It's been a long while since I read The Penal Colony, perhaps more than fifty years ago, and it is a very impressive story that stays with you. About the same time I was reading Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau which is set in Imperial China. According to Mirbeau, the Chinese idea for making an execution more horrible for the condemned was for it to occur in the most beautiful, peaceful setting so the torment would be greater as the sense of loss of life and its beauties would be greater. Interesting ideas. You did a very nice job with your review.
First of all, thank you for the video; it was very much enjoyable. I read this story last night, and the thing that stuck with me was the fact that the officer viewed this machine as some kind of religious belief. He thought that this was the peak of justice and truth and that nothing could be more right than this, and it made me think a lot about how, in real life, people's beliefs, what they think, and what they think is good can be so vastly different from what I think is right or good, or just.
I just read this story for the first time around a month ago, and it's probably my favorite longer Kafka story by a decent margin. The thing that struck me the most was the really fascinating way it levels a criticism at the sort of hierarchy obsessed, Judeo-Christian, fanatical society that defines the term Kafkaesque. The salivating exultation with which the officer describes the machine reminded me of Marmeladov's story from the early bar scene in Crime and Punishment. There is a really fascinating idea buried in this one that Kafka is grappling with about the transcendence of being punished for a crime, as if this is the closest one can get to "god", which does have a particularly Catholic sort of ring to it. I also enjoyed the almost three stooges level slapstick comedy taking place in the background between the guard and the prisoner.
I think the Kafka must have been influenced by nursery rhymes and fairy tales. If we reread the Grimm's Fairy Tales for instance we will see how there is no compunction, no inhibition, about the things that these people have to encounter and endure to arrive at a new state of being or social status, a new level of consciousness. And Kafka is like that. It's as if the whole scenario, the exposition, the characters, the climax, the denouement, the reveal at the end are all the development of a single character, or the dissolution of his character. That's the difference between fairy tales, which tales are about the development of character, and Kafka whose tales exhibit the very complex psychic forces which must break down to destroy the character of a human being. Thanks for this.
Thanks for your comment. I appreciate your reading of Kafka as Fairy tale, more accurately as anti-fairy tale. It helps me to understand Kafka from a little different viewpoint.
I find it perversely funny because the guy is batshit crazy. But all of Kafka is darkly humorous that way, and from friends' reports, he himself thought so too. I think as a Jew in Bohemia, Kafka anticipated the Nazis and their self-righteous sadism: Arbeit Macht Frei
It's been a long while since I read The Penal Colony, perhaps more than fifty years ago, and it is a very impressive story that stays with you. About the same time I was reading Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau which is set in Imperial China. According to Mirbeau, the Chinese idea for making an execution more horrible for the condemned was for it to occur in the most beautiful, peaceful setting so the torment would be greater as the sense of loss of life and its beauties would be greater. Interesting ideas. You did a very nice job with your review.
First of all, thank you for the video; it was very much enjoyable.
I read this story last night, and the thing that stuck with me was the fact that the officer viewed this machine as some kind of religious belief. He thought that this was the peak of justice and truth and that nothing could be more right than this, and it made me think a lot about how, in real life, people's beliefs, what they think, and what they think is good can be so vastly different from what I think is right or good, or just.
I just read this story for the first time around a month ago, and it's probably my favorite longer Kafka story by a decent margin. The thing that struck me the most was the really fascinating way it levels a criticism at the sort of hierarchy obsessed, Judeo-Christian, fanatical society that defines the term Kafkaesque. The salivating exultation with which the officer describes the machine reminded me of Marmeladov's story from the early bar scene in Crime and Punishment. There is a really fascinating idea buried in this one that Kafka is grappling with about the transcendence of being punished for a crime, as if this is the closest one can get to "god", which does have a particularly Catholic sort of ring to it. I also enjoyed the almost three stooges level slapstick comedy taking place in the background between the guard and the prisoner.
I think the Kafka must have been influenced by nursery rhymes and fairy tales. If we reread the Grimm's Fairy Tales for instance we will see how there is no compunction, no inhibition, about the things that these people have to encounter and endure to arrive at a new state of being or social status, a new level of consciousness. And Kafka is like that. It's as if the whole scenario, the exposition, the characters, the climax, the denouement, the reveal at the end are all the development of a single character, or the dissolution of his character. That's the difference between fairy tales, which tales are about the development of character, and Kafka whose tales exhibit the very complex psychic forces which must break down to destroy the character of a human being. Thanks for this.
Thanks for your comment. I appreciate your reading of Kafka as Fairy tale, more accurately as anti-fairy tale. It helps me to understand Kafka from a little different viewpoint.
Love the energy! Great video and review.
I've always liked Kafka.
Hey Matthew, I just got into novels. Really like your channel. Can you maybe recommend some good horror novels which you enjoyed?
I was getting serious Hannibal Lecter vibes. But so Intriguing. Great review.
I find it perversely funny because the guy is batshit crazy. But all of Kafka is darkly humorous that way, and from friends' reports, he himself thought so too. I think as a Jew in Bohemia, Kafka anticipated the Nazis and their self-righteous sadism: Arbeit Macht Frei
Mispronouncing “commandant”