Kafka: Lost and Found

I can't remember if it was in high school or in a college class on Existential Fiction that I was first introduced to the writings of Franz Kafka via his surreal, symbolic story "Metamorphosis." I still have the book Continental Short Stories on my bookshelf with stories by Sartre, Camus, Lagerkvist, Borges and others which I read at Ohio U. Many of the stories made impressions that remain with me still.

Metamorphosis as literature corresponds to what Dali's The Persistence of Memory is to art. Kafka's novella depicts the anguish a traveling salesman experiences when he awakes to find he has been transformed into a giant insect, detailing the effects of this change on himself and his family.

So, I was in the library today looking for books by Han Kang, the newly minted winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. While scouring the shelves in the vicinity of Kang I found a few Kafka works, incuding a small volume titled The Lost Writings. Translated to English in 2020, the book is a collection of very short entries, from paragraphs to a few pages in length. 

There's no real preface or introduction. Nothing more than a handful of laudatory quotes. One, by Nabokov no less, exclained that "Kafka is the greatest German writer of our time," stating that writers like Thomas Mann and Rilke were dwarfs compared to Kafka. 

Well, that one was a pretty low blow. Who is Nabokov to decide which faces should be on Literature's Mount Rushmore?

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For students of fiction, The Lost Writings is rich with imagery that fires the imagination. Here is an early entry in this collection. 

So, you want to leave me? Well, one decision is as good as another. Where will you go? Where is away-from-me? The moon? Not even that is far enough, and you'll never get there. So why the fuss? Wouldn't you rather sit down in a corner somewhere, quietly? Wouldn't that be an improvement? A warm, dark corner? Aren't you listening? You're feeling for the door. Well, where is it? So far as I remember, this room doesn't have one. At the time this was built, no one had imagined such earth-shattering plans as yours. Well, no matter, a thought like yours won't get lost, we'll discuss it over dinner, and our laughter will be your reward.

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Related Links
A Hunger Artist (story)
The Trial (novel)
The Trial (Film directed by Orson Welles)

Throwback Thursday: Three David Foster Wallace Blog Posts, an Essay and Four Quotes

The very talented DFW. (Photo: Creative Commons 2.0)

In 2016 I got into a Davd Foster Wallace groove after being inspired by his superb Roger Federer essay. Here are three blog posts from 2016, plus a few extras which I will label as icing on the cake. If you don't much care for cake, then call it cheese. 

Thoughts about DFW's last interview, captured in Quack This Way 

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2016/11/quack-this-way-dialogue-on-language-and.html

David Foster Wallace Skewers the Current State of American Literature 

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2016/09/david-foster-wallace-skewers-current.html

 

Magical and the Marvelous: DF Wallace's Roger Federer Essay

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-magical-and-marvelous-df-wallaces.html
The original essay that got me jazzed about DFW: Roger Federer as Religious Experience

DFW QUOTES

The Role of Fiction
I had a teacher I liked who used to say good fiction’s job was to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
--From an Interview by Larry McCaffery

On Psychic Pain
Maybe dullness is associated with psychic pain because something that's dull or opaque fails to provide enough stimulation to distract people from some other, deeper type of pain that is always there, if only in an ambient low-level way, and which most of us spend nearly all our time and energy trying to distract ourselves from feeling, or at least from feeling directly or with our full attention.
--A note from one of Wallace's notebooks

On Thinking
Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot or will not exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about the mind being "an excellent servant but a terrible master."
--A note from one of Wallace's notebooks

On Despair
I felt despair. The word’s overused and banalified now, despair, but it’s a serious word, and I’m using it seriously. For me it denotes a simple admixture — a weird yearning for death combined with a crushing sense of my own smallness and futility that presents as a fear of death. It’s maybe close to what people call dread or angst. But it’s not these things, quite. It’s more like wanting to die in order to escape the unbearable feeling of becoming aware that I’m small and weak and selfish and going without any doubt at all to die. It’s wanting to jump overboard.
--From A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

Tolstoy's The Forged Coupon Details the Interconnectedness of Human Actions

"For want of a nail the shoe lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail."
--Author unknown

Tolstoy's The Forged Coupon planted the seed for my recurring reflections on non-violence as a response to violence. I first read it around 30 years ago and, like all great literature, it made a lasting impression. If you've not read it, here is summary of the story.

The novella explores themes of morality, redemption, and the ripple effects of individual actions on society. The story is divided into two parts, each illustrating the consequences of a single act.

