*"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.”* - Franz Kafka Become a Patron (exclusive content): www.patreon.com/eternalised UA-cam Member (exclusive content): ua-cam.com/channels/qos1tl0RntucGGtPXNxkkA.htmljoin Official Merch: eternalised.creator-spring.com Donate a Coffee: ko-fi.com/eternalised Transcript and artwork gallery: eternalisedofficial.com/2022/08/26/kafkaesque-franz-kafka Special thanks to my Patrons: Jay B, Mr X, Spirit Gun, Ramunas Cepaitis, RhoBean, Jessica Armstrong, Justin Raper, YM, Kyle Schaffrick, Landon Bolts, Joanne Durkin, Ryon Brashear, Ronny Khalil, Geraldine Cordero, Andrew Morisey, Aizistral, Joshua, OwainW, Emmanuel Miller, Abdullah Erkam Ak, Matthew Keyes, Terra Bell, Daniel Mureșan
Kafka used a lot of dream work and put it on paper. It made sense from a psychoanalytic perspective. He is writing about the worst dreams we all have of powerlessness.
Kafka´s novels foresaw the coming of an age when people would be more humble, than they were in his time. They would be asking for permission to do all kinds of things, but they would be using their intuition to ask for each permission. Its similar to modern day New Age thought, when you remove ascended masters and related concepts from the equation. Once you have removed anti - vaccers and maskless people too from the same equation, you will have a terrifying understanding of the importance of the content in these stories.
As a 29 year old man myself, who has been undergoing an overwhelming spiritual transformation, relate to Kafka. I work two jobs and have school and I yearn the few moments I am able to express myself. The paper and pen are my refuge and when much time passes without being able to free my thoughts it feels like a fire inside me has to be set free. It feels really lonely, but your channel and videos have been subtle finger taps onto a dimming light bulb, every tap renews the light that was slowly fading. Thank you.
your loneliness is universal, I feel it too. When I put my experiences into writing it makes my emotions feel more real and tangible. I hope that one day I can write well enough for someone else to read and enjoy. It is a craft after all that has to honed.I would love to read someone else’s work. Is there anyway you can send to me?
Sounds like you’re working on being great, make sure to share it with the world, we all have something to add to life, hang in there new worlds coming!
@@pinchebruha405 hi thank you. I read your message at a pivotal time and I want you to know how important it was for me to receive your email reminder. Thank you.
@@1995yuda thanks brother, today is my 30th birthday and I’m really emotional about the thought of another human whom I haven’t officially met wishing me well. Thank you!!
Gosh, its mind blowing that Kafka wrote so prolifically about endless beaurocratic nonsense. I've been dealing with some of that recently and i think its interesting that this was something people experienced 100 years ago. I love when history is reconfigured in my head as way more relatable than i thought.
I was always feeling humiliated by being overwhelmed in the bureaucracy, but I started to realize with so many professional thinkers/schemers inside neoliberalism I never had a chance to thrive in their capture culture. Now I only feel humiliated that they believe I am not smart enough to know this.
@@TennesseeJed Damn, you guys put what I’ve been feeling in words, since 18 years old I’ve felt something being off . You guys just removed a burden from my back that I’m not crazy.
@@TennesseeJedyes they suppress you by criticizing, marginalizing, attacking and censoring and if at the end of it all you’re still defiant and challenge them they say “what can you even do about it?”
This is why the game 'A Dinner with an Owl' reminds me of Kafka's writings. It's explained later on in the game why the characters act like that. In Kafka's works it just makes sense as panicking never solved anything and the abnormal behavior adds to the 'horror factor'. It probably reflects the writers own personality, other horror-writers like Lovecraft also wasn't exactly who anyone would call a normal person.
My psychiatrist told me that Kafka’s favorite author was Dostoyevsky. My eyes lit up with my psychiatrists’ eyes because Dostoyevsky is both of our favorites, too. After reading Brothers Karamasov, that is especially true, so far. I just finished Kafka’s The Trial and am learning more about him. I get Deja vu because he’s familiar like I already know him.
His works are metaphors for his own life (thus characters named K. from Kafka). We are rather reading a journal, a damn well written one, than mere novels. Therefore we might feel some sort intimate connection with the author, not just the characters. We begin to empathetically understand him and feel the urge to comfort him. And if we understand him, we might even begin to integrate his lenses through which he perceives the world. Thus, I think the nature of his genius transfers from originality to relatedness.
I found Kafka in the detention center. When i had no phone and my family had abandoned me. I randomly found the trial in the library and a week later hi is short story metamorphisis on the NCIS tablet.
Although everyone has a unique path in life and unique views, the world would be far dimmer and darker without Kafka, Hesse, Camus, Arthur Conan Doyle, Confucius, and Mark Twain having all graced us with their eminent works. Each, in their own way, are to be admired and emulated as ideal forms of humanity.
I beg to differ. Although i am not familiar with the works of everyone on your list i think that something like an "ideal" human being doesn't exist. And even if an ideal human would exist most great artists and philosophers wouldn't fall into that category because great art and new perspectives are often born from nonconformism, lonliness, pain, suffering, rejection, addiction and poverty and i wouldn't call this ideal at all. In the case of Kafka it is obvious that he was extremely insecure and anxious and never felt good enough - it even was his last will that most of his writings should be destroyed - but without these feelings of inferiority in an hostile environment he could never have written something like The Trial or The Transformation. But this is what makes it relatable - many people feel at least sometimes lost, rejected or misunderstood.
I don’t think he meant ideal in a glorified or deified sense, at least that wasn’t my interpretation. The very fact that kafka, Twain, Camus (I would also add Dostoevsky to the list) acknowledge and empathise with the darker, more neglected parts of human psyche show that they know there is no ‘perfect’ human. Striving to be so is admirable, but life ends in disappointment for reasons outside of our control. I think everyone on earth can benefit from reading these authors because they will a)treat others with the due respect they deserve because of their suffering and b) feel less lonely themselves. Overall, the world would be a generally better place if more people read these authors.
