Wednesday, 30 August 2017
Cormac mcCarthy - Locations
What is appears to be one of the most significant aspects of McCarthy's writing is his concern with America/American locations, in particular the South West. That's certainly the case with the book I'm currently reading - 'Blood meridian' - which is set on the Mexican/ American border in the 1800s and tells of an incredibly ruthless and violent wild west. His 'Border Trilogy' is set in the American south west also, although I haven't read any of those so I don't know much about them. 'No Country for Old Men' is also set around the Mexican border, although in 1980. 'The Road is much more ambiguous (everything is destroyed and ashen in a fairly homogeneous way) but can also be interpreted as being in the American south, due to the mention of plantation style houses and a mention of 'Rock City', a natural rock formation on top of Lookout Mountain, outside chatanooga.
Tuesday, 29 August 2017
Blood Meridian - 'Presidio'
Due to the era and location in which 'Blood meridian' is set (mid 1800s around the border between mexico and America) many of the settlements the protagonists travel through are built around presidios, which are fortified military settlements, used at that time in those areas to keep out hostile native Americans and pirates.
I had a go at drawing one, although I didn't use any reference images. It doesn't really look like a presidio but I think I was able to get across the idea, and I am currently trying to respond to 'Blood Meridian' using a sort of aggressive, impressionistic and primitive aesthetic and I think this image works reasonably well in this sense. The big smudge of red is, again, more of a metaphoric reference to the semantics of violence which surround the narrative than anything literal. I am really enjoying using oil pastel at the moment, it gives a great sort of rough, dirty effect which is sitting well with the look I want my representations of the book to have.
I think I will have a go at drawing Presidios more, but using some reference images to see if I can create some more recognisable depictions of them.
Sunday, 27 August 2017
Blood Meridian - Excerpt
"The severed heads had been raised on poles above the lampstandards where they now contemplated with their caved and pagan eyes the dry hides of their kinsmen and forebears strung across the stones facade of the cathedral and clacking lightly in the wind. Later when the lamps were lit the heads in the soft glare of the up-light assumed the look of tragic masks and within a few days they would become mottled white and altogether leprous with the droppings of the birds that roosted upon them."
This is a fairly detailed description of a scene, and i have obviously omitted a lot of information in my depiction of it, but I think it still works pretty well. I have been chiefly concerned with trying to capture the atmosphere and mood of McCarthy's writing rather than trying to create detailed representations of everything being described. I think what I have created here is effective in communicating the sadness and darkness of the book, and this excerpt specifically, in the crude, almost primitive delineation of the subjects and the way oil pastel smudges together into eerie polluted colours.
In fact, I think the oil pastels work so well in responding to the writing (or at least my impression of it) in 'Blood Meridian' that I think I will continue experimenting with them, but perhaps in a more abstract or symbolic way. Given the fact that the book seems essentially concerned with man's capability for violence, and subsequent ability to become almost completely detached from it (as in the case of the protagonists), I think creating images with a more aggressive, primitive visual aesthetic might work well in communicating this.
Wednesday, 23 August 2017
Blood Meridian - Excerpt
"Some man's heart, dried and blackened. He passed it back and the old man cradled it in his palm as if he'd weigh it."
I made a quick sketch of this excerpt because I thought it could potentially make for quite a powerful image. I've only really scratched the surface here and have made quite a literal interpretation. I'm not massively happy with it but think I could think of it more as a rough and maybe make a painting of it or something a bit more developed. As well as some other representations of the scene (close ups, more abstract depictions etc.)
Thursday, 17 August 2017
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West
I've read 'No Country For Old Men' and 'The Road' before and remember really enjoying both so I thought I'd pick Cormac McCarthy as a third author to investigate a bit, but would read one of his books I hadn't read before. I landed on 'Blood Meridian' and am glad I did. It's one of the strangest books I think I've ever read and the writing is incredible.
McCarthy seems to have this penchant for marrying together extreme violence with sort of pseudo - philosophical musings, at least in the books I've read anyway, and 'Blood Meridian' seems to provide this incongruous partnership in its most extreme form. Most notably within the character of Judge Holden, a very odd character who seems to me to be predominantly symbolic due to his bazaar physical appearance, superior intelligence and incredible skill in every field. As well as his huge capacity for evil. I've had a go at drawing him a few times. He is described as being around 7ft tall, quite fat/round and being completely hairless with very pale, almost white skin. He is also described as having oddly childish features (e.g. small nose, ears, hands etc.)
