Latest Gene Wolfe book you read (1-10 scale)

[Friendly Goatus]

so you're saying I'm either lying about the book or my massive rod?

fine you got me

fuck that book

[Zerohero]

read new Ministry /Al jourgenson autobiography...

here's my book report

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

this guy, he's all hopped up on dope, and does stuff, like suck a dick, and watch girl fuck big dawg (I mean a REAL canine big dog not hornie slang) in his record studio. He smells dogshit once, and turns out its Madonna, he think step in dog doo, but nope he think it's her cunt stinky. He goes places and does stuff and is a dope shooter. Then at the end he retires. OH yeah and he poops blood into a hat, and squishes a bag of shit into a girl. THe end. 10/10 fun read mens

[bland ed]

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

fucking owned

[father of lies]

read new Ministry /Al jourgenson autobiography...

here's my book report

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

this guy, he's all hopped up on dope, and does stuff, like suck a dick, and watch girl fuck big dawg (I mean a REAL canine big dog not hornie slang) in his record studio. He smells dogshit once, and turns out its Madonna, he think step in dog doo, but nope he think it's her cunt stinky. He goes places and does stuff and is a dope shooter. Then at the end he retires. OH yeah and he poops blood into a hat, and squishes a bag of shit into a girl. THe end. 10/10 fun read mens

God damn I love Al Jourgenson. Must read.

[father of lies]

Ramsey Dukes - Words Made Flesh - 8
About to finish Bruce Sterling - Holy Fire - 7.5

[caldwell.the.great]

The Castle - 8/10
posting here, going to read up on KRB and NecroRoss's discussion, then maybe most some thoughts. definitely a more trying read than The Trial

[caldwell.the.great]

aaaand I just found out that The Trial (Orson Welles) and The Castle (Haneke) are on Netflix, so I guess I know what I'm watching in the next couple of days.

[Necrometer]

that's awesome - I feel like Welles's adaptation will probably disappoint, but for reason some Haneke's adaptation (which I didn't know about until now!?!?!) seems like it could deliver

The Castle - 8/10
posting here, going to read up on KRB and NecroRoss's discussion, then maybe most some thoughts. definitely a more trying read than The Trial

disregard my old 5/10 rating, I was just mad. it's a really amazing book. I think KRB's explanation for it is pitch perfect and it haunts me as I consider the story in retrospect and consider my own actual life. one thing I don't agree with (this might have been PM not post) was his suggestion that the castle itself represents divinity or enlightenment or something like that; I don't find this reasonable since none of the people with access to the castle seem particularly special or wise

[caldwell.the.great]

here's the review I typed up on Good Reads:

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

A much tougher read than "The Trial," mostly because it feels even more incomplete. The novel, in this edition, ends mid-sentence, after a very significant conversation with the main character. You're left to guess what it all means and how it might have ended simultaneously, plus there's a lingering sense that whatever might have come next, it was going to be important. Of course, Kafka gives you that feeling from the first page to the last without ever granting satisfaction. The novel never progresses really, it just moves sideways, through a series of different obstacles. Conversations are interpreted and re-interpreted, sometimes frustratingly so. Just as a clear picture of the story begins to solidify, Kafka changes perspectives and completely rearranges the meaning of everything that's happened up to that point. It can be exhausting, but it's fun too. Like hiking a long trail and always finding there's a new vista just over the next pass - you never arrive anywhere.

Some of the same themes from The Trial are here: the alienating powers of large bureaucracies, their inefficiencies, the way they transform all relationships into business or political relationships; how sinister they seem from both outside and inside. The humor is still around too, but it's darker, obscured by the feeling that somewhere in the village or the castle there's an antagonist moving all of his pieces against K., the apparent hero. There's even a glaringly romantic passage or two, which I think are significant because they help to ground the story a little, and give it a personal/emotional level that "The Trial" didn't achieve.

The clearest theme, though, is interpretation. It's summed up in a scene where K. and Olga are discussing letters Barnabas had delivered to K. Olga is trying to explain how delicately she must handle the letters and their contents. Attach too much importance to them and that importance begins to look suspect (K.'s dilemma is considered fairly trivial in the village), attach too little importance to their words and their delivery begins to look foolish (why waste the effort on such insignificant matters?). Olga continues, "And staying in the middle between the exaggerations, that is, weighing the letters correctly is impossible, their value keeps changing, the thoughts that they prompt are endless and the point at which one happens to stop is determined only by accident and so the opinion one arrives at is just as accidental."

That sort of sums up the way the novel progresses. We're given access to different points of view, none of which necessarily contradict each other, but all of which completely disagree with each other in detail and in spirit. The Castle of the story, so far as I can tell, represents any possibility of meaning in life, and K. is constantly denied access to it, no matter how he works and contrives. I know that's a jump from what I've stated so far, but if you read the novel I think it will make sense. K. continually struggles to make something of his surveyor's ability but is constantly rebuked and rejected, because official channels are so choked with rules and regulations that any kind of progress is made impossible. Life becomes work without success, networking without reason, intrigues with no bottom.