Ngl this can be said for the West only.(not even that maybe because most ppl haven't read anything by them there too) Not the world. As a south Asian no one knows any of these ppl. Every country has their own admirable writers and philosophers.
@@Jm-uh7wg The thing is, it doesn't even depend on those handfull of authors. Reading, especially reading novels helps people to understand different perspectives and therefore become more empathic. And was someone here in the comments pointed out, all these authors are male, white and from a western cultural background. Nothing wrong with that of course, but to get a wider perspective it would help to read some asian, african or arabian authors too. Also i have to agree with the statement that even in the west most people haven't read exactly these authors. Academic circles tend to overestimate the impact of certain intellectuals. News outlets, movies, tv shows, music even memes have a stronger impact on the thinking of the masses then books today.
The strangest thing about this is that I had just gone to my library this morning to pick up a copy of the metamorphosis and later came home to find this very video awaiting me on the very first column of my recommended tab.
In "The Trial" I've always interpreted the door as: In the end there is no easy way, To go forward there is gonna be resistance. But if you don't face that and wait for "admittance" you've doomed yourself.
@@Jan96106 Yeah it was only the Metamorphosis but it kinda had an irreversible impact on my mindset 🥲 Sometimes I wonder if it affected my other classmates as strongly lmao
@@metrovalleyeats Possibly not. I remember in high school where no one in the class, except me, liked a book by Moss Hart. The teacher took a vote, and I was the only one who raised their hand for yes. Also, my favorite book in high school was JB by Archibald MacLeish, a modern-day version of Job in verse play form. (I also like the Coen brothers' movie, A Serious Man, a comedy version of the book of Job.) Of course, I ended up teaching college-level English. When I first started teaching, I always made the mistake (?) of picking works way beyond the comfort zone of the students. The Trial was one of those works, along with As I Lay Dying, and To the Lighthouse. I pulled them along; most kept up, but I'm sure not everyone was happy.
ABSURD! ITS ALL ABSURD! 🤮Brilliant video, thank you! Takes me back to when I first encountered Kafka when I was going through an extended period of existential dread about six or seven years ago. Started with both Metamorphoses & The Trial which were strangely disturbing and yet comforting reads - a very unique soul and literary experience. Marvellous man. Weird, but marvellous.
Am I the only one who is intepreting The Trial also as a warning against the kangaroo court of public justice? Once the public decides if you're guilty, regardless of reality, that's it.
Routine trial, court of public opinion..the denial of the individual to atrocious injustices happening to his peers..and that these things will never touch himself...
I invested years of my youth into studying this mans work, it really opened gates for new paths of introspection. I recommend reading Ein Landarzt - a countryside doctor. It's is the only literary output he did not reject later in his life. Also his 1st novel ,Amerika', that follows a son, sent away over the atlantic by his family on his social descent into obscurity alongside the institutions and characters of the sometimes vast & sometimes hectic New World: The America European immigrants faced around the turn of the last century. Reading Kafka shaped my personality in a way only the works of J.P. Sartre did.
I would love if you did a video on Fernando Pessoa. When my philosophy professor was lecturing on existentialism and absurdism he mentioned The Book of Disquiet by Pessoa. Reading it really changed me, his writing is psychedelic and trance inducing. He is profoundly unique.
One of my favorite Kafka stories was that little one told from the perspective of a builder/mason working on the great wall of China. I don't remember much about it, except the insane detail (accurate or not) on the logistics/administration of the wall's construction. The 'endless and impossible journey' that Wallace references seems to be the unacknowledged project of a lot of our technology/media/algorithms now a days, and it's so badass Kafka had a pulse on that over a century ago.
For some reason my favourite novel by Kafka is Amerika....I don't know why but I love reading it and go back to read sections of it from time to time. It's not due to any deep philosophical understanding but something about the tone of this novel....there is more light and hope in this novel than his other novels....I wish someone would do an analysis of Amerika.
Man has emerged into an uncharted reality, which is why he strives to confront it and give it value. This man has no incentive to choose one frame of reference over another, and scientific theories just suggest how things might be evaluated. The subject relates to standards outside himself in psychology, where he can be content to be an observer, but what will he do in psychology if he is involved? What is decisive is the individual's discovery of a life value and the fact that he experiences a solution to it. This criterion of the value of life, as perceived by the individual, encompasses the "theory" as a symbol that imposes an attitude to be owned in front of life, wondering what effect it will have on the one who adheres to it. This dynamic is to own and impose a choice prior to birth. Kafka depicts humans whose choice is stolen. Either there is action in the system or theory is'real' and not a consideration. Stuck and always constrained, unable to choose between Scylla and Charybdis. The Kafkaian individual suffers the collective is perceived as a phenomenon by the individual. But dies... dies in the absence or loss of a certain value of life.
The aburdity of the Metamorphosis in my life is the memory of my second lady love telling me how I kept her up all night talking about this amazing story I read (I think in Harvey Solvanic's class, I recall quite a lot in life, in general) But I have no memory of reading the Metamorphosis, none? And yet I remember keeping the girl up all night. Kafka would be pleased that I loved his story and yet forgot every detail. Camus too! Camus was truly Kafkaesque. "We become spirtual or we go insane" every deep person ever who had to live in this world
Almost feels like astroturfing with all the love with this channel lol but because of this channel I purchased 2 kafka books 1 read already, "La métamorphose" and "Le procès"
What in an insanely crazy good video! ⚡ That last line really hit me different. I'm glad I've watched your video, I think I understand Kafka, his works, art and character / persona and who he really was now better
I don't think that the story about the doorkeeper was about beuracracy at all, but rather how Kafka has locked away his soul and believes himself powerless to access himself simply because a door keeper said nothing but words to him. And he was content to sit and wait while his life slipped away, out of cowardice. His life was devoid of meaning and hardly a life, and yet he would take no risks in order to win a life, to find his light, content to wait in front of the door rather than risk defying the law of this deceitful god. It's about a coward who couldn't act even to save himself.