Part One
The story begins with a teenage boy, Mitya, who needs money to pay off a debt. He persuades his friend, Makhin, to help him forge a coupon (a form of a promissory note) to obtain a small sum of money. Mitya cashes the forged coupon at a shop, whuch sets off a chain of events. The shopkeeper, Ivan Mironov, is unable to detect the forgery and uses the coupon to pay a debt to a peasant, who is later arrested for trying to pass the forged coupon. The peasant’s arrest and subsequent treatment by the police and judicial system highlight the injustices within society, a secondary theme in the story. 

The novella itself turns out to be a sequence of stories, much like billiard balls colliding into one another with increasingly unfortunate consequences--theft, betrayal and ultimately murder by a man named Stepan, which becomes a turning point.

Part Two
The focus shifts to the manner in which the forces of good also have influence. Stepan, now in prison, is so weighed down with guilt that he is suicidal. Through another inmate he discovers redemption in Christ and his life is utterly, miraculously changed. His transformation touches others who also choose to break their cycles of violence and wrongdoing, thus illustrating Tolstoy’s belief in the power of forgiveness and moral integrity.

Themes

--Tolstoy examines how a single immoral act can have far-reaching consequences, affecting many lives and perpetuating further wrongdoing.

--The novella critiques the judicial and social systems, highlighting how they often fail to address the root causes of crime and instead exacerbate suffering.

--Despite the darkness of the unfolding events, Tolstoy emphasizes the possibility of redemption through personal transformation and forgiveness.

Why The Forged Coupon speaks to me

There is a sense in which the prison scenes especially resonated with me. While living in Puerto Rico I visited the Bayamon Prison once a week to assist a man who did ministry there. I met at least two murderers whose lives had been profoundly altered by the grace of God, and a number other incarcerated men with transformed hearts. (Tommy, James, Big John, Tony--I remember you all.)

I also witnessed how our actions can make a difference in the lives of others, for good or ill. Tolstoy seems to suggest that this is how the redemption and healing of society will come about, through individuals choosing love over hate, kindness over violence.

It seems that weekly we read about scandals in which government corruption or incompetence wastes hundreds of millions of dollars. "More government programs" is not the solution to what ails us as a society. Change must come through we the people. 

Little things can make big impacts. Or, as Bruce Barton observed, "Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think there are no little things."

 

My Jorge Luis Borges Archives: A Catalog of Links

Dreamtiger

I make no bones about being a major fan of the mind and writings of Jorge Luis Borges. The Argentine writer (1899-1986) is considered one of the most important figures in Spanish literature of the 20th century. A master of the short story, his work is known for its intellectual rigor, its imaginative scope, and its elegant prose.

Borges was born in Buenos Aires into a well-educated and cultured family. His father was a lawyer and his mother was a translator. Educated at home and in Buenos Aires schools, he learned to read and write English at a young age, and he was soon exposed to a wide range of world literature. 

In the 1920s, Borges began to publish his own work. His early writings were influenced by the avant-garde movements of the time, such as Ultraism and Surrealism. However, Borges soon developed his own unique style, which was characterized by its erudition, wit, and metaphysical speculations. And a form of storytelling that has been called Magical Realism.

Here are links to most of my Borges blog posts followed by several short stories of my own, inspired by Borges. Please forgive any redundancies. I had no idea I'd produced this many posts about this man. Explore as far as you like, and if you reach the end perhaps you'll be inspired to enter his own labyrinthine worlds.

The Mind of Borges

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2007/09/mind-of-borges.html

Labyrinths (2)

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2008/01/labyrinths.html

Dream of the Minotaur

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2008/08/dream-of-minotaur.html

Borges and I, Redux

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2009/02/borges-and-i-redux.html

Borges, Revisited

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2010/07/borges-revisited.html

A Yellow Rose

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2011/11/yellow-rose.html

The Poet Declares His Renown

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-poet-declares-his-renown_19.html

Jorge Luis Borges and Other Influences

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2014/09/jorge-luis-borges-and-other-influences.html

“The Watcher” by Borges

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2014/10/a-poem-instead-of-wordless-wednesday_8.html

What is Magical Realism?