I could go into lots more detail, but I think it's best to just get lost in the book. There are several frustrating passages where characters ramble on about apparently unimportant matters, but struggle through them. I think the idea was to make the reader feel defeated by that nonsense, as I imagine Kafka often felt. But it also helps to identify the nonsense: following rules for the sake of rules, ignoring our compassionate intelligence because we don't want to cross any lines, making our every interaction into a mechanical interaction, etc. It's a scary book in a lot of ways and all the more frightening because it feels descriptive, not exaggerated.

[caldwell.the.great]

I read an article somewhere last night that suggested a lot of the interactions in the village, and especially the way that Barnabas and Olga's family are treated, reflect the strong anti-semitism in the Czech Republic at that time. Given the way Kafka focuses on the law, and that he likes to slide in these apparently religious images, I think there's probably a lot to be gained from thinking about his heritage and the way Jews were expected to assimilate into cultures totally foreign to them. I'll see if I can't find the essay later, I've got to run out the door right now.

But definitely an awesome read. Repeats may boost the score, but I had a rough time with some of the discussions with the officials. That it was incomplete is obvious for more reasons than the way it ends.

[Necrometer]

that interpretation is interesting but doesn't seem all that compelling to me... I feel like some of these interpretations (e.g. "Nietzsche was a feminist") result from a dearth of novel, valid subjects for people's PhD dissertations


but I visited Germany recently and I better understand how being an outsider there might be somehow more difficult around there than it is in other places. there's a stringency to their unwritten social rules that was really alienating. I could see how this could be amplified for a semi-native outsider Jew such as Kafka.

here's the review I typed up on Good Reads:

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

A much tougher read than "The Trial," mostly because it feels even more incomplete. The novel, in this edition, ends mid-sentence, after a very significant conversation with the main character. You're left to guess what it all means and how it might have ended simultaneously, plus there's a lingering sense that whatever might have come next, it was going to be important. Of course, Kafka gives you that feeling from the first page to the last without ever granting satisfaction. The novel never progresses really, it just moves sideways, through a series of different obstacles. Conversations are interpreted and re-interpreted, sometimes frustratingly so. Just as a clear picture of the story begins to solidify, Kafka changes perspectives and completely rearranges the meaning of everything that's happened up to that point. It can be exhausting, but it's fun too. Like hiking a long trail and always finding there's a new vista just over the next pass - you never arrive anywhere.

Some of the same themes from The Trial are here: the alienating powers of large bureaucracies, their inefficiencies, the way they transform all relationships into business or political relationships; how sinister they seem from both outside and inside. The humor is still around too, but it's darker, obscured by the feeling that somewhere in the village or the castle there's an antagonist moving all of his pieces against K., the apparent hero. There's even a glaringly romantic passage or two, which I think are significant because they help to ground the story a little, and give it a personal/emotional level that "The Trial" didn't achieve.

The clearest theme, though, is interpretation. It's summed up in a scene where K. and Olga are discussing letters Barnabas had delivered to K. Olga is trying to explain how delicately she must handle the letters and their contents. Attach too much importance to them and that importance begins to look suspect (K.'s dilemma is considered fairly trivial in the village), attach too little importance to their words and their delivery begins to look foolish (why waste the effort on such insignificant matters?). Olga continues, "And staying in the middle between the exaggerations, that is, weighing the letters correctly is impossible, their value keeps changing, the thoughts that they prompt are endless and the point at which one happens to stop is determined only by accident and so the opinion one arrives at is just as accidental."

That sort of sums up the way the novel progresses. We're given access to different points of view, none of which necessarily contradict each other, but all of which completely disagree with each other in detail and in spirit. The Castle of the story, so far as I can tell, represents any possibility of meaning in life, and K. is constantly denied access to it, no matter how he works and contrives. I know that's a jump from what I've stated so far, but if you read the novel I think it will make sense. K. continually struggles to make something of his surveyor's ability but is constantly rebuked and rejected, because official channels are so choked with rules and regulations that any kind of progress is made impossible. Life becomes work without success, networking without reason, intrigues with no bottom.