This is just a quick drawing I made of him with sharpie marker but I think it's pretty good and despite having done more developed depictions of him since this one I think this has the best facial expression and appears the most as i picture him in my head.
I was also pretty happy with this acrylic paint and oil pastel rendition, it's much more atmospheric and gets across the general mood of the book more than the sharpie version, although I didn't get as much expression into the face as might be necessary to fully describe his character. He is often described as being naked or topless so this picture depicting his whole figure (sat with his hands on his knees as he is described as doing a lot of the time) is also a bit more all encompassing.
This depiction might be favourite. It translates his violent, sinister character and the general atmosphere of the book well and also allowed for some more expression in the face. I tried to use a lot of red and dirty colours to communicate the semantics of violence which surround him, but this might have obscured the fact that he has incredibly pale, white skin a bit. This is my only real problem with it.
After reading 'Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West' I have decided I'm going to study Cormac mcCarthy for this brief. Reading his work inspires me in a much more instinctual way than the other authors I researched. I got bored of trying to create work in relation to Poe and Kafka pretty soon but still feel motivated to create all kinds of different things related to McCarthy and haven't had any trouble with ideas. The way he writes gives me visual ideas without me even having to try really and despite having only read one book recently, I've been able to get a lot out of it and feel like there's still a load more left in the tank.
McCarthy seems to have this penchant for marrying together extreme violence with sort of pseudo - philosophical musings, at least in the books I've read anyway, and 'Blood Meridian' seems to provide this incongruous partnership in its most extreme form. Most notably within the character of Judge Holden, a very odd character who seems to me to be predominantly symbolic due to his bazaar physical appearance, superior intelligence and incredible skill in every field. As well as his huge capacity for evil. I've had a go at drawing him a few times. He is described as being around 7ft tall, quite fat/round and being completely hairless with very pale, almost white skin. He is also described as having oddly childish features (e.g. small nose, ears, hands etc.)
This is just a quick drawing I made of him with sharpie marker but I think it's pretty good and despite having done more developed depictions of him since this one I think this has the best facial expression and appears the most as i picture him in my head.
I was also pretty happy with this acrylic paint and oil pastel rendition, it's much more atmospheric and gets across the general mood of the book more than the sharpie version, although I didn't get as much expression into the face as might be necessary to fully describe his character. He is often described as being naked or topless so this picture depicting his whole figure (sat with his hands on his knees as he is described as doing a lot of the time) is also a bit more all encompassing.
This depiction might be favourite. It translates his violent, sinister character and the general atmosphere of the book well and also allowed for some more expression in the face. I tried to use a lot of red and dirty colours to communicate the semantics of violence which surround him, but this might have obscured the fact that he has incredibly pale, white skin a bit. This is my only real problem with it.
After reading 'Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West' I have decided I'm going to study Cormac mcCarthy for this brief. Reading his work inspires me in a much more instinctual way than the other authors I researched. I got bored of trying to create work in relation to Poe and Kafka pretty soon but still feel motivated to create all kinds of different things related to McCarthy and haven't had any trouble with ideas. The way he writes gives me visual ideas without me even having to try really and despite having only read one book recently, I've been able to get a lot out of it and feel like there's still a load more left in the tank.
