Franz Kafka - In The Penal Colony BOOK REVIEW

it's one of the most pleasantly demented things I've ever read good morning everyone welcome the better than food global views I'm your host Clifford Lee Sargent good to see you hope you're all doing very well excuse the draft background still unpacking all this stuff got to get some bookshelves going on here anybody has any good ideas for like DIY bookshelves or something interesting that it's kind of cost-effective but would you know make a good background hit me up and meantime this reviews for Ricky and banana which Ricky and banana which from Twitter I hope that's his real name he requested in the penal colony by Kafka many people requested kotka many people have been requesting Kafka since the beginning of the show and he is very overdue so finally finally let's talk about a Kaka short story for those of you who haven't had the pleasure rather than reviewing one of the stories you've no doubt heard about relentlessly the trial the metamorphosis I'd wager this is just a good introduction I feel and a quick read an example par excellence of the cop cask nightmare you can find in the penal colony well you can probably find the PDF online or you can find it in the complete story of which there are several translations I'm not sure which is the best this was won by Villa or Willa and Edmund Muir and the other one was by yoking New Rochelle which she's one of my favorite translators I gotta gotta get that I've made the sweeping generalization before that many of the greatest authors have dad issues but no other author may have more documented difficulties with their father than Franz Kafka though I'm going to touch on that in this review of course because it's sort of it's pervasive and inescapable and I'm uncomfortable just reducing him to you know that author who had problems with his dad nobody wants to just be remembered for that so when I review more of him in the feature we'll go a little bit deeper into that though it is of course a giant component if not the iconic element of his work as you'll find themes of authority crippling guilt and Punishment pervasive in all of his stories but if you research a little bit and watch like this documentary with the British author and khakha fan will self he touches on that notion that of course there was much more to the man than this all-consuming paralyzing insecurity apparently a person he was extremely funny and this definitely comes out in a lot of his writing even in translation even this short story which is dark as hell has these moments of brilliant humor that being said Kafka who was from Prague was known for having a lifelong terror of his father stemming from a feeling this feeling of inadequacy growing up in his shadow and never receiving approval instead of being a writer he studied as a lawyer and worked in insurance by many accounts tadka had a short stressful life and famously ordered all of his work to be destroyed after his death this order was disobeyed and not long after his departure he was considered a magnificent writer one of the most influential horrific arbitrary judgment is a constant in his novel says Alamut own the school of life segment on Kafka and this short story is one of the best examples of that in the penal colony was written in 1914 and published in 1919 this was around the time of World War 1 which of course like it's documented graphically in storm of Steel saw a massive increase in technology designed to slaughter machinery that was created with the intent of tearing apart human flesh which is exactly the intention of the central apparatus we were introduced to in Kafka a short story it's a remarkable piece of apparatus said the officer to the Explorer and surveying with a certain air of admiration the apparatus which was after all quite familiar to him Kafka has brilliantly set up a whole idea the very first line in the Wikipedia article on the short story there was a mention that octave near both the torture garden may have been an influence on this to me personally cause it's much more humorous in tone while here Bo luxuriously meditates on aesthetic and the juxtapositions of beauty violence and suffering still amazing book very different though but it's kind of the same sin artist this you know this island this traveler this explorer seeing these these untold horrors you know a judgment violence condemnation all of these themes so a traveler has come to an island to witness the execution of a condemned man who's being held and chained by a soldier it's kind of like a desert island that's just like desert everywhere they're in the sand and conducting the ceremony is this demented officer inspecting this huge execution device and informing the traveler as he does so what's to come this execution device kind of looks like a giant like four-post bed except like it's like as if there was like at this platform for rods another platform held up by them and dangling from the top platform there's all of these needles look like knives you know the idea is the person lies naked on the bottom platform to strap down and these needles and knives they come down and they tattoo this script of judgment on the condemned and they do it for 12 hours until he's dead right inscribed to death one of Kafka's persistent themes is horrific forms