@@sophiamarquis An interpretation such as that could be the result of other influences, like a book that had that theme or the life of a parent. Broaden the possibilities.
@@sophiamarquis How is @beanybag2 insulting anyone by their interpretation of a story? It seemed like a sincere and good faith interpretation to me. If you disagree, that's fine, but i really don't understand your comment to me that there is an insult to dead people. What am I missing here?
@@sophiamarquis your words say a lot about you too. I understand the feeling of weakness, insignificance and even fear that lives in the heart. But what I don't understand is allowing those feelings to paralyze you while at the same time deriding those who have no such feelings.
" Kafka, the story goes, encountered a little girl in the park where he went walking daily. She was crying. She had lost her doll and was desolate. Kafka offered to help her look for the doll and arranged to meet her the next day at the same spot. Unable to find the doll he composed a letter from the doll and read it to her when they met. 'Please do not mourn me, I have gone on a trip to see the world. I will write you of my adventures.' This was the beginning of many letters. When he and the little girl met he read her from these carefully composed letters the imagined adventures of the beloved doll. The little girl was comforted. When the meetings came to an end Kafka presented her with a doll. She obviously looked different from the original doll. An attached letter explained 'My travels have changed me.' Many years later, the now grown girl found a letter stuffed into an unnoticed crevice in the cherished replacement doll. In summary it said: *Every thing that you love, you will eventually lose, but in the end, love will return in a different form."
Omg this man is such relatable. There are such people exist who cant live in this systemic cage of world. They will suffocate & die if they couldn't find the truth.
Kafka really shows how the automation of The law operates in society, very few of us are capable escaping from it. But to me Kafka is like a gospel, that means "salvation" and light, fresh air from boundaries and restrictions.
Wow😊this was fantastic❤I love it!!!! This was absolutely beautiful-funny, bizzare, but also touching & sad! Definetly resonated with me😮does this make me weird? I am super sensitive too, oh well✌🙏🕊🌹
5:13’The Man had the mind of Someone… we all know, deep inside... if we ever had the courage to look, and gasp at what we found; But live anyway, right? I love Him because of what I heard of him. The Man thought he was despicable, yet he was adored, and never had a clue. I feel like I remember Him. I know he is good. Shalom Fran’s, times two.
@@margin606 In the Trial, the guard's belly kept bumping... the conversation with the painter; in Metamorphosis, he thought of jumping on Grete's face; in the penal colony the way the officer behaves... and many more. You can also find humor in Dostoyevsky by the way... who Kafka adored with all his heart.
Interesting video and an appreciated breakdown on Kafka's three big stories. That said, Kafka's interpretation of parables is not what a parable is. A parable is a grand truth derived from mundane scenarios. You can accuse them of being inaccurate, but he wasn't correct to say they're just poems about passing the buck.
As I myself enjoy writing short fantastic stories (some of which are published on the internet) I understand Kafka's relationship with his literary work. It is possible to write to earn money, but to do that you have to study and explore the preferences of the public. Kafka obviously did not dedicate himself to literature for economic purposes. It is also possible to write literary texts because something moved within ourselves. A character, a metaphor and a story can be born within the writer in different ways and for reasons not always fully understood. When this occurs, the narrative around that motif is mentally worked on until the text forces its passage onto paper. Writing the story, shaping the narrative, exploring the potentialities of the character and the situation and letting go of mentally imagined things that don't work well in the context of the work that is being born is something wonderful, exciting and interesting. But as soon as the text is ready, it loses the importance it had for the writer. I feel it. Kafka probably felt something similar and that's why he asked his friend to burn the texts.
How did he know how he was going to die? *Basically starvation; sickened like the basic premise of this story. There is NO one dimensional human, or character. We wouldn't take a second listen to these authors in such turmoil inside. The part about his father played a massive role in his entire life both on a factual level, and psychological level.
Oh my gosh. This is, well, amazing is not even enough but I cannot think of a better descriptive at this moment. So amazing I will say for now. I'm feeling stupified really. This will probably be unbelievable but I identify with these writings literally word for word. So much so that I can say that listening to this was like listening to my very own thoughts, like hearing my very own biography after I die. The only difference is that he was able to express himself with poetic vocabulary. Brilliantly executing his obvious genius. I , on the other hand, sound like a meer madman. Maybe after death I will finally make sense, I don't know. After listening to this though I feel well I feel my usual bitter sweet. Bitter at how misunderstood I am and sweet with the knowledge of knowing that I understand far more than even I can comprehend. I also feel some relief in knowing that there was someone else that lived and died with the same understanding as mine about living and dying and he is considered a genius. Maybe this is just what I needed to set myself free from my self confined life. Maybe I heard this today so I can lift the burden of knowledge off of me and instead embrace it just as it is and maybe it will be able to lift me up and I will learn to live with my knowledge side by side instead of fighting it. For fighting myself is a battle I could never win. Anyways thank you for this beyond amazing video. I think this very well may have changed my life. Or actually, saved my life is a better way to put it. Thank you. I appreciate this with all my heart.