Sunday, 13 August 2017
Cormac McCarthy - Bit Of Research
Quotes
“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” (No Country For Old Men)
“Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.” (Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West)
“There is no God and we are his prophets.” (The Road)
"They rode in a narrow enfilade along a trail strewn with the dry round turds of goats and they rode with their faces averted from the rock wall and the bake-oven air which it rebated, the slant black shapes of the mounted men stenciled across the stone with a definition austere and implacable like shapes capable of violating their covenant with the flesh that authored them and continuing autonomous across the naked rock without reference to sun or man or god." (Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West)
"They crossed before the sun and vanished one by one and reappeared again and they were black in the sun and they rode out of that vanished sea like burnt phantoms with the legs of the animals kicking up the spume that was not real and they were lost in the sun and lost in the lake and they shimmered and slurred together and separated again and they augmented by planes in lurid avatars and began to coalesce and there began to appear above them in the dawn-broached sky a hellish likeness of their ranks riding huge and inverted and the horses' legs incredibly elongate trampling down the high thin cirrus and the howling antiwarriors pendant from their mounts immense and chimeric and the high wild cries carrying that flat and barren pan like the cries of souls broke through some misweave in the weft of things into the world below." (Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West)
“You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday don't count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else.” (No Country For Old Men)
Motifs
Violence
Religion/faith
Death
Morality/Immorality
Existentialism
Info
In one of his few interviews (with The New York Times), McCarthy revealed that he respects only authors who "deal with issues of life and death," citing Henry James and Marcel Proust as examples of writers who do not rate with him. "I don't understand them ... To me, that's not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange", he said.
Cormac used the same typewriter for almost 5o years. He used his Olivetti Lettera 32 to write nearly all of his fiction, screenplays, and correspondence from 1960 to 2009. In 2009 the typewriter was auctioned by Christies to benefit the Santa Fe Institute and sold to an unidentified American collector for $254,500, more than 10 times its estimate.
Maintenance of the typewriter consisted of "blowing out the dust with a service station hose".
His first ever televised interview after a career spanning nearly four decades, occurred in 2007 with a chinwag with Oprah. His first words were about his general shunning of the media spotlight: “I don’t think it’s good for your head – if you spend a lot of time writing about a book, you probably shouldn’t be talking about it, you should be doing it.”
'
'The Road' was born from a specific moment. In roughly 2002, Cormac and his young son, John, went to El Paso and checked into an old hotel. One night at about 2am, as John slept, Cormac went over to the window and looked out over the town. Nothing moved, but he could hear trains and described it as "a very lonesome sound". He had an image of what the town might look like in 100 years. "I thought a lot about my little boy and I wrote [some] pages... About four years later I woke up in Ireland and realised it wasn't two pages of a notebook, it was a book. And it was about that man and that little boy." The book is dedicated to his son John.
McCarthy told Oprah that he prefers "simple declarative sentences" and that he uses capital letters, periods, an occasional comma, a colon for setting off a list, but "never a semicolon." He does not use quotation marks for dialogue and believes there is no reason to "blot the page up with weird little marks."
“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” (No Country For Old Men)
“Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.” (Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West)
“There is no God and we are his prophets.” (The Road)
"They rode in a narrow enfilade along a trail strewn with the dry round turds of goats and they rode with their faces averted from the rock wall and the bake-oven air which it rebated, the slant black shapes of the mounted men stenciled across the stone with a definition austere and implacable like shapes capable of violating their covenant with the flesh that authored them and continuing autonomous across the naked rock without reference to sun or man or god." (Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West)
"They crossed before the sun and vanished one by one and reappeared again and they were black in the sun and they rode out of that vanished sea like burnt phantoms with the legs of the animals kicking up the spume that was not real and they were lost in the sun and lost in the lake and they shimmered and slurred together and separated again and they augmented by planes in lurid avatars and began to coalesce and there began to appear above them in the dawn-broached sky a hellish likeness of their ranks riding huge and inverted and the horses' legs incredibly elongate trampling down the high thin cirrus and the howling antiwarriors pendant from their mounts immense and chimeric and the high wild cries carrying that flat and barren pan like the cries of souls broke through some misweave in the weft of things into the world below." (Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West)
“You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday don't count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else.” (No Country For Old Men)
Motifs
Violence
Religion/faith
Death
Morality/Immorality
Existentialism
Info
In one of his few interviews (with The New York Times), McCarthy revealed that he respects only authors who "deal with issues of life and death," citing Henry James and Marcel Proust as examples of writers who do not rate with him. "I don't understand them ... To me, that's not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange", he said.
Cormac used the same typewriter for almost 5o years. He used his Olivetti Lettera 32 to write nearly all of his fiction, screenplays, and correspondence from 1960 to 2009. In 2009 the typewriter was auctioned by Christies to benefit the Santa Fe Institute and sold to an unidentified American collector for $254,500, more than 10 times its estimate.
Maintenance of the typewriter consisted of "blowing out the dust with a service station hose".