I could go into lots more detail, but I think it's best to just get lost in the book. There are several frustrating passages where characters ramble on about apparently unimportant matters, but struggle through them. I think the idea was to make the reader feel defeated by that nonsense, as I imagine Kafka often felt. But it also helps to identify the nonsense: following rules for the sake of rules, ignoring our compassionate intelligence because we don't want to cross any lines, making our every interaction into a mechanical interaction, etc. It's a scary book in a lot of ways and all the more frightening because it feels descriptive, not exaggerated.

excellent

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

that penultimate paragraph feels absolutely true to me, and is what KRB put forth. I had been extremely frustrated with the book until he pointed that out, and then it "clicked" and the whole book seemed to congeal into something special. just curious, did you reach that point mid-book, post-book, or did you have it somehow "spoiled" ahead of reading? some of your mid-book comments mirrored my own agitated feelings (which endured 'til the "end" of the story). and yeah, thinking about the way one's life ends and the way the story ends... it's harrowing in the bleak truth it holds. there's no narrative closure for most people (warriors and United 93ers certainly have some shot at that heroic closure we expect from the best true and invented stories); rather the common person will find that their story simply ends. and we don't have to examine things in terms of this biggest picture; how many of one's days/months/weeks/years end with any concomitant noteworthy circumstance? [ultra tangent: I guess we craft cultural punctuation for these events; prayer prayer closes the day, the weekend typically brings some jubilation, (is a monthly paycheck too depressing to note!?), and the USA-style New Year celebration is, to me, a glaring example of an extravagant & overblown, yet completely hollow ritual] if any book can end naturally mid-sentence, this one can!

I have actually considered my life much differently after reading the book. so many times during the story would I wonder in frustration: "why not just extricate yourself from these tedious interactions, K?" And now I find myself instead directing the same question at myself.

"And staying in the middle between the exaggerations, that is, weighing the letters correctly is impossible, their value keeps changing, the thoughts that they prompt are endless and the point at which one happens to stop is determined only by accident and so the opinion one arrives at is just as accidental."

Also sort of a tangent... I think The Castle sort of gets at the same question Tarkovsky's Stalker does - why do we want what we want, and where does that come from? How fluid is that driving desire? The way it's handled in the two works differs, but in both it seems that the main characters are tormented by their extensive ignorance regarding the issue's existence. For example, if K could only realize that his torment was self-inflicted by his apparently nonsensical desire to access the castle, his life would actually be much better in a lot of ways. I know this might be in conflict with your seemingly true statement that The Castle "represents any possibility of meaning in life", but maybe we can reconcile this by accepting Kafka for the ultimate absurdist, delivering his moral: heeding your desire for meaning in life is futile and will only yield confusion and disappointment"... dismal, but I think it fits the tale.

I quoted the above passage since it reminds me of some lyrics from a song released since I read The Castle. It's a concept album based loosely on Stalker. "They" = desires:

I wanted to shape and change them
But it's they who've changed me.
I wanted to get on top of them
But they wouldn't let me.

They're as elusive as air:
As soon as we name them they are gone.
Their meaning disappears.
Melts like an icicle in the sun.

I wanted to shape and change them
But it's they who've changed me.
I wanted to get inside of them
But they wouldn't let me in.

How much control do we have over what we wish for?
How many decisions we take are rational?
How much is intentional?

[caldwell.the.great]

that interpretation is interesting but doesn't seem all that compelling to me... I feel like some of these interpretations (e.g. "Nietzsche was a feminist") result from a dearth of novel, valid subjects for people's PhD dissertations

I guess I'm interested in this purely because I'd like to know how Kafka came up with his approach - why did he choose this style? Or did it choose him? It's just another layer on the castle cake, not an ultimate source of authority, but it fits so nicely that I imagine it must be a somewhat accurate indicator of the forces behind his development as an author.

that penultimate paragraph feels absolutely true to me, and is what KRB put forth. I had been extremely frustrated with the book until he pointed that out, and then it "clicked" and the whole book seemed to congeal into something special. just curious, did you reach that point mid-book, post-book, or did you have it somehow "spoiled" ahead of reading?

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

I take notes on books sometimes and when I'm totally confused, I'll start spit-balling possibilities. At some point I started to wonder why the book was titled "The Castle" and not "The Village" or "Beneath the Castle" or something like that. And after a few tries, I came up with that explanation. Obviously the castle is important, but what is it? What is K. really looking for? The only other interpretation I could come up with (that made sense) had to do with God and salvation, but it's a bit harder to square that kind of reading with the rest of the book. Not impossible, but I'm not sure I have the knowledge and resources to construct it. I've not read Kafka's diaries, don't know much about his religious feelings, and have zero idea what it must be like to be culturally Jewish, estranged from your father in some significant way, and forced to live in a different culture that is hostile to your identity. That stuff is all really important, and had to be on his mind when he went to his notebooks, even if only subconsciously. I have a feeling that my reading would be way too Christian to be accurate. I guess that wouldn't make it any less substantial, but then I'd just be riffing on Kafka and not really getting at the meat of his authorship. That's another reason that his Jewish background seems important to me. I can read the book out of context and get a lot from it, but I'm always tempted to think about it in terms of Kafka's surroundings.

prayer prayer closes the day, the weekend typically brings some jubilation, (is a monthly paycheck too depressing to note!?), and the USA-style New Year celebration is, to me, a glaring example of an extravagant & overblown, yet completely hollow ritual] if any book can end naturally mid-sentence, this one can!