I fell asleep while watching UA-cam and this ended up playing, then I had a whole dream about a mostly unknown town in some creepy area where these people one day contacted beings beyond their realm and asked for favours and power or something, but many of the beings were wicked or tricksters and caused a lot of chaos. Many of the people either went insane, documented their discovery or just disappeared, with there being no trace of them and no document of them other than lost drawings and writings of this stuff and other people getting into it and discovering and invoking it themselves. One document was about a man who discovered an evil force and wanted to stop it, so he turned to greater and nicer beings, but what he didn't know was that they were tricksters. They sent him to a hotel in his town where he would then non-stop go up an elevator and reach many different floors with many different beings. Each being would be more powerful each time, they told him. He asked if then at one point one would be basically like a god, in which the being would 'respond' with nonsensical things or laughter, or both. Each of these documents either ended in a cliff hanger or ended with the individual going insane. I remember another document about a young girl who had a gift for understanding and interacting with the greater beyond. She would document how her family was abusive and all had mental issues, but because she didn't know better, she'd deem it them being unfair or that she was just a problem, in which she would contact greater beings for help and questions. There was a mysterious boy who lived nearby and was the only one nice to her, so she would talk to him sometimes and grant him things by asking the greater beings to grant it, or using magic she learned from the beyond, but after a bit these beings later tore her family's mental apart even further and caused them to hurt each other physically, cutting each other and later killing each other. The only one that remained was the mother, who tried to kill the girl, but then she snapped and cursed her mother. I forgot what happened to her, but I remember it wasn't anything good at all. The girl went looking for the boy, and after she found him, she used her power and contact with the greater beings to wish for the boy to forever be with her, but then the beings laughed and she suddenly felt immense despair and fear. The boy was taken away and thrown into an endless hell by the beings, this was where the girl realized she had no power, they only wanted to play with her. She would then go really insane and make a drawing about her pain and hatred, then she proceeded to make a suicide note, where she drew her fate and wrote a bunch of nonsensical things and that was all there was left of her. In the end of the dream, I found myself lost and later being attacked and laughed at by weird creatures until I woke up
We have a natural capacity for, and propensity to worship. Some worship their egos under the false assumption that they're worshiping a religion's god, some worship material wealth, some worship their egos ignorantly, some worship their egos shamelessly, some worship science, some worship a religion's God, some worship a sect of a religion's God, some worship an earthly parental figure who allows this to happen. I think the correct thing to do with this instinct is to gather what makes sense from all corners of worship and seems morally or spiritually correct to you; what ever you are.
Digital technology has greatly enhanced international beaurocracy along with adapting AI ...this would assuredly reinforce Kafka's paranoia with official processes..driving him..and others into a dark and despairing pit of despond...
when my dad died, my therapist told me to write him a letter with all i wanted to say. i took offense to this, as if i could sum up my feelings, and walk away. Kafka’s letter to his father said how i feel
I find it simultaneously tragic, and romantic that some of the most influential minds in the arts go almost unrecognized until their death, only to posthumously understand their brilliance. I've spent entirely too much of my life pondering this, arguably. Who's to say that the happiness and praise wouldn't ruin their later works, and then there's the dilemma. Would it be just, if given the chance to change the outcome in order for one soul's peace, while sacrificing immensely important art as cost? I'm unsure of the answer myself.
*"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.”* - Franz Kafka
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A perfect quote to end with. I'm deeply enjoy your essays . Thank you
Kafka used a lot of dream work and put it on paper. It made sense from a psychoanalytic perspective. He is writing about the worst dreams we all have of powerlessness.
Kafka´s novels foresaw the coming of an age when people would be more humble, than they were in his time. They would be asking for permission to do all kinds of things, but they would be using their intuition to ask for each permission. Its similar to modern day New Age thought, when you remove ascended masters and related concepts from the equation. Once you have removed anti - vaccers and maskless people too from the same equation, you will have a terrifying understanding of the importance of the content in these stories.
@@Yatukih_001defend your position. This isn’t making much sense to me.
Que?
Sleep paralyze...
@Yatukih_001 can you word this differently? I’m just not following what you are getting at here
As a 29 year old man myself, who has been undergoing an overwhelming spiritual transformation, relate to Kafka. I work two jobs and have school and I yearn the few moments I am able to express myself. The paper and pen are my refuge and when much time passes without being able to free my thoughts it feels like a fire inside me has to be set free.
It feels really lonely, but your channel and videos have been subtle finger taps onto a dimming light bulb, every tap renews the light that was slowly fading. Thank you.
your loneliness is universal, I feel it too.
When I put my experiences into writing it makes my emotions feel more real and tangible. I hope that one day I can write well enough for someone else to read and enjoy. It is a craft after all that has to honed.I would love to read someone else’s work. Is there anyway you can send to me?
Sounds like you’re working on being great, make sure to share it with the world, we all have something to add to life, hang in there new worlds coming!
@@pinchebruha405 hi thank you. I read your message at a pivotal time and I want you to know how important it was for me to receive your email reminder. Thank you.
@@E_915 You're already on a golden path brother, keep it up!
@@1995yuda thanks brother, today is my 30th birthday and I’m really emotional about the thought of another human whom I haven’t officially met wishing me well. Thank you!!
Gosh, its mind blowing that Kafka wrote so prolifically about endless beaurocratic nonsense. I've been dealing with some of that recently and i think its interesting that this was something people experienced 100 years ago. I love when history is reconfigured in my head as way more relatable than i thought.
I was always feeling humiliated by being overwhelmed in the bureaucracy, but I started to realize with so many professional thinkers/schemers inside neoliberalism I never had a chance to thrive in their capture culture. Now I only feel humiliated that they believe I am not smart enough to know this.
@@TennesseeJed Damn, you guys put what I’ve been feeling in words, since 18 years old I’ve felt something being off . You guys just removed a burden from my back that I’m not crazy.
@@ahmedalani3513 Classic gaslighting on a country wide scale. Capitalist gonna capitalize...the assholes.