His first ever televised interview after a career spanning nearly four decades, occurred in 2007 with a chinwag with Oprah. His first words were about his general shunning of the media spotlight: “I don’t think it’s good for your head – if you spend a lot of time writing about a book, you probably shouldn’t be talking about it, you should be doing it.”
'
'The Road' was born from a specific moment. In roughly 2002, Cormac and his young son, John, went to El Paso and checked into an old hotel. One night at about 2am, as John slept, Cormac went over to the window and looked out over the town. Nothing moved, but he could hear trains and described it as "a very lonesome sound". He had an image of what the town might look like in 100 years. "I thought a lot about my little boy and I wrote [some] pages... About four years later I woke up in Ireland and realised it wasn't two pages of a notebook, it was a book. And it was about that man and that little boy." The book is dedicated to his son John.
McCarthy told Oprah that he prefers "simple declarative sentences" and that he uses capital letters, periods, an occasional comma, a colon for setting off a list, but "never a semicolon." He does not use quotation marks for dialogue and believes there is no reason to "blot the page up with weird little marks."
Saturday, 12 August 2017
Edgar Allen Poe - Reading Research
I got quite into Edgar Allen Poe's work and have read a fair few of the short stories (although not any of the poems), my favourites being 'The Pit and The Pendulum' , 'The Man Who Was Used Up', 'The Fall Of The House Of Usher', 'The Tell Tale Heart' and 'Ligeia'. I am interested in things which are strange or uncanny and Edgar Allen Poe's work seems to be chiefly concerned with exactly that, he describes the feeling of being horrified or disturbed by something in such an intense way, which, whilst occasionally bordering on hammy, I usually find very convincing.
This is a painting I made depicting part of the opening of 'The Pit and The Pendulum' which I am very happy with. The excerpt I used was as follows:
“I saw the lips of the black robed judges. They appeared to me white – whiter than the sheet upon which I trace these words – and thin even to grotesqueness; thin with the intensity of their expression of firmness – of immovable resolution -of stern contempt of human torture. I saw that the decrees of what to me was fate, were still issuing from those lips. I saw them writhe with a deadly locution. I saw them fashion the syllables of my name; and I shuddered because no sound succeeded."
I had only just started trying to paint recently when I made this and it turned out better than I expected, i think I captured the mood well by boiling the image down to the most essential representation of what was being described.
This an oil pastel piece I made in response to 'The Man Who Was Used Up', in which the narrator describes meeting an enigmatic war hero named John A.B.C, but hasn't heard how it was he became a war hero and becomes obsessed with finding out how it happened only for whomever he asks to be interrupted at the crucial point in the story every time he gets close. He finally meets the man himself again with intention of finally finding out and discovers that during a battle he lost most of his body parts and has to be pretty much completely assembled from prosthetic parts. I attempted to render this in oil pastel and i quite like it but not nearly as much as with the piece, for which I had a clearer vision. For this piece i think I relied too much on the media i was using and expected that to do more me than it actually ended up doing.
For some reason I stopped making work in response to Poe and just sort of trailed off, losing interest. I've taken this as a sign, even though I thought for a while that I might end choosing him, that I wouldn't want to be making work in response to his writing for a long time.
This is a painting I made depicting part of the opening of 'The Pit and The Pendulum' which I am very happy with. The excerpt I used was as follows:
“I saw the lips of the black robed judges. They appeared to me white – whiter than the sheet upon which I trace these words – and thin even to grotesqueness; thin with the intensity of their expression of firmness – of immovable resolution -of stern contempt of human torture. I saw that the decrees of what to me was fate, were still issuing from those lips. I saw them writhe with a deadly locution. I saw them fashion the syllables of my name; and I shuddered because no sound succeeded."
I had only just started trying to paint recently when I made this and it turned out better than I expected, i think I captured the mood well by boiling the image down to the most essential representation of what was being described.
This an oil pastel piece I made in response to 'The Man Who Was Used Up', in which the narrator describes meeting an enigmatic war hero named John A.B.C, but hasn't heard how it was he became a war hero and becomes obsessed with finding out how it happened only for whomever he asks to be interrupted at the crucial point in the story every time he gets close. He finally meets the man himself again with intention of finally finding out and discovers that during a battle he lost most of his body parts and has to be pretty much completely assembled from prosthetic parts. I attempted to render this in oil pastel and i quite like it but not nearly as much as with the piece, for which I had a clearer vision. For this piece i think I relied too much on the media i was using and expected that to do more me than it actually ended up doing.
