Who Was Kafka?
thenation.com
thenation.com
The third and last volume of the biography was released last year in Germany and an English translation is about to appear early this year. The first volume is from 2006 and the New York Times had a review back then:
> Indeed, this book, the first of a projected three
> volumes, seems to be written not by a scholar and
> editor named Reiner Stach but by a Kafka character
> called, to borrow the words of the book's promotional
> materials, "the definitive biographer." [1]
EDIT for those with paywall issues:
If you are interested in the Kafka biography by Reiner Stach which the original post seems to promote you are better off reading the NYT article I linked above.
If you are interested in the Kafka pieces from the original they are also published in the kakfkaest blog [2]. I'm unsure if they are published with permission though, given they even misspelled "Reiner".
Like one would say "Pistachio is my favorite ice-cream"?
Just that it was a slightly strange thing to say -- seeing as existentialism is concerned with the emptiness, horrors and anxieties of being alive (and doubly so in Kafka), and "favorite" implies something one enjoys.
You're mistaken to think so about existantialism. I suggest you read "Existentialism is a Humanism [1]", which is a document I've studied very recently and one that I'll study again, and one has been influential to me. Existantialism is an idea based on the hypothesis that man exists without a purpose, without a creator and without predefined values, i.e. he comes to exist before his essence, that which he is responsible of and confined to defining and creating by himself; and that he "in fashioning himself, fashions man", i.e. with his decisions, he demonstrates what he thinks is apt for all the humanity. The linked text explains it all better than my humble summary.
[1] https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exis...
The "Existentialism is a Humanism" presents a more "heroic" outlook of the matter, associated with Sartre's engagement with politics at the time. Even so it deals with anxiety, lack of values, etc. That "in fashioning himself, fashions man" only works as an encouragement if you also believe that people everywhere in large quantities are fashioning the world for the better (as Sartre did with regards to communism).
But for the more bleak outlook that is quite more common, you can read Sartre's own "Nausea" to see how the ideas as described in "E.I.A.H" can play into everyday life. Even the title of the novel ("sea sickness" -- meant about the absurdity of life, is telling). The angst/anxiety etc. is more often than not present without any conveniently comforting heroic ideas of self-fashioning, like in the end of the book, or in E.I.A.H.
But that freedom is troubling for many. No truth to proclaim. Too much uncertainty.
In fact, the very roots of Logic, that sword which so many people claim will break Religion's gordian knot, are uncertain. All logic stems from the idea that you can say "if(a) then b()". The only svidence that this works is anecdotal. There's a lot of it, but that's all it is, and all it takes is one flying pig to bring it all down.
The solution, for some, is fundamentalism: "(Logic|Religion|*) is true because it says so."
Others put their faith in it even though they know it's not proven. G.K. Chesterton mentions this a lot (he's a fun read, if a bit rambly).
TL;DR: Not knowing is a whole nother ball of wax, and is a bigger ball of wax than you think.
Now read Wittgenstein.
As you scroll down, the page loads the next article. The paywall script detects this as you trying to read another article and throws a pop-up about how you read 3 of the 6 free articles you have.
Much to my annoyance, it doesn't let me return to the kafka article but redirects me to the article it auto-loaded. Even if I go back, the same thing happens.
Just because a page was loaded and scrolled doesn't mean it has been read. They could at least measure if the user spent more than 30 seconds on the page before counting an article as read.
Also, you have to have an account to continue reading. That sucks. shouldn't happen on a news site/mag.
I'd happily pay if I was charged 25-50 cents per article. But I wouln't want to have to subscribe to the entire magazine for only one article. I do not think the would be many who only follow a few preferred mags online, people usually end up on articles via links, and read the article and do not see the website until they bump into some other link to it.
But if the abovementioned service existed, where I had deposited some amount, and the mag had a link, "Connect with Readbettr to read the rest of the article", after a compelling abstract, and when I clicked, it automatically charged me ¢50 and let me read the article, with a single login, and it sent me a PDF copy automatically, I'd be a happy paying user of many online news and content sources.
This thing does not exist, and I leave the idea here for the taking. Someone please make this.
It's only targeting the Netherlands and Germany right now, but a few big name papers from the US are already available. And it's an app instead of a website. Apparently you can even get refunds for articles after reading them.
As mentioned, just curious how the upvoting works here. Would be great if someone could help explain.
I am sorry dang, but the web link simply doesn't work sometimes. There is no way for a non-subscriber to read this. While I appreciate you believe there are still things worth sharing that are paywalled it should be made clear in the submission with [subscription only] or similar because otherwise you have me doing 4 or so pageloads for nothing. I.e. this isn't acceptable no matter what your personal opinion is of paywalls. I.e. the paywall argument we've had in the past does not apply here. If there is no way around then it needs an extra piece of information to tell us that.
Ironically this whole palaver is similar to Kafka's "Before the Law". I would add that if you've lived for a substantial time in a country that has inherited the patterns of Habsburg bureaucracy, as I have, then some of Kafka's work isn't actually as far removed from reality as you might think.