@@TennesseeJedyes they suppress you by criticizing, marginalizing, attacking and censoring and if at the end of it all you’re still defiant and challenge them they say “what can you even do about it?”
I don't love when that happens.
Max Brod was a true homie
??? What is a homie
“12:42 I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”
I felt that
I think he did it well.
I love his work. The way his protagonists just accept their living conditions and try to work as if nothing is wrong, like in the castle as well
This is why the game 'A Dinner with an Owl' reminds me of Kafka's writings.
It's explained later on in the game why the characters act like that.
In Kafka's works it just makes sense as panicking never solved anything and the abnormal behavior adds to the 'horror factor'.
It probably reflects the writers own personality, other horror-writers like Lovecraft also wasn't exactly who anyone would call a normal person.
My psychiatrist told me that Kafka’s favorite author was Dostoyevsky. My eyes lit up with my psychiatrists’ eyes because Dostoyevsky is both of our favorites, too. After reading Brothers Karamasov, that is especially true, so far. I just finished Kafka’s The Trial and am learning more about him. I get Deja vu because he’s familiar like I already know him.
Maybe Alfred Kubin and Robert Walser ahead of Dostojevski?
i’ve always interpreted The Metamorphosis as an allegory for extreme depression or another kind of mental or unseen disability.
Damn, as someone who’s disabled, that first story hits VERY close to home. It brought tears to my eyes.
His works are metaphors for his own life (thus characters named K. from Kafka). We are rather reading a journal, a damn well written one, than mere novels. Therefore we might feel some sort intimate connection with the author, not just the characters. We begin to empathetically understand him and feel the urge to comfort him. And if we understand him, we might even begin to integrate his lenses through which he perceives the world. Thus, I think the nature of his genius transfers from originality to relatedness.
You aren't smart. Kafka was a total bum and his work is awful.
I felt that reading the metamorphosis
I found Kafka in the detention center. When i had no phone and my family had abandoned me. I randomly found the trial in the library and a week later hi is short story metamorphisis on the NCIS tablet.
Although everyone has a unique path in life and unique views, the world would be far dimmer and darker without Kafka, Hesse, Camus, Arthur Conan Doyle, Confucius, and Mark Twain having all graced us with their eminent works. Each, in their own way, are to be admired and emulated as ideal forms of humanity.
I beg to differ. Although i am not familiar with the works of everyone on your list i think that something like an "ideal" human being doesn't exist. And even if an ideal human would exist most great artists and philosophers wouldn't fall into that category because great art and new perspectives are often born from nonconformism, lonliness, pain, suffering, rejection, addiction and poverty and i wouldn't call this ideal at all. In the case of Kafka it is obvious that he was extremely insecure and anxious and never felt good enough - it even was his last will that most of his writings should be destroyed - but without these feelings of inferiority in an hostile environment he could never have written something like The Trial or The Transformation. But this is what makes it relatable - many people feel at least sometimes lost, rejected or misunderstood.
I don’t think he meant ideal in a glorified or deified sense, at least that wasn’t my interpretation. The very fact that kafka, Twain, Camus (I would also add Dostoevsky to the list) acknowledge and empathise with the darker, more neglected parts of human psyche show that they know there is no ‘perfect’ human. Striving to be so is admirable, but life ends in disappointment for reasons outside of our control. I think everyone on earth can benefit from reading these authors because they will a)treat others with the due respect they deserve because of their suffering and b) feel less lonely themselves. Overall, the world would be a generally better place if more people read these authors.
Ngl this can be said for the West only.(not even that maybe because most ppl haven't read anything by them there too) Not the world. As a south Asian no one knows any of these ppl. Every country has their own admirable writers and philosophers.
@@Jm-uh7wg The thing is, it doesn't even depend on those handfull of authors. Reading, especially reading novels helps people to understand different perspectives and therefore become more empathic. And was someone here in the comments pointed out, all these authors are male, white and from a western cultural background. Nothing wrong with that of course, but to get a wider perspective it would help to read some asian, african or arabian authors too.
Also i have to agree with the statement that even in the west most people haven't read exactly these authors. Academic circles tend to overestimate the impact of certain intellectuals. News outlets, movies, tv shows, music even memes have a stronger impact on the thinking of the masses then books today.
Buckminster Fuller
Damn as an introvert, this dude is sooo relatable. Man is the king of introverts
The strangest thing about this is that I had just gone to my library this morning to pick up a copy of the metamorphosis and later came home to find this very video awaiting me on the very first column of my recommended tab.
Google is watching
In "The Trial" I've always interpreted the door as: In the end there is no easy way, To go forward there is gonna be resistance. But if you don't face that and wait for "admittance" you've doomed yourself.
We had to read a kafka novel in middle school for an assignment and it changed the trajectory if my life 💀
In middle school? That's pretty early an age for Kafka. I tried to teach him in college, and even then, it is too early.
@@Jan96106 Yeah it was only the Metamorphosis but it kinda had an irreversible impact on my mindset 🥲 Sometimes I wonder if it affected my other classmates as strongly lmao
@@metrovalleyeats Possibly not. I remember in high school where no one in the class, except me, liked a book by Moss Hart. The teacher took a vote, and I was the only one who raised their hand for yes. Also, my favorite book in high school was JB by Archibald MacLeish, a modern-day version of Job in verse play form. (I also like the Coen brothers' movie, A Serious Man, a comedy version of the book of Job.) Of course, I ended up teaching college-level English.
When I first started teaching, I always made the mistake (?) of picking works way beyond the comfort zone of the students. The Trial was one of those works, along with As I Lay Dying, and To the Lighthouse. I pulled them along; most kept up, but I'm sure not everyone was happy.
