Kafka's Bureaucratic World and the Comedic Abyss

In the stories of Franz Kafka we find the fantastical wearing the most ordinary, realist dress. Though haunted by abjection and failure, Kafka has come to embody the power and potential of literary imagination in the 20th century as it confronts the nightmares of modernity. In this episode, Marina Warner is joined by Adam Thirlwell to discuss the ways in which Kafka extended the realist tradition of the European novel by drawing on ‘simple forms’ – proverbs, wisdom literature and animal fables – to push the boundaries of what literature could explore, with reference to stories including ‘The Judgment’, ‘In the Penal Colony’ and ‘A Report to the Academy’.

Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrff

In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsff

Further reading in the LRB:

Franz Kafka (trans. Michael Hofmann): Unknown Laws

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n14/franz-kafka/short-cuts

Rivka Galchen: What Kind of Funny is He?

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n23/rivka-galchen/what-kind-of-funny-is-he

Judith Butler: Who Owns Kafka?

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n05/judith-butler/who-owns-kafka

J.P. Stern: Bad Faith

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v05/n13/j.p.-stern/bad-faith

Next episode: Jan Potocki’s The Manuscript Found at Saragossa and stories by Isak Dinesen.

Get the books: https://lrb.me/crbooklist

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.