And while we're talking about Kafka, which we were until yesterday, how could I ignore his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis (Galtzer, ed., Franz Kafka; the Complete Stories. New York: Schocken Books, 1971, pp. 89-144).
It starts out: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect." [p. 89] Again, the master of the first sentence. But what comes after is truly magical. After inspecting what he can see of himself and wonders what has happened to himself, our hero sees hanging on the wall,
a picture which he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and put into a pretty gilt frame. It showed a lady, with a fur cap on and a fur stole, sitting upright and holding out the spectator a large fur muff into which the whole of her forearm had vanished.Here we have it, the metaphor for what has happened to our hero: he's vanished into himself.
Then he tries to get away from himself. He can't. He wants to forget "all this nonsense," roll over on his right side, and go back to sleep. But he can't. He keeps rolling back.
Many of Kafka's characters share an overwhelming and ultimately self-destructive desire to deny the seriousness of what is happening to them. And it's a keen perception of human nature. We see it in ourselves. It's as if by putting down on paper Kafka's showing us a side of ourself we'd like to deny we already know. It's one reason we identify so strongly with them.
Anyway, what fate could be more horrible than actually to become that which one fears the most.
What do you think about this? Can we talk about writing here? Post a comment.
Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog
Ian Kearney, the director of the Kearney Music School, an elite musical training school in Philadelphia, dies after a fall from a balcony during a recital. World-famous cellist, Henry Harrier, recently forced from the faculty, returns to investigate Ian's death when his prized former student is arrested. Henry shows through his brilliant and single-minded pursuit of the truth that, as usual, they have it all wrong. This Sherlock Holmes-type mystery leads the reader through the world of classical music and lays bare the conflicts which dominate the lives of talented adolescents when placed under the pressure of studying for a demanding, stressful, and often elusive career as a classical music performer. Henry Harrier is part John Le Carre's George Smiley, part Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes, and part Orlando Cole the beloved teacher, renowned chamber musician, and until his own retirement, the premier cellist of the Curtis Institute.
Tim was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on January 30, 1946. In 1951 he moved with his family to Schenectady, New York, where he lived through high school. He attended Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio, from 1964 to 1968. He graduated in 1968 with a B.A. in history and philosophy. He received his Ph. D. in history in U.S. history in 1980 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison after spending 2.5 years in the U. S. Army. Most of his army service was completed in Wuerzburg, Germany, from 1969-1971. In 1972 he returned to Madison to complete his doctoral study. His dissertation, Those Who Moved; Internal Migrants in American 1607-1840, combined the statistical analysis of genealogical and biographical data with the study of traditional literary diaries, letters, and journals.