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

That's a really good point - at some point K. speculates that he might have been happier just sticking to Freida and not continuing his quest for a conversation with Klamm -- or maybe someone suggests that to him. But he's not happy just having a work-a-day life. He wants a higher, more significant meaning in his life, and that's what The Castle represents. Maybe that's what writing was to Kafka, compared to his work a lawyer. And it's really interesting to me that the meaning can't be found in the village, or at least he doesn't think so. His whole life depends on that Castle, which is beyond his ability to reach. It's as if K. knows he has more to offer, and there's nothing out there to substantiate his claim. There's no authority that judges him ultimately, just a bunch of lesser authorities that dictate his usefulness to the group.

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

Also sort of a tangent... I think The Castle sort of gets at the same question Tarkovsky's Stalker does - why do we want what we want, and where does that come from? How fluid is that driving desire? The way it's handled in the two works differs, but in both it seems that the main characters are tormented by their extensive ignorance regarding the issue's existence. For example, if K could only realize that his torment was self-inflicted by his apparently nonsensical desire to access the castle, his life would actually be much better in a lot of ways. I know this might be in conflict with your seemingly true statement that The Castle "represents any possibility of meaning in life", but maybe we can reconcile this by accepting Kafka for the ultimate absurdist, delivering his moral: heeding your desire for meaning in life is futile and will only yield confusion and disappointment"... dismal, but I think it fits the tale.

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

Definitely dismal, but I think what you're saying actually supports that reading.

If K. thought he could be happy living an everyman's life, do you think he would be looking for the castle, and not giving it to Freida every night and working as a janitor instead? It seems some people in the village have resigned themselves to that life, and they're just living mechanically. The inn keepers for example, the tanner, the coachman, Pepi and Freida. Olga's family still thinks there's some possibility of redemption for them though, but everyone hates them for it. Why? Because if you need redemption, that also means you're guilty of something - and nobody in the village wants to believe such a thing - if Olga and her family rejected the castle messengers and are guilty for such a rejection, then how much more guilty must everyone else be? They never even got a messenger at their door! The Castle exists for them, but it's almost secondary to their life in the village. Secretaries and authorities come and go, but they have nothing to do with it other than that they live in the shadow of the castle. Again, this is a pretty Christian reading of the whole thing (I think), but I wonder if it doesn't hold some water.

My impression is that K is a surveyor because he knows the measure of things. He believes in, or wants, something higher than menial labor - more than a paycheck and a celebratory drink at New Years. I don't know if Kafka is an absurdist or not because of that. He wants more because, on the one hand, he seems to believe there is more. A meeting with Klamm is always possible. Things might turn out just right for him if he keeps plugging away at it. Getting what he wants is always just a matter of playing by the rules, trusting in your connections, etc.

So he thinks he can get it all through the village, through authorities, through a common life, through associations. On the other hand, he fails at every turn, is constantly held back by laws and rules that seem to block any positive movement. Whether his belief is absurd depends entirely on whether or not you think the castle is an illusion or not, or whether or not you think there might be another way to the Castle. Is there something higher? Is K. a fool for not just settling down when he gets the chance? Are we always doomed to frustration on Earth, and if so does that mean there's nothing else? Kafka totally leaves it open. All you see is K. failing at every turn. It's pretty brilliant the way he makes you get involved in the story like that.

Got your PM about the song - will definitely check it out. And I still need to watch Stalker. This just makes me want to do it more. Hopefully this week.

[caldwell.the.great]

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

there's also a possibility that the castle IS just an illusion, or that it's authority is an illusion. the whole complex is so complicated that it's a miracle anything ever happens. easy to read that as a joke about the metaphysics of salvation, a cosmic creator, order in the universe, etc.

[Necrometer]

yes! great stuff all around and I don't think your "Christian" POV is skewing things away from what I can relate to too much - perhaps just the part about salvation. replace that with "enlightenment" and we're back on reasonably common spiritual ground (-BNR or &R !)

might not have a chance to write back anything substantial for a few days but I hope to

and yes, definitely watch Stalker; I think it has some stuff in common with The Castle and it could be a great time to check that movie out considering your recent head space. one of my all-time favorites, recommended by the ever wise Molester Stallone

[MANTIS]

Curing the Postmodern Blues - 6/10

TSOG: The Thing That The Constitution - 7/10

[MANTIS]

Infinite Jest - 9/10

My only real complaints are that Wallace seems to try writing in different voices to a degree but still constantly uses syntax across characters that's clearly just Wallace (although he eventually begins to comment on this himself in the footnotes, so I'm not sure it's really a flaw, just odd.) Like he couldn't decide whether to write from an omnipresent narrator's POV or individual character's POV so it's a mix of both. I don't know if this has significance to the story or not. Hal's sudden use of the first person toward the very end of the book hints to me that there is some significance. Also, I know the whole MO of the storytelling style was to sort of hint and dance around plot points rather than just come out and hit you with them, which was usually really well done, but I'm not sure the story was improved by the ambiguous ending.

