These are four short stories from an upcoming publication of previously untranslated works of Franz Kafka. The stories are a good read if you like short pieces.
Ah, The Castle has been a favorite of mine since I was in high school despite it being unfinished. The shorter works are something I only started to enjoy about ten years ago. I have really enjoyed rediscovering the magic of Kafka through his shorter works so I’m really interested in these!
I’m also a big “streaming Kafka” fan, so this post was win-win for me
For anyone that doesn’t quite ‘get’ Kafka: I recommend his short stories and aphorisms over his novels. Metamorphosis and The Castle never quite did much for me, whereas The Great Wall of China or In the Penal Colony are some of my favorites.
Those are two of my favorites also, especially "In the Penal Colony." For anyone looking for more, I would add "The Burrow" as great introduction to the weirdness of Kafka as well.
I've read Metamorphosis many times over the years, and I've come to the conclusion that it's a very subtle dark comedy. But of all the punchlines, including the ending, are (for lack of a better term) situational. I can't explain further without spoilers, so HN might not be the right format for it.
Hacker News, the only place in the world where you’re equally likely to encounter articles about Kafka, the brilliantly paranoid Bohemian writer, and Kafka, the data streaming platform.
I couldn’t tell which one this was until I opened it up.
One could look at the website name. Usually it helps to guess before you open it. For example, the likelihood of Newyorker writing an article on an open-source stream-processing software is low.
New Directions is publishing a collection that has some ‘fragments’ that slipped through the cracks in English anthologies - this is one of them. Hard to believe it could happen, given how many of his novels are painstakingly assembled fragments.
Really hard to read Kafka, frankly, but I love the major stories of his ("The Trial", "Metamorphosis", etc) and his many short stories so much that I've been trying to learn German (and French, though not necessarily at the same time) over the last year and a half. What I've learned is that I can quite easily pick up meaning and basically understand German when I hear it, about the same when I read it, but I still can't speak it at all - at least not conversationally. I could get around Germany in an emergency if I ran into any Germans that don't actually speak English, which I understand to be a rare occurrence, but that's not really the point.
I think I've discovered I need to be way, way more fluent in German than I expected to be able to read and enjoy (such as you can) Kafka, and I've decided I probably need to live abroad for several years to achieve this goal. Of course, it would be kind of crazy (but not necessarily Kafkaesque) to live in a foreign country for several years just so you could understand one of its authors in his original language. German was of course not his real original language, but you get my point.
Don't forget, there are tons of other amazing German authors, just to name a few: Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Schiller, Goethe...
I think German literature is to this day still probably the best in the world.
I also find Math in German way easier and more beautiful than in English. If "clean code" was a thing for languages, German grammar would seem to me to be one of the cleanest.
As a near-native English speaker, I took German in various degrees from middle school to college. Along the way, I peppered it with French and Spanish.
I was terrible with the romance languages, like nearly failed. Oral, written, reading, you name it. Just terrible all around. Couldn't get it. I'd freeze when trying to construct a sentence orally.
German, on the other hand, I found to be pretty easy. Being the parent of English, the grammar is essentially the same. I'm the kind of person that needs to know the rules before I jump in, so nailing the grammar is essential. Immersion programs like Rosetta Stone requires a leap of faith, which frankly scares me.
The vocabulary and verb conjugations were hard, but that was mainly a matter of straight memorization. The pronunciation is very consistent - way more consistent than English. Learning German actually helped me understand English more.
Not to discourage you from a Sprachaufenthalt (ganz im gegenteil), but you can prepare for one by following germanophone papers. (which have the advantage that you've probably read many stories in your native tongue beforehand ... also one can start small by just picking out nouns at first, which won't the case for latin-1, but is very useful when learning a new script)
> Germans liked things done in an official and formal manner, even in the midst of chaos, catastrophe and defeat. The Allies obliged, and gave the Germans various forms of very official-looking "surrender passes," ...
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/images/p4.jpg
> The Americans and British dropped leaflets on Berlin ... [with] key numbers in the corners, showing to which series they belonged ... Nazi authorities [sent] Hitlerjugend and Hitlermädel out to pick up the leaflets and turn them in for destruction. ... What the Nazis discovered—too late, too late—was that the schoolchildren had begun collecting the leaflets, using the key numbers to make up perfect sets. Some numbers were rarer than others, so that the Hitlerite children swapped Allied leaflets all over Berlin, trying to make up attractive albums. Mother and Father—who did not dare pick the leaflets up off the street for fear the Gestapo might be watching—found a convenient file, reasonably complete, in the room of little Fritzl or Ermintrude!
Undoubtedly not just a loose file, but neatly punched in a two-ring binder. When Oceania starts to always have been at war with Eurasia (that is, if they read their own books, which Dr. Linebarger doubts), they'll have to make up propaganda sets in the form of Panini cards.
Does anyone know if the story is available online in German or what the original German title is. Weiß einer ob die Kurzgeschichte im deutschen Originell online erhæltlich ist oder wie die Titel auf deutsch heißt?
