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"He
has found Archimedes' fulcrum, but he has turned it to account against
himself, clearly he's was permitted to find it only on this condition."
-Kafka
Kafka is a very interesting
character. Most of his works were never published while he was alive and
all written while in the shadow of his insurance job. Asking before he
died to have his writings destroyed, thankfully his friend did quite the
opposite. Thank the heavens!
Writing on subjects that fall
somewhere between science fiction,
horror and literature,
Kafka produced a large volume of work.. It can be disturbing or odd or
both but mostly dark. The short stories could be the equivalent of the
X-Files adjusted for their times.
For the most part Kafka's
work is of two types, the short story and the novel. There are other items
out there, memoirs and the like. They may be difficult to find. His short
stories are nothing less than exceptional and, while they have the stylings
of Pre WWI writing, they are easy to get into and offer some of the most
creative writings out there. Short stories of note are (of course) The
Metamorphosis and The Penal Colony.
The books, in my mind, are
a bit more difficult to get into. Probably for the most part (and for
me) due to the fact that Kafka used single letters as the names of characters,
such as M and R. While on the surface, that may not seem bad, but when
there are around 10, it gets a bit hard. Some of his best known books
are The Trial and The Castle - recently made into a movie
named Kafka (circa 1994?) In The Castle, he actually writes
himself in.
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