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2015/03/what-is-magical-realism.html

The Walter Benjamin Labyrinth Game

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-walter-benjamin-labyrinth-game-with.html

On Exactitude In Science

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2015/10/on-exactitude-in-science-quest-for.html

Seven Really Cool Internet Finds Pertaining to Borges

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2016/07/seven-really-cool-internet-finds.html

Tribute to Borges’ Garden of Forking Paths

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2020/01/tribute-to-borges-garden-of-forking.html

Imaginary Interviews: A Visit with Jorge Luis Borges, the Master of Magical Realism

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2023/08/imaginary-interviews-visit-with-jorge.html

Here are a few of my own stories:

Duel of the Poets

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2008/12/duel-of-poets.html

The Nonsense Room

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2009/10/nonsense-room.html

A Poem About Truth

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-poem-about-truth.html

Golem Terrorists

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2009/09/golem-terrorists.html

Are you a Borges fan? Do you have a favorite book, anecdote or story? Feel free to leave a comment.

On Exactitude In Science: Borges' Pointed Story Is Also Serious Fun

"On Exactitude in Science" is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges that was first published in 1946. I discovered it in a 1971 Fall Winter Antioch Review where it was served up as one of six short literary hors d'oeuvre appetizers. The very first bite ("A Yellow Rose") was so tasty that I have been a Borges fan ever since.

This story is about an empire where the art of cartography has become so exact that maps are made on the same scale as the territory they represent. The story explores the relationship between reality and representation, and the limits of human knowledge.

In the very brief span of 154 words Borges shows how the pursuit of perfection can lead to absurdity. The empire in the story as set for itself the goal of creating a perfect map of its territory, but in doing so, it creates a map that is no longer useful. The outcome is comical. 

On Exactitude in Science
Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions, translated by Andrew Hurley.

In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast Map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography. 
—Suarez Miranda,Viajes devarones prudentes, Libro IV,Cap. XLV, Lerida, 1658

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For what it's worth, I have written a number of blog posts about Borges and his works. You will find links to many of these here. 

Do you have a favorite Borges story? Share it in the comments.

ChatGPT Generates A Poem About Football

Like many if not most kids in high school I was introduced to poetry in one or more of my English classes. I recall, perhaps in my junior year, having to read and study The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I never did get why the word Rhyme was spelled Rime. (Clue: the story involves getting off course and in the vicinity of the South Pole. It was not a typo.)

I think it was while "studying" T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men that I began to take a greater appreciation in poetry. Mr. Harris' English class inspired me even more as he selected lyrics from some of the songs we were listening to; songs by the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and others. 

In one of these classes, if not more, we were giving the task of writing poems ourselves. Though nothing remains of the poems--or stories--I wrote as a teen, I do vividly remember the opening lines of a couple of these. The first was a poem about a street gang called the Tigers. It opened like this:

The Tigers are rough, the Tigers are tough, 
They'll beat you till you've had enough. 

I'm pretty sure I came across it several years later somehow and when I read it I had to laugh. It was so bad. As in poor. 

The opening line to another poem I wrote went something like this:

Yellow walls in yellow room, 

I see no beauty in this wretched place.

The rest is lost but the image I began describing was of an abandoned room at the top of a flight of stairs in an old building, the peeling wallpaper yellowed by age.

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Frankly, I've actually seen some pretty interesting poetry emerge from the last AI program I used (Sudowrite), though the program seemed to rapidly descend to rather dark places at times. Example here: Two Versions of The Comet, Light and Dark

Well, I expected something better from ChatGPT. Then again, maybe the topic I asked it to write a poem about thought the theme too juvenile to be taken seriously. What do you think?

 

Me: Can you write a poem about football?

ChatGPT:

The field is green, the crowd is loud,
The players take the field, proud and proud.

They've trained so hard, for this one game,

To bring their team, eternal fame.

The whistle blows, the ball is kicked,

The players clash, they're all committed.

They fight for yards, they fight for score,

Their hearts are in it, forever more.

With every play, the crowd roars on,

Their team's success, is never gone.

And when the game is finally won,

They'll lift their helmets, to the setting sun.

For football is more than just a sport,

It's a battle fought, with all support.

It brings us together, one and all,

For football, we'll always stand tall.

Now you would think that a machine with super-intelligence would recognize how juvenile this poem is. "For football, we'll always stand tall?" Then again, we all started somewhere, and as these programs learn from their past mistakes it shouldn't be long before.... Wait.

Do you think ChatGPT or another AI can write sonnets like Shakespeare? Will an AI win a Nobel Prize some day?  It's hard to wrap my head around that one. The bigger question is will future readers even know the difference between good and bad literature? 

C'est la vie.

Illustrations by DreamAI

The football theme was selected because I have been watching the NFL playoffs.

History and Literature: Macaulay's Essays On Clive and Hastings

This week our family shared an AirBnB in Milwaukee that is on the National Registry of Historic Places. It's located in the Prospect Avenue Mansions Historic District. For a handful of days we got a sense of how the other half lives. The rooms were spacious, the decor impressive. I began writing this in a study adorned with bookshelves and old books aplenty. The following passage is Page 1 from one of the books I found on a shelf in the "living room" area.  

