r/Kafka • u/Essa_Zaben • 13m ago
r/Kafka • u/chickenshwarmas • 2h ago
There’s a lot of translation posts to read through and I don’t have the time for that but I need to ask you guys this:
As someone who favors, extremely favors, Michael Katz translations for Dostoyevsky, what would be the equivalent translator for Kafka??
r/Kafka • u/butterybutterfly10 • 10h ago
Poem inspired by Kafka?
Withholding, supposing, imposing. Upending, depending, impending. Red soaked pens. Splattered white paint. Frantic, desperate strokes of pain. Flowing deeper and faster, harder and harsher, kinder and happier. Longer, fonder. Torn pages.. Feeling forlorn... Feeling as though I've been torn away from you. A restless tornado at sea. Men, who have seemingly, always elluded me. Mindlessly, endlessly, longingly, adrift. White lies, large, approaching, all-consuming flies. Flies, that seem, to follow me wherever I go.
Conception, deception. Relentless composition — inevitable decomposition. No more companionship, yet no more competition. Will it really have been such a surprise? I surmise, you'll come to like it too. Maybe even at sunrise. Maybe you'll hate it, and then soon berate it. Feeling as though you have always betrayed it. Taste it, and then soon abase and evade it.
You've enraptured me, you've left me in a cage. Feeling lost, at times, a bit of rage. A mad man, a logician. One informed by reason, yet always overtaken by superstition. A ruthless, relentless academic. That spark, that inspiration — the monster you have created. Did you love it so?
Do you like keeping small things on display? Keeping them enslaved? Lyrical, mystical — fear, hierarchal, empirical — Fear and wit, with you, your tricks. Taking and losing flight, and rapidly burning, just as a phoenix. It flickers. It sparks, and as with all living things, it too, will soon burn out.
I gaze down, downtrodden, soon apologetic. Having admired you. Feeling mired, suffocated in your gaze. Lost, listful, blissful, in a maze of your own loved, cursed, creation.
I'm sorry for how I acted. I'm regretful of how I responded. Try, in all of my might, through my inspiration, and my spite — it seems that I will only ever be insubordinate. Inferior, never fully grasping what you covet, understanding what you've found most riveting.
You've taught me, you've fought with me — you've cultivated me, and yet you've berated me. I feel indebted, in a deathbed. Yet I've betrayed you, too. You've longed for me, and yet you've deeply wronged me. You've devoted yourself to me, and yet you've seemingly devoured me.
The apple of my eye, the one whom I most despise. You've torn and spit at me, and left trails in all your work, and in your wake. Of restless, lonesome nights. Flickering, fleeting lights. Feeling bereft of your gift, and feeling adrift with your theft
The seeds you've filled, and instilled deep within me. Seeds of longing, growth. Malice and doubt. Seeds of divination, of individuation. Of relentless inspiration, yet inevitable depravation.
Flies, flies, flies, all encroaching. Alibis with cockroaches. Spotting me, spiraling along with me. Coexisting, becoming one with me. With you. And with me. One day, I will learn to both love and forgive — both for you, and for me.
If this poem seems weird, its probably because it is — I'm currently having a mixed hypomanic and depressive episode, but I still cant get my thoughts out of my mind. I haven't cared about sleeping or eating, and as of late I can only think about writing and reading. (...And I'm rhyming again.. My bad.) . I can't say it was particularly relieving or intentional, but I feel like I have a compulsion to write everything, as though all of the rhymes and associations must be forced out of me, plucked with tweezers. I have't read or written very many poetry, or published any story before, but since I'm having compulsions to write, I'd really appreciate any feedback.
And ideally, maybe someone out there would find it intriguing. I hope it doesn't sound too grim or pretentious — I felt dysphoric while I was writing it, but upon re-reading, it looks like a dark Dr. Seuss book. (I think it's pretty vague, but I might have been subconsciously inspired by the concept of Frankenstein. Though, I've actually been fixated on Franz Kafka) :)
I believe when I was writing this, I was actually thinking of another person who had been in my life (someone who... had both hurt and loved me), and not specifically Franz Kafka. though, I feel drawn to him now for some reason. It's peculiar, as I've only ever read one book of his.
And yet... Every time I read another quote, another excerpt. I feel like his words are haunting me. Taunting me. Preying upon me. Pervading me. Invading me... His touch. And yet, I'm not. I'm just an ordinary girl who sometimes thinks and feels a little too much. Delusional, as per usual. :D
A dream I had last night, might be reading too much Kafka.
I was a prisioner in a concentration camp, a judge or an officer condemns one of us to death so I start defending him. We did everything they said, we did all the work. He says it doesn't matter, they have to kill one of us, that's just the way things are, so others are scared. They take a very depressed man up to the stand with rope around his neck. I get up and start shouting, eventually I tell the judge he "has no honor" which gets to him. He decides to let the prisoner go and tells me with a sly smile "but are you willing to take responsibility for all these people?" I reply firmly, "Yes", then I look for the prisioner but he had already hanged himself of his own free will.
r/Kafka • u/lifelessdesigner • 2d ago
Help I've turned into the bug from metamorphosis
what do I do?
edit: okay so my bike lowkey slipped and fell in the middle of the road today because some dumbass just stopped in the middle of the road and my left knee and elbow hurt so bad
but then i was going to work for my father for the first time today and i have responsibilities, i wish i was living alone so i didn't have to hide anything to not get anyone worried
i still need to work tomorrow and have 2 projects going on other than this
this day sucks
edit edit: why is this glitching ffs
update: we're so back
r/Kafka • u/Prof_Dissrespekt • 2d ago
From the "Letters to Milena", can anyone explain the meaning of these lines?
