Kafkaesque

I used to describe my situation as “Kafkaesque”. I’m now reading Kafka’s The Trial and almost feel that I am reading about myself (“Hello, K., I am M.”). The predominant feeling, aside from evil, is absurdity.

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6 replies
  1. Peter
    Peter says:

    Wow! I can so relate…I’m involved as a defendant in litigation where I am wholly without any fault, and the whole situation is a bizarre mixture of wickedness and total absurdity….by the way, I used to see you at the colloquia in the Grad Center in the early 1990s when I was a philosophy grad student…now I live in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area.

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  2. Giulio Katis
    Giulio Katis says:

    My daughter had to pick a short story writer to study recently. I selfishly suggested Kafka, as I was keen to reread some of his stories. On rereading I was reminded of the critical line in fiction between the fantastical (grotesque or otherwise) and the Kafkaesque. The fantastical involves another world, or an intrusion of another world into ours. while the Kafkaesque reveals some of the absurd horrors that typically lie just under the fabric of our own (and sometimes burst through).

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