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

By rereading the first chapter, I could see that Gately does indeed help Hal dig up Himself's head (another Hamlet reference?) and I assume the AFR got their copy of The Entertainment (though I don't know if it was from Hal & Gately, or Orin, though I suspect Orin) since I believe it was stated somewhere in the book that The Year of Glad was the last subsidized year, and in the first chapter there is a conspicuous line about fighter jets flying overhead (ONAN/AFR war?) I assume that Hal is hospitalized after the end of the book and that's where he meets Gately and how he avoids the AFR assault(?) on ETA. It would have been nice to know how that went down. Obviously the AFR didn't just kill everyone because there are still ETA characters remaining in the first chapter. Maybe they didn't have to storm ETA because Orin gave them the location of The Entertainment first? Don't know what happened to John Wayne (being an AFR agent and all) He was supposedly present when Gately and Hal dug up Himself's head. Did he defect and the AFR killed him? Did he stay with the AFR until the end and that's how they got the Entertainment? I doubt it because of Gately's dream toward the end with Hal mouthing "TOO LATE!" I guess since Joelle was intercepted by Steeply in the end, they were the ones that mobilized Hal and Gately. I didn't really catch on at first that Orin was the one with the Master copy (and sending out copies to harsh critics of Himself's film works, and Muslim doctors that the Moms had boinked) but it makes sense that he would be the one to turn over The Entertainment to the AFR if he had the master, and since he was so obviously horrified and ready to spill his guts in his last scene. The bit with Himself's ghost putting Pemulis's ceiling-stashed DMZ on Hal's toothbrush and that event's relation to the mold he ate as a child... well that flew completely over my head. Was there still mold in Hal's digestive system that reacted to the DMZ? Or was the eating-of-the-mold story just reiterated several times to hint at the later DMZ catalyst? Did the wraith do this by possessing Ortho Stice? Why would Himself/wraith put DMZ in Hal's system anyway? I get that through the majority of the story Hal is an outwardly well-spoken and intelligent kid with no interior emotional life whatsoever, and by the end of the story, he has developed an interior world of feelings though no longer able to express himself verbally. Was this intentional on the part of Himself? How did he know about the DMZ or that Hal would react that way? Was it just sort of a last resort to save his son's emotional life? Why did Himself try to reach Hal through Stice and Gately instead of directly? Was Hal's lack of emotion stopping him from perceiving the wraith? Was it even Himself who put the DMZ on Hal's toothbrush? This whole aspect of the plot confuses the shit out of me and that's a problem because the whole end of the story (beginning of the book) hinges on this change in Hal.

It was odd that DFW paid off so many tiny character moments (Joelle's disfigurement, the man in the hat in the hospital, Avril & Stice etc.) just to leave major plot points unresolved. Ultimately though, the book's biggest strengths in my opinion, were the characters and their depth, and the writing style itself, not the "plot." So the non-ending wasn't a dealbreaker. Plus, I was warned in advance. I think this is the most patience-demanding book I've ever finished as well. I couldn't even decide whether or not I liked it until around page 500 or so.

Despite these factors, and the fact that it seems as though David Foster Wallace has never actually met a black person in real life, the book lived up to the hype and is one of the most excellently written things I've ever read.

[featherboa]

What I'd Say to the Martians
And Other Veiled Threats
Jack Handey

(9)

Here are the first 3 sentences:

How Things Even Out

Things tend to even out. Religion, some people say, has caused wars and fighting. Yes, but it's also boring to sit through a church service, so it evens out.

[Necrometer]

More to Luke re: The Castle...

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

I take notes on books sometimes and when I'm totally confused, I'll start spit-balling possibilities. At some point I started to wonder why the book was titled "The Castle" and not "The Village" or "Beneath the Castle" or something like that. And after a few tries, I came up with that explanation. Obviously the castle is important, but what is it? What is K. really looking for? The only other interpretation I could come up with (that made sense) had to do with God and salvation, but it's a bit harder to square that kind of reading with the rest of the book. Not impossible, but I'm not sure I have the knowledge and resources to construct it. I've not read Kafka's diaries, don't know much about his religious feelings, and have zero idea what it must be like to be culturally Jewish, estranged from your father in some significant way, and forced to live in a different culture that is hostile to your identity. That stuff is all really important, and had to be on his mind when he went to his notebooks, even if only subconsciously. I have a feeling that my reading would be way too Christian to be accurate. I guess that wouldn't make it any less substantial, but then I'd just be riffing on Kafka and not really getting at the meat of his authorship. That's another reason that his Jewish background seems important to me. I can read the book out of context and get a lot from it, but I'm always tempted to think about it in terms of Kafka's surroundings.