of persecution and judgment usually pertaining to individuals who weren't even aware of their crimes you can see that in his most well-known story the metamorphosis where Mr Samsa wakes up to the realization that he's become this hideous vermin and even in this story the condemned men it doesn't even speak the same language as the officer so he's just trying to figure out what the officer is saying to the traveler the entire time he has no idea what's going on and the traveler comes to realize that the condemned man has had no trial there was no you know no chance for him to defend himself the officer is of course in those terrifying character in the story the purest literary expression of a sociopath kind of a scary guy who prioritizes manners and restraint yet acts with total ignorance of either compassion or empathy for him it's not innocent until proven guilty he proudly informs the traveler my guiding principle is this guilt is never to be doubted the obvious message driven home of course of the importance of a solid judicial system based on innocent until proved of guilt the deeper idea explored concerns the compulsion to inflict pain and agony even at the expense of oneself pure evil basic and this is before World War two where many of Kafka's relatives were murdered by the Nazis says the officer regarding the machine of course the script can't be a simple one it's not supposed to kill a man straight off but only after an interval of on an average 12 hours the turning point is reckoned to come at the sixth hour so there have to be lots and lots of flourishes around the actual script the script itself runs around the body only in a narrow girdle the rest of the body is reserved for the embellishments the officer is in love with his own ideals of slow methodical torture taking life from others is what gives his meaning for him it's not whether the condemned man is guilty it's whether or not the machine will be allowed to work its ingenuity and this reminds me of the concept of pure evil which Jordan B Pearson mentioned the idea of pure evil is that in order to be absolutely evil you have to want to do something cruel or inhuman so much that it begins to destroy everything including yourself so that not only are you hurting others but you're hurting yourself in the process they're one to life this is what the officer decides to do when he hears the opinion of the Explorer which of course is not in favor of the apparatus because he's horrified the officer reveals that the new commandant is not a fan of the device and the officer is infatuated with the ways of the old commandant and he gushes over it how we all absorbed the look of Transfiguration on the face of the sufferer how he bathed our cheeks in the radiance of that justice achieved at last and fading so quickly what times these were my comrade the officer had obviously forgotten whom he was addressing he had embraced the Explorer and laid his head on his shoulder the Explorer was deeply embarrassed so it is a little funny more than a little but it's black humor the officer is getting a lot out of this right as you can see he's seduced by the 12 hour torture viewing it as an experience almost of religious martyrdom for the condemned so in order to keep with his idealism and that idea of evil once more after learning of the travelers disapproval and seeing the end of his death machine on the horizon he sacrifices himself he frees the condemned man who is still living and who by now has made friends with the soldier in this odd moment of humor which is in many ways why the story works so well to be completely humorless is to me inhuman and Kafka humors utilizes a counterpoint to the suffering condemnation and horror implied by the rest of the morbid scenario the officer seeks out that which he's witnessed so many times stripping down strapping up and having the script be just written onto his flesh by all the needles however the machine is so broken that it begins to malfunction and instead of writing the beautiful script on the officers skin the machine just began stabbing him without Kafka's with the stories would be infinitely more depressing though this kinetic absurdity creates an unstable unpredictable literary environment it's one of the most pleasantly demented things I've ever read it will take you an hour it's easy better than food you're going to love it always remember life is far too short to refill thank you so much for watching hope you're doing well it was great to see you of course if you want to help the show out you can support a patreon com forward slash for books are better than food get access to the private vlog recommendations of all sorts informational and stuck going on behind the scenes and also this new book club thing where I'm going to announce the book before I review it so y'all can get an early start you can all discuss talk about it make the review better thank you very much for watching I hope you're doing really well have a great night take care ciao

Channel: Better Than Food

Views: 30,606

Keywords: Franz Kafka, In the Penal Colony, Collected Short Stories, The Metamorphosis, world war 2, jewish authors, gregor samza, octave mirbeau, will self, the torture garden

Id: Qb9BR-8T7mo

Length: 10min 8sec (608 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 30 2017