu/~kafka/intro.html

Fascinating stuff.

The existentialists began with Kierkegaard a long time before Kafka. Which doesn't mean he wasn't one. Most dont have such bizarre visions as Kafka, although in the rest of the existentialist literature there is a tendency towrd the weird. Typically from any era they tend to be depressed and morose so Kafka fits well within that genre.

FYI: "A New Genre" refers to "Kafkaesque"

I fixed the sentence about the "beginnings" of existentialism.

Hi Yuvi,

top entry. Have to admit, though, that I've never read anything from Kafka, not my piece of cake...

Small nit: 'philsophy' at the end of the 'A Writer for Hard Times' section.

SchrEck Inc.

If you wished, you could link to A190018 (Prague, Czech Republic)... there's even a little mention of Kafka's house in it.

It might be worth mentioning if any movies or plays are based on his work.

There was a 'son et lumiere' performance based on Kafka's life and work at the Lygon Arts Festival (Melbourne, Australia) in 1990; it was planned to expand the show to a full orchestral work. As things stand, the music exists in amended form as an album called 'The Scribbler', by Shinjuku Thief. Very moody and brooding, with strategic use of discordant sounds. Very evocative and atmospheric; it makes a disturbing accompaniment when reading the novels. This may be a bit on the obscure side for the entry, but it could be a footnote.



Ivan.

Hi Yuvi,

Looks good. I knew very little about him. I did once see the "Hungerkunstler", but that's all.

Awu

Good one, Yuvi! I'm a big fan of Kafka's myself. You know, aside from the existentialism and all, Kafka used to morbidly fantasize about all the awful, grotesque ways he could die (I like to think of it as Tom Sawyer syndrome ) - he wrote a little passage once about how he could very well be walking down a road and then get snagged by a noose and dragged through the hedges into a house (I think through the window), and then through the ceilings and through the floors as bits of flesh were ripped off him, until he finally reached to top, a bloody rag, whereupon the noose would break and he'd crash all the way back down to the ground floor. Or something like that. Of course his morbid fascination for death manifest itself on a regular basis in his stories.

Oh yeah, btw Sea Change - 'The Trial' was made into a movie (1993) starring Kyle MacLachlan as Josef K. (he seemed to have been obsessed with the character Josef K/K... I think that's the only character I've found who's appeared in more than one story) 'Metamorphosis' was made into plays and - recently - adapted for graphic novel!

I generally like to put Kafka in the same category as Joseph Heller - although mind you, at least we all know where *Heller* stands!

Hey, Yuri, you might like to note that he did write the one (relatively) cheerful story - America. Just a suggestion .

Er... hang on. If memory serves, Gregor wasn't exactly confined to his bed, was he? I mean, he had to hide behind couches and stuff when his family brought food in...

Thanks for the nice post, Farlander!

I actually read that graphic novel last week. I was a little dissapointed, though, because the illustrations weren't very pretty. And yeah, I oughta change that little "in bed" factoid.

You know who else had a fascination with ways to die? Edgar Allen Poe. He wrote this weird story about a guy who woke up without a breathing and was killed several times until he was entombed alive.

Yeah, Poe was weird! (I have all his books) He's the reason why so many people are terrified of death and burials, really -- all that stuff in 'The Premature Burial' was really quite ghastly!

Anyway, keep it up, and I hope to see your article in the EG soon!

PS: The local actors' theatre recently staged 'The Metamorphosis'; due to space and technical constraints (how to have Gregory clambering over walls and the ceiling?!), the room became a large cage with bars so that the actor could actually climb the walls and hang from the ceiling. Pretty cool, I must say.

I saw that on TV! It was a little weird, though to see a grown man crawled up into a ball, rock around on his back, and talk like a bug.

I've also heard of a musical based on "The Machine", but that it wasn't very good. Which is a bummer, because It's my favorite Kafka story so far.

Hi Yuvi,

Are you still working on this? There seem to be a few changes that were suggested, but don't seem to have been commented on or anything done with...

I'm still here, but I haven't paid much thought on the entry. should I send it over to peer review?

It's in Peer Review... Do you mean one of the Writing Workshops?

Hey Yuvi,

you've already put your entry into Peer Review, and the good news is that you've got really positive comments about it. In my opinion, it should be no problem for your entry to go into the Edited Guide.

However, in your first posting you asked for some extra information. You've been given a few here; now you should try and incorporate these into your entry, as a matter of politeness. Of course it's up to you to which extent you use them. Once you've updated the entry and folks see that you responded to the comments, things will progress further.

SchrEck Inc.

Any news? How's this coming on?

Yuvi?
Ist vu dere?
Hallo!!!!