@@metrovalleyeatsI bet it did affect them similarly. Did me. Was a doozy
ABSURD! ITS ALL ABSURD! 🤮Brilliant video, thank you! Takes me back to when I first encountered Kafka when I was going through an extended period of existential dread about six or seven years ago.
Started with both Metamorphoses & The Trial which were strangely disturbing and yet comforting reads - a very unique soul and literary experience. Marvellous man. Weird, but marvellous.
Damn… unhappy his whole life and then he dies at age 40….sad
Died of starvation wtf thats brutal
I love Kafka novels. My favorite author. I'm glad Max Brod didn't destroy his manuscripts
Am I the only one who is intepreting The Trial also as a warning against the kangaroo court of public justice? Once the public decides if you're guilty, regardless of reality, that's it.
There is a thing called "routine trial"
So ppl are proven guilty even before they step in a court room,where obviously everything is stage settup show
Routine trial, court of public opinion..the denial of the individual to atrocious injustices happening to his peers..and that these things will never touch himself...
The endless and incomprehensible terms and conditions we have to accept blindly everywhere is a great example of the Kafkaesque in modern society
Someone mentions that kafka is the best writer of reality.I believe he is because his works are timeless
I invested years of my youth into studying this mans work, it really opened gates for new paths of introspection. I recommend reading Ein Landarzt - a countryside doctor. It's is the only literary output he did not reject later in his life. Also his 1st novel ,Amerika', that follows a son, sent away over the atlantic by his family on his social descent into obscurity alongside the institutions and characters of the sometimes vast & sometimes hectic New World: The America European immigrants faced around the turn of the last century.
Reading Kafka shaped my personality in a way only the works of J.P. Sartre did.
I would love if you did a video on Fernando Pessoa. When my philosophy professor was lecturing on existentialism and absurdism he mentioned The Book of Disquiet by Pessoa. Reading it really changed me, his writing is psychedelic and trance inducing. He is profoundly unique.
Beloved Pessoa..🦋🙏
I dear friend! No one has explored Pessoa yet, I wanted to see someone write this so bad, the book of disquiet is sucha gold.
Kafka had one aspect of him very similar to Marcus Aurellius. They both wrote and didn't expect other people reading their works.
That´s is the key being great.
I comprehend your point, but it is not appropriate to draw a comparison between Marcus and Kafka due to their stark dissimilarities in every aspect.
Franz Kafka is probably my favourite author; alongside Fyodor Dostoevsky, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins or Edgar Allan Poe.
Poe and Kafka ❤
This channel deserves way more views. Keep up the great videos.
Kafka, a beautiful mind & soul, revived through us remembering & appreciating him.
One of my favorite Kafka stories was that little one told from the perspective of a builder/mason working on the great wall of China. I don't remember much about it, except the insane detail (accurate or not) on the logistics/administration of the wall's construction. The 'endless and impossible journey' that Wallace references seems to be the unacknowledged project of a lot of our technology/media/algorithms now a days, and it's so badass Kafka had a pulse on that over a century ago.
Pretty awesome we just uploaded at nearly the exact same time!! Awesome topic Eternalised excited to watch! =)
I'll go visit your channel. I have a channel as well, perhaps you'll like what I've posted.
Wonderful!!!! Such a powerfull narration of his life and work
Such an amazing analysis of great writer and artist, thank you
Thank you for this wonderful video! I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it is time for me to expand my reading beyond just "The Metamorphosis."
Kafka is the first author I really liked and I'm really excited for this video.
Thank you for a video about my favorite writer! Love your content!💚
For some reason my favourite novel by Kafka is Amerika....I don't know why but I love reading it and go back to read sections of it from time to time. It's not due to any deep philosophical understanding but something about the tone of this novel....there is more light and hope in this novel than his other novels....I wish someone would do an analysis of Amerika.
Man has emerged into an uncharted reality, which is why he strives to confront it and give it value.
This man has no incentive to choose one frame of reference over another, and scientific theories just suggest how things might be evaluated.
The subject relates to standards outside himself in psychology, where he can be content to be an observer, but what will he do in psychology if he is involved?
What is decisive is the individual's discovery of a life value and the fact that he experiences a solution to it. This criterion of the value of life, as perceived by the individual, encompasses the "theory" as a symbol that imposes an attitude to be owned in front of life, wondering what effect it will have on the one who adheres to it.
This dynamic is to own and impose a choice prior to birth. Kafka depicts humans whose choice is stolen. Either there is action in the system or theory is'real' and not a consideration.
Stuck and always constrained, unable to choose between Scylla and Charybdis. The Kafkaian individual suffers the collective is perceived as a phenomenon by the individual. But dies... dies in the absence or loss of a certain value of life.
With every move closer, I feel more and more content. In ways. Crazier in others. ...Interesting documentary.
The aburdity of the Metamorphosis in my life is the memory of my second lady love telling me how I kept her up all night talking about this amazing story I read (I think in Harvey Solvanic's class, I recall quite a lot in life, in general) But I have no memory of reading the Metamorphosis, none? And yet I remember keeping the girl up all night. Kafka would be pleased that I loved his story and yet forgot every detail. Camus too! Camus was truly Kafkaesque.
"We become spirtual or we go insane"
every deep person ever who had to live in this world
The last book I bought was a complete collection of his work comepletely blind to him. Its interesting and strange
Where was this all my life? I relate to his struggle very greatly.
Kafka, like Lovecraft, was a mental case. I like their fiction but I certainly wouldn't take either of them for a role model.
Please don't mention them in the same breath. It's an insult to kafka.
By far my favorite channel on UA-cam keep it up my man.
Almost feels like astroturfing with all the love with this channel lol but because of this channel I purchased 2 kafka books 1 read already, "La métamorphose" and "Le procès"
Just read metamorphosis and i must say the first part of this video gave me a lot of much needed context for interpretation
My brother in philosophy, please increase the volume of your videos by 15%
I relate to Kafka deeply
Bless Kafka‘s heart🦋🕊🌹
What in an insanely crazy good video! ⚡
That last line really hit me different.
