Kafka

05 Mar 2022 11:10 - 10 Jul 2022 10:11
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    • What do I have in common with the Jews? I don't even have anything in common with myself.
    • I think he more than Borges shares the fate Cioran was bemoaning – he's been swamped by his public acclaim, devoured by his own image. He asked his friend Max Brod to destroy his work after his death, but Brod published it instead, so it's an even clearer case. He wanted to disappear, instead he's become an icon of something, part of the structure of feeling, The word "Kafkaesque" has been overused to where its a cringe cliche, and you can see his face all over the tourist t-shirt stalls in Prague.
    • Well, perhaps he'd be relieved then to know that the first result of a google search on Kafka is not him but a piece of software: Apache Kafka. But he's got a way to go before achieving obscurity.
    • I have this weird closeness with him, based only on the fact that my father was also a Prague jew. We share biological and cultural DNA. And I knew one of Max Brod's descendents, so he feels like mishpocha.