How Would You Explain Kafka to the Uninitiated? \ stacker news ~BooksAndArticles

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How Would You Explain Kafka to the Uninitiated?

1195 sats \ 16 comments \ @cascdr 23 Feb BooksAndArticles

Kafka randomly came up in conversation today with @ThrillerX_

How would you explain his work?
What are some films/movies. you'd consider inspired by him?

Personally I said movies like The Matrix or even Office Space are good examples but curious what other bookworms would say

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275 sats \ 0 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 23 Feb

I thought you meant Apache Kafka 🤦‍♂️

454 sats \ 2 replies \ @carlosfandango 23 Feb

Dark surrealist study of alienation and bureaucracy.

(Trying to explain it in as few words as possible)

You could try the film ‘Metamorphosis’ from 2012 (?) - you can’t get much more inspired by than that…

134 sats \ 1 reply \ @cascdr OP 23 Feb

would you consider Human Centipede of this ilk?

What about We by Yevgeniy Zamyatin, Brave New World or 1984? Or are those their own genre?

366 sats \ 0 replies \ @carlosfandango 23 Feb

Human Centipede’s character degradation and psychological torture make it pretty Kafka-esque. I haven’t thought about that film very deeply if I’m honest.

‘We’ ticks a few more Kafka boxes: absurd at times, surreal and looking at the dehumanising aspects of society. Also exploring the nature of reality and power balances that values conformity over individuality.

And that should fit quite well with both 1984 and Brave New World except they don’t fit the absurdist / surrealist mould to my mind. They fit the dystopian-totalitarian-warning from the future genre which is its own thing, while some of Kafkas work (and certainly We) would fit in there I think they probably deserve to be separate in the category I would call ‘mad Eastern Europe / Russian writers’

314 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 23 Feb

Office Space is a great example. Another that comes to mind for me is Catch 22 book/movie.

195 sats \ 0 replies \ @skreep_ 23 Feb

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55 sats \ 0 replies \ @plebpoet 23 Feb

Kafka explains how easily the mundane slips into the absurd, and how disorienting it is to lose your life slowly to it

164 sats \ 0 replies \ @co574 23 Feb

Paths are made by walking… — Franz Kafka

30 sats \ 0 replies \ @dgy 24 Feb

I guess The Matrix or Office Space do contain some hope or positive outlook.

In my opinion Kafka expresses absurdity and powerlessness.

What book by Kafka has a positive outlook?

Therefore I would choose some movies by David Cronenberg e.g. Spider, Lars von Trier or maybe David Lynch.

Another question would be: What is the weirdest book by Kafka? I would go with In the Penal Colony.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 23 Feb

It probably depends on which of Kafka's works you've read.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @hyperfree 24 Feb

idiocracy (just kidding)

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @johngribbin 23 Feb

Good place to start with Kafka?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @jbschirtzinger 23 Feb

Man wakes up, doesn't like world, experiences horror of world he doesn't like. Rinse, lather, repeat.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Taft 23 Feb

Kafka is like stepping into a surreal world where the ordinary turns extraordinary, and the extraordinary feels eerily normal.

Somehow like that! 🤷‍♂️

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @cascdr OP 23 Feb

@k00b said Pan's Labyrinth which at first didn't strike me as so but the nightmarishness and fascist overtones from the father figure in that movie prove me wrong based on the dictionary definition of "kafkaesque".

210 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 23 Feb

I'm terrible with this kind of thing but Pan's Lab is the first thing that comes to mind mostly in that I've heard the word used to describe something as bizarre, illogical, dark and complex.