"Alas," said the mouse, "the world gets smaller every day. At first it was so wide that I ran along and was happy to see walls appearing to my right and left, but these high walls converged so quickly that I’m already in the last room, and there in the corner is the trap into which I must run."
"But you’ve only got to run the other way," said the cat, and ate it.
Kafka is a comic writer, of course. I think Brod (his friend and editor, and the man who refused his wish to burn his writings after he died) says somewhere that when Kafka used to read his pieces out loud to friends he would sometimes laugh so hard he couldn't continue.
[+] [-] slowmovintarget|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] craigching|5 years ago|reply
I’m also a big “streaming Kafka” fan, so this post was win-win for me
[+] [-] ceilingcorner|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] telesilla|5 years ago|reply
http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~raha/793CA_web/PenalColony.pdf
[+] [-] plants|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jwigg|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tutuca|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greyswan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scrozier|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Celeo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] libraryofbabel|5 years ago|reply
I couldn’t tell which one this was until I opened it up.
[+] [-] hypewatch|5 years ago|reply
> Jay Kreps chose to name the software after the author Franz Kafka because it is "a system optimized for writing", and he liked Kafka's work.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Kafka
[+] [-] canjobear|5 years ago|reply
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[deleted]
[+] [-] estensen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hannofcart|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] melling|5 years ago|reply
That alone will tell you which one.
[+] [-] aerovistae|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kickscondor|5 years ago|reply
https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/franz-k...
[+] [-] remarkEon|5 years ago|reply
I think I've discovered I need to be way, way more fluent in German than I expected to be able to read and enjoy (such as you can) Kafka, and I've decided I probably need to live abroad for several years to achieve this goal. Of course, it would be kind of crazy (but not necessarily Kafkaesque) to live in a foreign country for several years just so you could understand one of its authors in his original language. German was of course not his real original language, but you get my point.
[+] [-] tafox|5 years ago|reply
Don't forget, there are tons of other amazing German authors, just to name a few: Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Schiller, Goethe...
I think German literature is to this day still probably the best in the world.
I also find Math in German way easier and more beautiful than in English. If "clean code" was a thing for languages, German grammar would seem to me to be one of the cleanest.
[+] [-] fit2rule|5 years ago|reply
Such life experiences always produce a significant effect on ones life.
Have done it a couple times, by the way ..
[+] [-] snapetom|5 years ago|reply
I was terrible with the romance languages, like nearly failed. Oral, written, reading, you name it. Just terrible all around. Couldn't get it. I'd freeze when trying to construct a sentence orally.
German, on the other hand, I found to be pretty easy. Being the parent of English, the grammar is essentially the same. I'm the kind of person that needs to know the rules before I jump in, so nailing the grammar is essential. Immersion programs like Rosetta Stone requires a leap of faith, which frankly scares me.
The vocabulary and verb conjugations were hard, but that was mainly a matter of straight memorization. The pronunciation is very consistent - way more consistent than English. Learning German actually helped me understand English more.
[+] [-] pvg|5 years ago|reply
Edit: Also, if you want to check out something short, engaging, relevant and easier on the German, give Ödön von Horvát's Jugend ohne Gott a whirl.
[+] [-] kanzenryu2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 082349872349872|5 years ago|reply
(on reading vs speaking: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23582262 )
Not to discourage you from a Sprachaufenthalt (ganz im gegenteil), but you can prepare for one by following germanophone papers. (which have the advantage that you've probably read many stories in your native tongue beforehand ... also one can start small by just picking out nouns at first, which won't the case for latin-1, but is very useful when learning a new script)
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/
https://www.nzz.ch (in Schrifttüütsch, conveniently for you)
I don't normally follow AT, maybe https://kurier.at ?
Hals und Beinbruch!
====
Edit: there are a couple of amusing anecdotes on german culture in http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/48612-h.htm which I find stereotypical to this day:
> Germans liked things done in an official and formal manner, even in the midst of chaos, catastrophe and defeat. The Allies obliged, and gave the Germans various forms of very official-looking "surrender passes," ... http://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/images/p4.jpg
> The Americans and British dropped leaflets on Berlin ... [with] key numbers in the corners, showing to which series they belonged ... Nazi authorities [sent] Hitlerjugend and Hitlermädel out to pick up the leaflets and turn them in for destruction. ... What the Nazis discovered—too late, too late—was that the schoolchildren had begun collecting the leaflets, using the key numbers to make up perfect sets. Some numbers were rarer than others, so that the Hitlerite children swapped Allied leaflets all over Berlin, trying to make up attractive albums. Mother and Father—who did not dare pick the leaflets up off the street for fear the Gestapo might be watching—found a convenient file, reasonably complete, in the room of little Fritzl or Ermintrude!
Undoubtedly not just a loose file, but neatly punched in a two-ring binder. When Oceania starts to always have been at war with Eurasia (that is, if they read their own books, which Dr. Linebarger doubts), they'll have to make up propaganda sets in the form of Panini cards.
[+] [-] lsluckystar7|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] hprotagonist|5 years ago|reply
"But you’ve only got to run the other way," said the cat, and ate it.
Das ist komisch.
[+] [-] dang|5 years ago|reply
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[1]: https://github.com/linkedin/cruise-control
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