Tag Archives: Franz Kafka

Imagining Trump as Kafka’s K.

By Robin Bates | Published: November 9, 2023

Satirist Petri imagines Trump as Kafka’s K–but in this case Trump’s mind, not the court, is Kafkaesque.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, judicial system, Trial, Trump bank fraud case | Comments closed

Russia’s Kafkaesque Legal System

By Robin Bates | Published: August 30, 2023

Kafka’s “Trial” describes the current Russian justice system.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alexei Navalny, injustice, Russian dissenters, Russian justice, Trial, Vladimir Kara-Murz | Comments closed

History’s Arc Bends Towards Kafka

By Robin Bates | Published: July 13, 2023

The late Kundera has fascinating insights into how the novel has intersected with history.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Art of the Novel, authoritarianism, Castle, Don Quixote, Gustave Flaubert, Honoré de Balzac, Jane Austen, Madame Bovary, Miguel de Cervantes, Milan Kundera, sexuality, Slowness, Trial | Comments closed

Reading Lit to Cope with Prison

By Robin Bates | Published: May 10, 2023

In his book about reading lit in prison, Genis talks about how novels helped him understand fellow inmates and discover his own Jewishness.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged 1Q84, Alan Moore, American Gods, Bohumil Hrabal, Daniel Genis, Good as Gold, Haruki Murakami, Herzog, Jaroslav Hasek, Jorge Luis Borges, Joseph Heller, Neil Gaiman, Philip Roth, Portnoy's Complaint, Prison, reading in prison, Saul Bellow, Sentence, The Good Soldier Svejk | Comments closed

Figaro vs. Kafka’s K: The Power of Rumor

By Robin Bates | Published: November 15, 2022

In our continuing discussion of rumor vs. truth, Figaro finds a way to defeat malicious gossip, Kafka not.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Barber of Seville, Enlightenment, Gioachino Rossini, Pierre Beaumarchais, Rumor, Socrates, Trial | Comments closed

Mixed Feelings about a Death

By Robin Bates | Published: July 17, 2022

“Metamorphosis” captures conflicted feelings about a death in the family.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged death and dying, Metamorphosis | Comments closed

The Classics as Teen Survival Guides

By Robin Bates | Published: September 21, 2021

Vietnamese immigrant Phuc Tran uses various classics to survive American adolescence.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged adolescence, assimilation, George Bernard Shaw, great books, Gustave Flaubert, Homer, Iliad, immigrants, Madame Bovary, Metamorphosis, Pygmalion | Comments closed

Calvino on Reading the Classics

By Robin Bates | Published: September 17, 2019

In a famous essay, Calvino gives us multiple reasons to read the classics.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Why Read the Classics", classics, Emil Cioran, Homer, Italo Calvino, Odyssey | Comments closed

Kafkaesque & Other Common Lit Allusions

By Robin Bates | Published: June 18, 2019

Wednesday In a recent Literary Hub article, Emily Temple honors the 95th anniversary of Franz Kafka’s death (June 3, 1924) with a list of times she has encountered the media calling something Kafkaesque. As is often the case in such matters, the term has been much abused, but that shouldn’t make us any the less […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Kafkaesque, literary allusions | Comments closed