I'm glad I've watched your video, I think I understand Kafka, his works, art and character / persona and who he really was now better
This was brutal. Thanks for this video.
I don't think that the story about the doorkeeper was about beuracracy at all, but rather how Kafka has locked away his soul and believes himself powerless to access himself simply because a door keeper said nothing but words to him. And he was content to sit and wait while his life slipped away, out of cowardice. His life was devoid of meaning and hardly a life, and yet he would take no risks in order to win a life, to find his light, content to wait in front of the door rather than risk defying the law of this deceitful god. It's about a coward who couldn't act even to save himself.
Very interesting analysis.
@@sophiamarquis An interpretation such as that could be the result of other influences, like a book that had that theme or the life of a parent. Broaden the possibilities.
@@sophiamarquis How is @beanybag2 insulting anyone by their interpretation of a story? It seemed like a sincere and good faith interpretation to me. If you disagree, that's fine, but i really don't understand your comment to me that there is an insult to dead people. What am I missing here?
@@sophiamarquis 'Who are you to judge others? A Nobody.' You're insane if you believe judgement of others should be locked behind social status.
@@sophiamarquis your words say a lot about you too. I understand the feeling of weakness, insignificance and even fear that lives in the heart. But what I don't understand is allowing those feelings to paralyze you while at the same time deriding those who have no such feelings.
" Kafka, the story goes, encountered a little girl in the park where he went walking daily. She was crying. She had lost her doll and was desolate.
Kafka offered to help her look for the doll and arranged to meet her the next day at the same spot.
Unable to find the doll he composed a letter from the doll and read it to her when they met.
'Please do not mourn me, I have gone on a trip to see the world. I will write you of my adventures.'
This was the beginning of many letters. When he and the little girl met he read her from these carefully composed letters the imagined adventures of the beloved doll. The little girl was comforted.
When the meetings came to an end Kafka presented her with a doll. She obviously looked different from the original doll. An attached letter explained 'My travels have changed me.'
Many years later, the now grown girl found a letter stuffed into an unnoticed crevice in the cherished replacement doll.
In summary it said:
*Every thing that you love, you will eventually lose, but in the end, love will return in a different form."
Loved the video it is one of your best in my opinion so well putt and good. Really enjoyed it
Picture of the stairs looks just like a scene from The Laberynth
He is unbelievably and sometimes unrelatable relatable
Omg this man is such relatable. There are such people exist who cant live in this systemic cage of world. They will suffocate & die if they couldn't find the truth.
Always a pleasure to listen to these videos! Thanks for your great content!
Kafka was weary of the current divine dispensation.
Orwell was wary of the current human dispensation.
When Karl went to Hotel Occidental.....
The things in "the trial" happens all the time
I just realized that movie "The Fly" is literally "The Metamorphosis"
Kafka really shows how the automation of The law operates in society, very few of us are capable escaping from it. But to me Kafka is like a gospel, that means "salvation" and light, fresh air from boundaries and restrictions.
3:55’I have a picture book of Tooker, George, that is. This illustration is in there, and of course , it reminded me of Kafka.
He was emo before emo was a thing.
One of the best novelists of all time. You feel transported when you read his work.
Wow😊this was fantastic❤I love it!!!! This was absolutely beautiful-funny, bizzare, but also touching & sad! Definetly resonated with me😮does this make me weird? I am super sensitive too, oh well✌🙏🕊🌹
5:13’The Man had the mind of Someone… we all know, deep inside... if we ever had the courage to look, and gasp at what we found; But live anyway, right? I love Him because of what I heard of him. The Man thought he was despicable, yet he was adored, and never had a clue. I feel like I remember Him. I know he is good. Shalom Fran’s, times two.
The music in the bg was perfectly picked.
lovely, thank you my friend my madness can sleep for a little while longer.
I don't understand why people keep portraying Kafka as all dark and gloomy writer-his works are brimming with humor.
Examples of humour?
@@margin606 In the Trial, the guard's belly kept bumping... the conversation with the painter; in Metamorphosis, he thought of jumping on Grete's face; in the penal colony the way the officer behaves... and many more. You can also find humor in Dostoyevsky by the way... who Kafka adored with all his heart.
Interesting video and an appreciated breakdown on Kafka's three big stories. That said, Kafka's interpretation of parables is not what a parable is. A parable is a grand truth derived from mundane scenarios. You can accuse them of being inaccurate, but he wasn't correct to say they're just poems about passing the buck.
So that's where the "flying duchman" on SpongeBob came from
As I myself enjoy writing short fantastic stories (some of which are published on the internet) I understand Kafka's relationship with his literary work. It is possible to write to earn money, but to do that you have to study and explore the preferences of the public. Kafka obviously did not dedicate himself to literature for economic purposes. It is also possible to write literary texts because something moved within ourselves. A character, a metaphor and a story can be born within the writer in different ways and for reasons not always fully understood. When this occurs, the narrative around that motif is mentally worked on until the text forces its passage onto paper. Writing the story, shaping the narrative, exploring the potentialities of the character and the situation and letting go of mentally imagined things that don't work well in the context of the work that is being born is something wonderful, exciting and interesting. But as soon as the text is ready, it loses the importance it had for the writer. I feel it. Kafka probably felt something similar and that's why he asked his friend to burn the texts.
Wonder how many brands and stores i will avoid due to 3 minute ads on UA-cam
How did he know how he was going to die? *Basically starvation; sickened like the basic premise of this story. There is NO one dimensional human, or character. We wouldn't take a second listen to these authors in such turmoil inside. The part about his father played a massive role in his entire life both on a factual level, and psychological level.
