strange birds

In college one of my classes went to the professor’s house to watch a movie, in one of those enrichment exercises—the difference is that Baxter was good at these sorts of things. There was no “watch the movie, read the book, compare/contrast” or “play the video game set in the time period”. The extra materials were thoughtfully constructed to bring something new to the discussion, to open up new avenues of exploration in a sometimes boring subject—most often through overexposure.

One movie was on the list and we had to go to his house to watch it as he’d only been able to find it on laserdisc. It became an event, we went to watch “Kafka” and ate a three course dinner prepared by one of the other students who wanted to cook (I’m not sure why he was in college, instead of a kitchen, but c’est la vie).

The movie combines the fictional and biographical into a Calvino-esque romp. Kafka becomes the protagonist in the castle, both wanting to rebel and blend in. Needless to say I loved the experience: a good movie and good food, what more is needed?

The man has been in the news lately. Several books have dug up the dirt – pornography – in this case and suddenly the old is new again. Nevermind that anyone with a pulse has at one time been interested in sex, we had to pull a minor god off a pedestal. We forget so often that the great are people first.

Zadie Smith has more in the NYRB, including this tidbit, choice in its possibilities for authors:

The truth was that he wasted time! The writer’s equivalent of the dater’s revelation: He’s just not that into you. “Having the Institute and the conditions at his parents’ apartment to blame for the long fallow periods when he couldn’t write gave Kafka cover: it enabled him to preserve some of his self-esteem.”

It gives me hope to see the frailty in others—not their failures, but that they pushed by them, that they had problems and insecurities and succeeded nonetheless.