This is good. Especially regarding the last few sentences... I think modernity is all the context you need to "get" Kafka. Maybe that's oversimplifying it. But I feel like this post-survival mode of existence where we (individuals and/or societies) are free to dictate our own values & ideas inspires this dreadful world Kafka's characters inhabit, where the individual is yearning for some values while society is shoving seemingly arbitrary ones down his throat. I don't think one has to be a fish out of water to feel this (which is why his work is widely appreciated), but maybe one must be in that state to feel it acutely enough to write about it so effectively.

That's a really good point - at some point K. speculates that he might have been happier just sticking to Freida and not continuing his quest for a conversation with Klamm -- or maybe someone suggests that to him. But he's not happy just having a work-a-day life. He wants a higher, more significant meaning in his life, and that's what The Castle represents. Maybe that's what writing was to Kafka, compared to his work a lawyer. And it's really interesting to me that the meaning can't be found in the village, or at least he doesn't think so. His whole life depends on that Castle, which is beyond his ability to reach. It's as if K. knows he has more to offer, and there's nothing out there to substantiate his claim. There's no authority that judges him ultimately, just a bunch of lesser authorities that dictate his usefulness to the group.

Yes - definitely. Kafka talked about how writing was his calling and he was frustrated to have spent so much of his life 9to5ing. Re: the latter part, I think this is the true beauty of The Castle: revealing how much meaning people can pile into things that are unattainable, impractical, or otherwise illogical. A utilitarian person could tell this story and ridicule K. for his folly, but I think Kafka's sympathies are with K. to a greater extent than was true of Josef K. in The Trial (who was dealing with externally-imposed strictures, in contrast to the internally-imposed ones of The Castle - an observation written here first by KRB).

If K. thought he could be happy living an everyman's life, do you think he would be looking for the castle, and not giving it to Freida every night and working as a janitor instead? It seems some people in the village have resigned themselves to that life, and they're just living mechanically. The inn keepers for example, the tanner, the coachman, Pepi and Freida. Olga's family still thinks there's some possibility of redemption for them though, but everyone hates them for it. Why? Because if you need redemption, that also means you're guilty of something - and nobody in the village wants to believe such a thing - if Olga and her family rejected the castle messengers and are guilty for such a rejection, then how much more guilty must everyone else be? They never even got a messenger at their door! The Castle exists for them, but it's almost secondary to their life in the village. Secretaries and authorities come and go, but they have nothing to do with it other than that they live in the shadow of the castle. Again, this is a pretty Christian reading of the whole thing (I think), but I wonder if it doesn't hold some water.

This is pretty interesting, and maybe valid. One thing that never sat well with me was others' relationship with The Castle. Like I think I said above: those people who *do* have access to The Castle don't seem particularly enlightened - why? Maybe your interpretation speaks to that. But what does K. have to be forgiven for? Are we in original sin land where he didn't do anything bad, but rather he's come to terms with his need for redemption?

So he thinks he can get it all through the village, through authorities, through a common life, through associations. On the other hand, he fails at every turn, is constantly held back by laws and rules that seem to block any positive movement. Whether his belief is absurd depends entirely on whether or not you think the castle is an illusion or not, or whether or not you think there might be another way to the Castle. Is there something higher? Is K. a fool for not just settling down when he gets the chance? Are we always doomed to frustration on Earth, and if so does that mean there's nothing else? Kafka totally leaves it open. All you see is K. failing at every turn. It's pretty brilliant the way he makes you get involved in the story like that.

I like this - the disconnect between K.'s desire for something transcendent/transformative and his attempts to reach it via mundane means.

So much of this re-re-re-confirms that you have to watch Stalker. So many themes popping up in both, and they're both works that can apparently accommodate (and benefit from?) religious and anti-religious interpretations.

Oh, and I watched a few minutes of Haneke's adaptation. It looked promising, and I'm looking forward to finishing it.

[altars of radness]

Pynchon - Bleeding Edge
2/10

I imagine a handful of you are going to be reading this, so I won't bother going into too much detail and spoiler-ing all the things I hated about this boring, ten-years-too-late waste. It's the first Pynchon book I've come across that I'd describe as vapid; the plot, the characters, the themes -- there's nothing here. There are multiple shopping scenes -- including a scene where a man has trouble putting together a desk from Ikea -- mountains of clunky, painfully unfunny dialogue and forays into virtual reality/pc gaming that are stunning only in how simplified and lifeless they are. There's some of the old Pynchon paranoia and a bunch of technical jargon, but none of the writing.