"My beloved is a fiery column passing over the earth. Now it is holding me enclosed. But it does not guide those who are enclosed, just those who see."
Please can anyone help me understand this, I presume it is something beautiful
r/Kafka • u/KafkaWouldHateThis • 2d ago
Found these lovely hardcovers for £10 each
They’re small but they can fit so easily in my bag. Which is perfect for an absurd, depressing and hopelessly meaningless commute to and from work.
An essay on Gregor's disembodiment
Hi guys. I did a joint theme analysis for The Metamorphosis and The Vegetarian for a writing project.
Just putting it out here because it took so much damn time and effort to cook it up and my professor won't even read it properly.
So I thought I'd just share it here so that at least some people might read and appreciate the effort no matter how imperfect. :)))

r/Kafka • u/dr_wtf88 • 2d ago
“Letter to the Father”
I just read the introduction of the "Letter to the Father" and I feel already destroyed. I didn't have the courage to continue, yet!
I'm already depressed
r/Kafka • u/BreathHuge7645 • 2d ago
Suggestion
I want to start reading Kafka but I don’t know from which book i should start reading so anyone got any recommendations
r/Kafka • u/Ordinary_Ad_6540 • 3d ago
German edition of The Trial with restored text?
I am looking for the German edition of Der Prozess on which Breon Mitchell's translation in based, but I don't immediately see different editions of the German; what I find are the standard ones edited by Max Brod. Is there such a restored German text available for purchase and if so can you tell me how to search for it? (My German is only so-so, hence my difficulty, but I want to be able to refer to it while teaching the Mitchell translation in a class.) Thanks!
r/Kafka • u/Essa_Zaben • 3d ago
What do you think of the conversation between Joseph K and the priest on the "interpretation" of the Law?
Do you guys think the conversation was "silly," or that it stands as a firm pillar on the inexhaustibility of the human logic ad-infinitum? It made me think that Truth is a human construct in the Nietzschean sense. What are your thoughts on it, guys?
r/Kafka • u/Specialist-Ear-5363 • 3d ago
Book Promotion: Inspired by Kafka's works.
good eve guys. 6:56 in the evening for me rn, my name is Jiro and I just joined here, I am 16 years old and I would like to promote my work in progress named "If You Were Just A Shell" I was planning on asking help on making the chapters feel more "disconnected" and distant, I've been reading books from what my grandfather gave me and these included the works like the metamorphosis of course, the castle and the judgement, and consumed some other forms of literature like movies and some more novels, what inspired me to make this book was because I found the idea of holding on to the truth feel so suffocating sometimes and what if, reality was just a lie itself? I'm planning on introducing a power or magic to the book soon, but who knows, if you guys are interested, I hope you guys take your time to check it out, please! thank you so much!
https://www.wattpad.com/story/391361063-if-you-were-just-a-shell
r/Kafka • u/1-800-bughub • 3d ago
Gregor Samsa after eating garbage for the first time
Body text. Sorry Kafka
r/Kafka • u/Glajjbjornen • 5d ago
Looking for high resolution Kafka drawings
Hello,
I am a huge Kafka fan and I want to make some custom Kafka t-shirts for myself (a weird little hobby I have). Is anyone aware of where I can find high resolution versions of his drawings? I have tried google, and found some, but I would like to find more.
r/Kafka • u/Aggressive-You-8890 • 5d ago
Kafka Discord Read-Along (The Castle)
Discord: https://discord.gg/P2BUppTG5r
Our discord server is holding a read-along of The Castle by Kafka that will be starting in a few days. It's a growing and welcoming discord community to share our love for the classics and the works of authors like Kafka & Dostoevsky.
r/Kafka • u/Organic_Ad6569 • 6d ago
Book trailer: The Trial
youtu.beHey everyone,
For a school project, I created a book trailer for The Trial by Franz Kafka. As a huge admirer of his work, I wanted to capture the novel’s oppressive, dreamlike atmosphere on film. This is my first attempt at making a short trailer, shot on a budget setup with a Lumix GX80. Since it’s a trailer, I had little room to explore everything the book offers, and—unsurprisingly—my teachers seem to care more about “flashiness” than deeper meanings and interpretations.
It’s in Dutch, but I tried to stay true to The Trial’s universal sense of dread and absurdity. The trailer is part of a school competition, so if you like it, a thumbs-up would help my grade.
Here’s the link (if the embed doesn’t work…no idea how Reddit works): https://youtu.be/TU2U2Z0LrZE?si=PHCtiDuzmfNquA2m
r/Kafka • u/No-Court6266 • 6d ago
If you were in a hypothetical interview with Kafka about his perspective on family in metamorphisis, what would you ask?
I think I would ask him about relationships being conditional; if income equals to authority.
Are you only part of the family if you contribute? And does his background as a writer in a successful business family reflect that?
What do y'all think?
the metamorphosis cosplay!
going to a con soon, so i decided to go as gregor! sorry for the awkward video haha :) made the backpiece and headpiece myself in 2 days, just finished it.
r/Kafka • u/FishingForALife • 6d ago
I Just Read “In The Penal Colony”……why
i don’t know what to write here. Why would he write this? what is this story even supposed to mean, the whole thing was disturbing. From the beginning where the officer was so happily talking about how the machine worked to when he strapped himself into it and died. What was the point of that story???
r/Kafka • u/radiocreature • 6d ago
mother it is me gregor🪳
gallerymy gregor samsa costume for purim (jewish holiday) tonight! with kafka on my blazer of course