When I first started reading The Metamorphosis, I wasn't sure if I would be able to take it seriously. Its such a bizarre concept, but the novel is written in such a serious tone. After the first sentence, I couldn't tell if Kafka was being serious or not, I could have very easily imagined the story turning out very differently than it did.
I think that by adding such a strange aspect to the story, it makes me look at everything else much more seriously. I think that the relationships and personalities that are present in Gregor's world stand out much more to me since I'm actively trying to not think about the fact that the main character is a gigantic cockroach.
Probably the thing that I find strangest about the writing style is how easily the story could be changed if a few words were changed in each sentence. The tone is very serious, but at the same time, it seems bland. I really don't know exactly how to describe the way that Kafka writes, it is definitely nothing like anything that I've written before, and I think that it would be very easy for another writer to try and pastiche Kafka, but totally ruin it. There's a balance between pure strangeness and dark humor in Kafka's writing. Reading The Metamorphosis almost felt like stepping into a piece of Escher's artwork (for example: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a3/Escher's_Relativity.jpg or http://www.mcescher.com/Shopmain/ShopEU/facsprints-uk/data/1000/11%20Waterfall.jpg), there isn't really an up or down, right or wrong, and the harder you look, the less you understand and the more your head hurts.
2 comments:
Hey Sarah! Those pieces of art are so cool! I love your analogy of reading Kafka as something that gets more difficult the harder you think about it. I definitely felt that way as I was reading, just because everything was so complicated and upsetting and awful that I was completely torn between feelings for characters (hating Grete for expecting Gregor to just leave, but also feeling horrible for her because she's almost in his position at the end of the book) that it did make my head hurt if I thought too hard about things.
Right--in a strange way, the uncomfortable laughter Kafka inspires is actually one of the easier responses to his fictional universe. The laughter is always uncomfortable (as you describe it, it comes in part from the cognitive dissonance--the utter bizarreness married with such a serious tone), but it maybe prevents us from engaging with the more puzzling and paradoxical meanings (which make the head hurt!). It's the most disorienting stuff I know of.
Post a Comment