I honestly don't see how anyone who's a fan of something like V or GR would enjoy it. Read some Robert Coover instead.

[Necrometer]

I guess that first page really did say it all

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

[caldwell.the.great]

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

This is good. Especially regarding the last few sentences... I think modernity is all the context you need to "get" Kafka. Maybe that's oversimplifying it. But I feel like this post-survival mode of existence where we (individuals and/or societies) are free to dictate our own values & ideas inspires this dreadful world Kafka's characters inhabit, where the individual is yearning for some values while society is shoving seemingly arbitrary ones down his throat.

100% with this. I'd only add that I get the feeling Kafka was suspicious of new values replacing old ones? I get the feeling the castle is supposed to function as the head of a society, but now that it's displaced, everything seems completely out of whack. Not only is there no center to the book, but people start losing any center in their lives. There's nothing but competing claims, none of which have any authority.

I think this is the true beauty of The Castle: revealing how much meaning people can pile into things that are unattainable, impractical, or otherwise illogical. A utilitarian person could tell this story and ridicule K. for his folly, but I think Kafka's sympathies are with K. to a greater extent than was true of Josef K. in The Trial (who was dealing with externally-imposed strictures, in contrast to the internally-imposed ones of The Castle - an observation written here first by KRB).

Apparently early versions of the first couple of chapters substituted every instance of "K." with "I." By the end, it's not even clear who K. is or what he's doing in the village -- his motives and his history all seem to shift the way perspectives do in the novel. I definitely think Kafka is sympathetic, and I think he'd laugh at utilitarians for laughing at him. He doesn't want to play the utility game at all, he wants a way out of it. But without any authority to help him, he's left to struggle with all the competing demands of the villagers, the minor authorities, his own confused desires, etc.

This is pretty interesting, and maybe valid. One thing that never sat well with me was others' relationship with The Castle. Like I think I said above: those people who *do* have access to The Castle don't seem particularly enlightened - why? Maybe your interpretation speaks to that. But what does K. have to be forgiven for? Are we in original sin land where he didn't do anything bad, but rather he's come to terms with his need for redemption?

I wonder if the Castle is even really there. People talk about deeper offices and unseen rooms. We hear that the officials just read from books and constantly move to and from the village. But we never see a king, or a higher authority anywhere. There's no overall picture. Just the idea that the castle exists. There's that early scene where K. compares the church tower of his home to the one on the castle grounds, and he says that the one near the castle is half run down, covered in ivy, broken up near the peak, etc. It's like all the servants are at work, but the master is gone and not coming back, so nothing actually gets fixed. The place starts to fall apart... nobody that gets inside is enlightened because there's nothing connecting all the parts; everybody is working as if on automatic pilot, but it's not clear why. I feel like I'm rambling now, but it makes sense in my head.

And original sin is the first thing that comes to mind, which is why I hesitate to use the word redemption. I don't know that it helps to go down that road. I read this essay a week or so ago and I think it goes some interesting places with the concept of "meaning" and shifting narratives. His interpretation of Amalia's situation is especially cool: http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap150 ... oldman.htm

Looking for "meaning" feels a lot more firm in the context of the book than looking for "redemption."

I like this - the disconnect between K.'s desire for something transcendent/transformative and his attempts to reach it via mundane means.

This is what I'm left with. He looks for meaning in the wrong place, and you're left to wonder if he can get it back. My feeling is that Kafka thought he couldn't, at least not in the modern world. It's left up in the air whether anything meaningful can survive it.

[featherboa]

Franzen - How to be Alone (essays)
whatever

> The American writer today faces a totalitarianism analogous to the one with which two generations of Eastern Bloc writers had to contend. To ignore it is to court nostalgia. To engage with it, however, is to risk writing fiction that makes the same point over and over: technological consumerism is an infernal machine, technological consumerism is an infernal machine…

but then he avoids it mostly or goes about everything so round about

these essays are from a long time ago and talk about specific things that have changed a bunch since he wrote

[Necrometer]

more re: The Castle

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

This is good. Especially regarding the last few sentences... I think modernity is all the context you need to "get" Kafka. Maybe that's oversimplifying it. But I feel like this post-survival mode of existence where we (individuals and/or societies) are free to dictate our own values & ideas inspires this dreadful world Kafka's characters inhabit, where the individual is yearning for some values while society is shoving seemingly arbitrary ones down his throat.

100% with this. I'd only add that I get the feeling Kafka was suspicious of new values replacing old ones? I get the feeling the castle is supposed to function as the head of a society, but now that it's displaced, everything seems completely out of whack. Not only is there no center to the book, but people start losing any center in their lives. There's nothing but competing claims, none of which have any authority.

