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478 The Diaries of Franz Kafka (with Ross Benjamin)

The History of Literature

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The Diaries of Franz Kafka

Kafka has a variety of techniques. He doesn't use only one technique. It's striking in his writing that he will write really complex nested sentences with many subclosas. Those sentences may be striking but he's also a master of brevity at times. We're talking about a story like a metamorphosis and the style of that. But he also wrote aphorisms and parables very short that were self contained. The language of law and science to convey a kind of ironic precision. I read a quote by Nabokov that said that Kafka inherited from Flaubert the tactic of using the language of Law and Science to convey a sort of ironic precision, says

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