For some reason I stopped making work in response to Poe and just sort of trailed off, losing interest. I've taken this as a sign, even though I thought for a while that I might end choosing him, that I wouldn't want to be making work in response to his writing for a long time.
Wednesday, 9 August 2017
Franz Kafka - Reading Research
I initially thought Franz Kafka would be a good person for me to respond to, as my creative interests are geared more towards strange and surreal events or scenarios, (incongruity in particular is something I always enjoy in art, films, music or whatever) and this was my understanding of Kafka's work. Sort of absurd musings on existentialism, often accompanied by a very dark sense of humour which underpins the experiences of the helpless characters who attempt to navigate the cruel world he has created for them. After reading through some of his work however I have mixed feelings. It didn't leave as much of an impression on me as I thought it might.
I read 'Metamorphosis', seeming like the obvious starting point, and did actually enjoy that quite a lot. It certainly gave me some vivid visual ideas and got me thinking about how I might make work in response to it without me having to force it on myself.
I was quite happy with this painting/pencil thing I did. It's obviously pretty literal and doesn't go very far in terms of tackling any of themes of the story in great detail, but as a first response, with the main function of just getting me into the swing of things, I'm happy with it. I think the colours and textures work well to evoke the atmosphere of the story and it's protagonist.
This second painting I did I was less happy with, but it does address something which literally happens in the story quite a bit. Once he has transformed, Gregor Samza hides under his old bed whenever his sister enters the room to leave him food. I used some toilet role to construct the duvet and give it a bit more of a three dimensional, visceral quality, which hasn't really come through in the photo above because of the way the light was hitting it when I tried to photograph it, which worked a bit but didn't make as dramatic a difference as I would have liked. I'm not really too sure about the colours in this one either.
After 'Metamorphosis' I read three more short stories, 'The Great Wall of China', 'Investigations of a Dog' and 'In The Penal Colony'. both 'The Great Wall of China' and 'Investigations of a Dog' I found to be rather tedious, and difficult to access. I found it very hard to stay interested in either of them and unclear what ideas they were trying to express. 'In the Penal Colony', I have to say I did enjoy, but overall, not enough for me to really be sure I would want to choose Franz Kafka as my subject for this project. This is also evidenced by the fact that I stopped making work in response to his writing so quickly because I couldn't get inspired by it.
It seems to me that to truly understand and ultimately appreciate his work, one would have to read and re-read and really interrogate it from many angles and, unfortunately, his writing doesn't excite me consistently enough for me to want to invest the amount of effort it would take for me to get anything in return from it. I think I would end up very frustrated and wouldn't really be able to do justice to his ideas.
I read 'Metamorphosis', seeming like the obvious starting point, and did actually enjoy that quite a lot. It certainly gave me some vivid visual ideas and got me thinking about how I might make work in response to it without me having to force it on myself.
I was quite happy with this painting/pencil thing I did. It's obviously pretty literal and doesn't go very far in terms of tackling any of themes of the story in great detail, but as a first response, with the main function of just getting me into the swing of things, I'm happy with it. I think the colours and textures work well to evoke the atmosphere of the story and it's protagonist.
This second painting I did I was less happy with, but it does address something which literally happens in the story quite a bit. Once he has transformed, Gregor Samza hides under his old bed whenever his sister enters the room to leave him food. I used some toilet role to construct the duvet and give it a bit more of a three dimensional, visceral quality, which hasn't really come through in the photo above because of the way the light was hitting it when I tried to photograph it, which worked a bit but didn't make as dramatic a difference as I would have liked. I'm not really too sure about the colours in this one either.
After 'Metamorphosis' I read three more short stories, 'The Great Wall of China', 'Investigations of a Dog' and 'In The Penal Colony'. both 'The Great Wall of China' and 'Investigations of a Dog' I found to be rather tedious, and difficult to access. I found it very hard to stay interested in either of them and unclear what ideas they were trying to express. 'In the Penal Colony', I have to say I did enjoy, but overall, not enough for me to really be sure I would want to choose Franz Kafka as my subject for this project. This is also evidenced by the fact that I stopped making work in response to his writing so quickly because I couldn't get inspired by it.
