Kafkaesque
I recently received a review copy of The Zürau Aphorisms by Franz Kafka. I was a German major in college but hadn't before encountered these elliptical, fragmentary, sometimes surreal, sometimes very plain "aphorisms." I must have read "The Metamorphosis" (the story about the guy who wakes up transformed into bug) a dozen times during high school and college but never heard of these.
They're as fascinating as they are different from one another -- impossible to categorize individually or collectively. Gathered together for the first time in this edition, they were apparently each written on a separate slip of very thin paper (14.5 by 11.5 centimeters) during eight months Kafka spent at his sister's house in the village of Zürau.
Some are pretty near opaque, but here are a few I like:
"The variety of views that one may have, say, of an apple: the view of the small boy who has to crane his neck for a glimpse of the apple on the table, and the view of the master of the house who picks up the apple and hands it to a guest."
"I have never been here before: my breath comes differently, the sun is outshone by a star beside it."
"You can withdraw from the sufferings of the world -- that possibility is open to you and accords with your nature -- but perhaps that withdrawal is the only suffering you might be able to avoid."
They're as fascinating as they are different from one another -- impossible to categorize individually or collectively. Gathered together for the first time in this edition, they were apparently each written on a separate slip of very thin paper (14.5 by 11.5 centimeters) during eight months Kafka spent at his sister's house in the village of Zürau.
Some are pretty near opaque, but here are a few I like:
"The variety of views that one may have, say, of an apple: the view of the small boy who has to crane his neck for a glimpse of the apple on the table, and the view of the master of the house who picks up the apple and hands it to a guest."
"I have never been here before: my breath comes differently, the sun is outshone by a star beside it."
"You can withdraw from the sufferings of the world -- that possibility is open to you and accords with your nature -- but perhaps that withdrawal is the only suffering you might be able to avoid."
posted by Billy at 9:53 PM
6 Comments:
huh? those are quite opaque!
I get an interesting sense of the first and third examples, but the middle one I don't get at all, but then I admit that I had to look up the meaning of aphorism in the first place.
Very few are what one normally thinks of as aphorisms. That's why I put it in quotes. The second one is just a nice image, nice writing, I thought. Akin to a haiku, in my mind.
Have you read Kafka in German? What did you think of this translation?
Just about any Kafka I've read (except for this) has been in the original German, though that was a very, very long time ago.
I haven't read the whole aphorisms book yet, but it seems a pretty good translation. I generally don't like translations from any language -- it usually doesn't feel like I'm reading what the author intended. I've read some excellent translations of Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge) by Stephen Mitchell.
Thanks for the aphorism "You can withdraw from the suffering..." I needed it & you saved me from typing it. That is the only instance of it in google. Although with this I've typed more than I would have if I'd typed the aphorism myself to start with.... Good blog.
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