Initially I was going to make this a trivia game by asking "Who wrote it?" My guess is that most people who read this blog would be left scratching their heads so I'll tell you outright before you lose any sleep trying to figure it out. It's a wonderful bit of prose, informative and inviting.

* * * * *

We have always thought it strange that, while the history of the Spanish empire in America is familiarly known to all the nations of Europe, the great actions of our countrymen in the East should, even among ourselves, excite little interest. Every schoolboy knows who imprisoned Montezuma, and who strangled Atahualpa; but we doubt whether one in ten, even among English gentlemen of highly cultivated minds, can tell who won the battle of Buxar, who perpetrated the massacre of Patna, whether Sujah Dowlah ruled in Oude or in Travancore, or whether Holkar was a Hindoo or a Mussulman. Yet 10 the victories of Cortes were gained over savages who had no letters, who were ignorant of the use of metals, who had not broken in a single animal to labor, who wielded no better weapons than those which could be made out of sticks, flints, and fishbones, who regarded a horse soldier as a monster, half man and half beast, who took a harquebusier for a sorcerer, able to scatter the thunder and lightning of the skies. 

The people of India, when we subdued them, were ten times as numerous as the Americans whom the Spaniards vanquished, and were at the same time quite as highly civilized as the victorious Spaniards. They had reared cities larger and fairer than Saragossa or Toledo, and buildings more beautiful and costly than the cathedral of Seville. They could show bankers richer than the richest firms of Barcelona or Cadiz, viceroys whose splendor far surpassed that of Ferdinand the Catholic, myriads of cavalry and long trains of artillery which would have astonished the Great Captain. It might have been expected that every....

As an opening page it whets the appetite and stimulates the imagination. Alas!

What authors are you reading as you wind up 2022? Yes, I know, there are too many books and so little time. Your schedule is already full? I'm sure that with a little imagination you'll find cracks in your schedule that will enable you to crack open a few more books in 2023, each one a world unto itself. 

If you've  been a regular--or even irregular--reader of this blog, "Thank you." I may slow down here but I will remain committed to make it worth your while to return.

May the coming year find you inwardly richer, wiser and a little more hopeful about the road ahead. 

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In case you missed this, here were the most read stories of 2022 at Ennyman's Territory.

Remembering Phil Fitzpatrick, A Tribute

The world lost a very special human being this weekend. A man with many facets to his life, I got to know Phil through his involvement with Duluth Dylan Fest (DDF). A few years earlier he won the poetry competition at Hibbing's Dylan Days celebration. 

In addition to his career in teaching (Marshall School in Duluth, Mesabi Range College in Virginia), he was a lifelong poet, Dylan fan and author of A Beautiful Friendship: The Joy of Chasing Bogey Golf. and more recently a book of poems called Hawks On High. He's also been a volunteer on the Duluth Dylan Fest Committee this past few years, which is how I came to know him. Modest, considerate, intelligent and a very fine poet, he's a man of considerable accomplishments in his own right. His passion for literature impressed everyone who knew him.

Here are some blog posts I've written about Phil. The first is my overview of a talk Phil gave about Dylan in 2016. The second discusses the 2013 poetry event at DDF.  When Phil performed his Jeremiad in 2017, he showed not only his literary mastery but his skill as an orator as well. The last two links take you to his last completed project inspired by his activities on Hawk Ridge. 

Phil Fitzpatrick's Dylan Hour (Plus Fitz's Fave Fives)

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2016/09/phil-fitzpatricks-dylan-hour-plus-fitzs.html 

Poets Gather To Celebrate The Bard During North Country Dylan Week

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2013/05/poets-gather-to-celebrate-bard-during.html

Jeremiad: A Triptych, by Phil Fitzpatrick and a Heads Up About Wednesday's Dylan Fest Poetry Event
https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2017/05/jeremiad-triptych-by-phil-fitzpatrick.html

Phil Fitzpatrick Talks About His New Book of Poems, Hawks on High: Everyday Miracles in a Hawk Ridge Season
https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2019/09/phill-fitzpatrick-talks-about-his-new.html

Spirits Lifted at the Hawks On High Book Launch
https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2019/09/spirits-lifted-at-hawks-on-high-book.html

I'm grateful for the hours we spent together over the years. I'm certain that the friends from all his various chapters of his life feel the same gratitude. He is no doubt soaring with the raptors now.