It seems to me that to truly understand and ultimately appreciate his work, one would have to read and re-read and really interrogate it from many angles and, unfortunately, his writing doesn't excite me consistently enough for me to want to invest the amount of effort it would take for me to get anything in return from it. I think I would end up very frustrated and wouldn't really be able to do justice to his ideas.
Friday, 4 August 2017
Edgar Allen Poe - Bit Of Research
Edgar Allen Poe
quotes
“The true genius shudders at incompleteness - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.”
“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.”
“Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'”
“TRUE! – nervous -very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses – not destroyed -not dulled them. Above all was my sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?”
“I saw the lips of the black robed judges. They appeared to me white – whiter than the sheet upon which I trace these words – and thin even to grotesqueness; thin with the intensity of their expression of firmness – of immovable resolution -of stern contempt of human torture. I saw that the decrees of what to me was fate, were still issuing from those lips. I saw them writhe with a deadly locution. I saw them fashion the syllables of my name; and I shuddered because no sound succeeded. “
about
“On October 3, 1849, Poe was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance", according to Joseph W. Walker who found him. He was taken to the Washington Medical College where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849 at 5:00 in the morning. Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition and, oddly, was wearing clothes that were not his own. He is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though it is unclear to whom he was referring. Some sources say that Poe's final words were "Lord help my poor soul". All medical records have been lost, including his death certificate.”
“He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.”
“A central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American literature as a whole.”
“One of the country's (America) earliest practitioners of the short story.”
“Poe is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction.”
Born in Boston, orphaned and raised in Richmond Virginia by John and Francis Allen. Later fell out with John over gambling debts.
Motifs
Madness
Death
Darkness
Animals
Fear
Supernatural
The Uncanny
The Other
Gothicism
Self
Tuesday, 1 August 2017
Franz Kafka - Bit Of Research
Quotes
“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.” (metamorphosis)
“And he lay there quietly a while longer, breathing lightly as if he perhaps expected the total stillness to bring things back to their real and natural state.” (metamorphosis)
“You've seen yourself how difficult the writing is to decipher with your eyes, but our man deciphers it with his wounds.” (in the penal colony)
“Many questions were troubling the explorer, but at the sight of the prisoner he asked only:
"Does he know his sentence?" "No," said the officer, eager to go on with his exposition, but the explorer interrupted him: "He doesn't know the sentence that has been passed on him?" "No," said the officer again, pausing a moment as if to let the explorer elaborate his question, and then said: "There would be no point in telling him. He'll learn it on his body.” (in the penal colony)
“They're talking about things of which they don't have the slightest understanding, anyway. It's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of themselves.” (the trial)
“The meaning of life is that it stops.”
Motifs
Irony
Existentialism
Absurdity
Alienation
Bureaucracy
Identity
About
“In the style of many an enigmatic literary figure (like Emily Dickinson), Kafka requested that upon his death his unpublished writings be burned unread. Luckily for us, his executor and close friend Max Brod ignored his request, giving the world The Trial and other Kafka classics in the process.”
“Though recent biographers have sought to downplay the commonly held idea that Kafka himself was very much a Gregor Samsa-like character, the young-man-turned-insect of literary fame did live in an apartment that was identical in layout to Kafka’s own.”
“Though Kafka famously couldn’t lie, cheating apparently relied on a different skill set. Along with a group of other students, Kafka was involved in bribing his Greek professor’s house keeper into stealing a copy of the test from his desk. The whole group obviously passed with flying colors (with some of the weaker students making intentional mistakes to keep up the ruse), and their teacher was awarded a commendation as a result.”
“At the end of his first year of studies, Kafka met Max Brod, a fellow law student who became a close friend for life. Brod soon noticed that, although Kafka was shy and seldom spoke, what he said was usually profound.”
“Kafka feared that people would find him mentally and physically repulsive. However, those who met him found him to possess a quiet and cool demeanour, obvious intelligence, and a dry sense of humour; they also found him boyishly handsome, although of austere appearance.”
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