Noo
Oh my gosh. This is, well, amazing is not even enough but I cannot think of a better descriptive at this moment. So amazing I will say for now. I'm feeling stupified really. This will probably be unbelievable but I identify with these writings literally word for word. So much so that I can say that listening to this was like listening to my very own thoughts, like hearing my very own biography after I die. The only difference is that he was able to express himself with poetic vocabulary. Brilliantly executing his obvious genius. I , on the other hand, sound like a meer madman. Maybe after death I will finally make sense, I don't know. After listening to this though I feel well I feel my usual bitter sweet. Bitter at how misunderstood I am and sweet with the knowledge of knowing that I understand far more than even I can comprehend. I also feel some relief in knowing that there was someone else that lived and died with the same understanding as mine about living and dying and he is considered a genius. Maybe this is just what I needed to set myself free from my self confined life. Maybe I heard this today so I can lift the burden of knowledge off of me and instead embrace it just as it is and maybe it will be able to lift me up and I will learn to live with my knowledge side by side instead of fighting it. For fighting myself is a battle I could never win. Anyways thank you for this beyond amazing video. I think this very well may have changed my life. Or actually, saved my life is a better way to put it. Thank you. I appreciate this with all my heart.
I fell asleep while watching UA-cam and this ended up playing, then I had a whole dream about a mostly unknown town in some creepy area where these people one day contacted beings beyond their realm and asked for favours and power or something, but many of the beings were wicked or tricksters and caused a lot of chaos. Many of the people either went insane, documented their discovery or just disappeared, with there being no trace of them and no document of them other than lost drawings and writings of this stuff and other people getting into it and discovering and invoking it themselves. One document was about a man who discovered an evil force and wanted to stop it, so he turned to greater and nicer beings, but what he didn't know was that they were tricksters. They sent him to a hotel in his town where he would then non-stop go up an elevator and reach many different floors with many different beings. Each being would be more powerful each time, they told him. He asked if then at one point one would be basically like a god, in which the being would 'respond' with nonsensical things or laughter, or both. Each of these documents either ended in a cliff hanger or ended with the individual going insane. I remember another document about a young girl who had a gift for understanding and interacting with the greater beyond. She would document how her family was abusive and all had mental issues, but because she didn't know better, she'd deem it them being unfair or that she was just a problem, in which she would contact greater beings for help and questions. There was a mysterious boy who lived nearby and was the only one nice to her, so she would talk to him sometimes and grant him things by asking the greater beings to grant it, or using magic she learned from the beyond, but after a bit these beings later tore her family's mental apart even further and caused them to hurt each other physically, cutting each other and later killing each other. The only one that remained was the mother, who tried to kill the girl, but then she snapped and cursed her mother. I forgot what happened to her, but I remember it wasn't anything good at all. The girl went looking for the boy, and after she found him, she used her power and contact with the greater beings to wish for the boy to forever be with her, but then the beings laughed and she suddenly felt immense despair and fear. The boy was taken away and thrown into an endless hell by the beings, this was where the girl realized she had no power, they only wanted to play with her. She would then go really insane and make a drawing about her pain and hatred, then she proceeded to make a suicide note, where she drew her fate and wrote a bunch of nonsensical things and that was all there was left of her. In the end of the dream, I found myself lost and later being attacked and laughed at by weird creatures until I woke up
Damn did you visit yharnam
6:20 I read this, first . Kafka, it’s like one knows Him, and He knows you.
Kafka is Well and in Paradise in His Spirit form of Souls. He Suffered as My Kind Suffers We Will be United in Time.
We have a natural capacity for, and propensity to worship. Some worship their egos under the false assumption that they're worshiping a religion's god, some worship material wealth, some worship their egos ignorantly, some worship their egos shamelessly, some worship science, some worship a religion's God, some worship a sect of a religion's God, some worship an earthly parental figure who allows this to happen. I think the correct thing to do with this instinct is to gather what makes sense from all corners of worship and seems morally or spiritually correct to you; what ever you are.
5:33 I should read more of Him. I’d like to cheer Him up.
Absolutely fascinating
Guess I can't watch this video since I plan on reading his work and won't want to spoil myself.
Beautifully done
TLDR: Most people are frightened sheep.
god this guy was smart asf
Digital technology has greatly enhanced international beaurocracy along with adapting AI ...this would assuredly reinforce Kafka's paranoia with official processes..driving him..and others into a dark and despairing pit of despond...
I saw Orson Wells version of the Trial back when I was in High School. I was blown away and got the truth my history teacher couldn't trust.
What
@@zeltzamer4010 That the illusion of justice, freedom, government etc was all a sham - modern version "Brazil" another fiction dystopia
Just Great ! Thank you for your work !
when my dad died, my therapist told me to write him a letter with all i wanted to say. i took offense to this, as if i could sum up my feelings, and walk away. Kafka’s letter to his father said how i feel
Great video got nothing more to add!
Excellent video. Thank you.
Infps are hard to analyze because their own analysis are hard to put into framework
The Twilight Zone was definitely inspired by Kafka.
I wish my father would want me to become a businessman.
Funny that a Tax Service ad showed up just as you finished speaking about the Trial.
reading kafka kind of changed my life
I find it simultaneously tragic, and romantic that some of the most influential minds in the arts go almost unrecognized until their death, only to posthumously understand their brilliance.
I've spent entirely too much of my life pondering this, arguably. Who's to say that the happiness and praise wouldn't ruin their later works, and then there's the dilemma.
Would it be just, if given the chance to change the outcome in order for one soul's peace, while sacrificing immensely important art as cost?
I'm unsure of the answer myself.
Great video as always! Love Kafka but for me one of the best was Herman Hesse.