I think this is the true beauty of The Castle: revealing how much meaning people can pile into things that are unattainable, impractical, or otherwise illogical. A utilitarian person could tell this story and ridicule K. for his folly, but I think Kafka's sympathies are with K. to a greater extent than was true of Josef K. in The Trial (who was dealing with externally-imposed strictures, in contrast to the internally-imposed ones of The Castle - an observation written here first by KRB).

Apparently early versions of the first couple of chapters substituted every instance of "K." with "I." By the end, it's not even clear who K. is or what he's doing in the village -- his motives and his history all seem to shift the way perspectives do in the novel. I definitely think Kafka is sympathetic, and I think he'd laugh at utilitarians for laughing at him. He doesn't want to play the utility game at all, he wants a way out of it. But without any authority to help him, he's left to struggle with all the competing demands of the villagers, the minor authorities, his own confused desires, etc.

This is pretty interesting, and maybe valid. One thing that never sat well with me was others' relationship with The Castle. Like I think I said above: those people who *do* have access to The Castle don't seem particularly enlightened - why? Maybe your interpretation speaks to that. But what does K. have to be forgiven for? Are we in original sin land where he didn't do anything bad, but rather he's come to terms with his need for redemption?

I wonder if the Castle is even really there. People talk about deeper offices and unseen rooms. We hear that the officials just read from books and constantly move to and from the village. But we never see a king, or a higher authority anywhere. There's no overall picture. Just the idea that the castle exists. There's that early scene where K. compares the church tower of his home to the one on the castle grounds, and he says that the one near the castle is half run down, covered in ivy, broken up near the peak, etc. It's like all the servants are at work, but the master is gone and not coming back, so nothing actually gets fixed. The place starts to fall apart... nobody that gets inside is enlightened because there's nothing connecting all the parts; everybody is working as if on automatic pilot, but it's not clear why. I feel like I'm rambling now, but it makes sense in my head.

And original sin is the first thing that comes to mind, which is why I hesitate to use the word redemption. I don't know that it helps to go down that road. I read this essay a week or so ago and I think it goes some interesting places with the concept of "meaning" and shifting narratives. His interpretation of Amalia's situation is especially cool: http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap150 ... oldman.htm

Looking for "meaning" feels a lot more firm in the context of the book than looking for "redemption."

I like this - the disconnect between K.'s desire for something transcendent/transformative and his attempts to reach it via mundane means.

This is what I'm left with. He looks for meaning in the wrong place, and you're left to wonder if he can get it back. My feeling is that Kafka thought he couldn't, at least not in the modern world. It's left up in the air whether anything meaningful can survive it.

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

I'd only add that I get the feeling Kafka was suspicious of new values replacing old ones? I get the feeling the castle is supposed to function as the head of a society, but now that it's displaced, everything seems completely out of whack. Not only is there no center to the book, but people start losing any center in their lives. There's nothing but competing claims, none of which have any authority.

I tend to be VERY hesitant to get on board with suspicion about evolution of values, but your thing about his "suspicion" can't really be ruled out. I like the rest of what you said, though.

Apparently early versions of the first couple of chapters substituted every instance of "K." with "I." By the end, it's not even clear who K. is or what he's doing in the village -- his motives and his history all seem to shift the way perspectives do in the novel. I definitely think Kafka is sympathetic, and I think he'd laugh at utilitarians for laughing at him. He doesn't want to play the utility game at all, he wants a way out of it. But without any authority to help him, he's left to struggle with all the competing demands of the villagers, the minor authorities, his own confused desires, etc.

The K/I thing is wild! to all

I wonder if the Castle is even really there. People talk about deeper offices and unseen rooms. We hear that the officials just read from books and constantly move to and from the village. But we never see a king, or a higher authority anywhere. There's no overall picture. Just the idea that the castle exists. There's that early scene where K. compares the church tower of his home to the one on the castle grounds, and he says that the one near the castle is half run down, covered in ivy, broken up near the peak, etc. It's like all the servants are at work, but the master is gone and not coming back, so nothing actually gets fixed. The place starts to fall apart... nobody that gets inside is enlightened because there's nothing connecting all the parts; everybody is working as if on automatic pilot, but it's not clear why. I feel like I'm rambling now, but it makes sense in my head.

Yeah, it's really hard (and maybe pointless/futile) to try and discuss every detail of this story. I think the first sentences of yours here are resonant. The Castle probably does not exist, so those who claim to have been there are just full of shit, which is why they are no better off than anyone else - except maybe perceived as better off... which has its own self-fulfilling social power. [Secretly hoping that KRB gets offended at this claim and materializes to makea rebuttal...]

This is what I'm left with. He looks for meaning in the wrong place, and you're left to wonder if he can get it back. My feeling is that Kafka thought he couldn't, at least not in the modern world. It's left up in the air whether anything meaningful can survive it.

Yes!

[MANTIS]

Almost through the second Dark Tower book... I hope this gets better...

[featherboa]

I think that's the one a lot of people don't like