
Who Was Kafka? - samclemens
http://www.thenation.com/article/who-was-kafka/
======
weinzierl
This are two very short works from Kafka which have been published in 2012 in
the second volume of the three volume biography by Reiner Stach.

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]
    

[1]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/books/review/01roth.html?p...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/books/review/01roth.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

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".

[2] [http://daleestey.com/tag/renier-stach/](http://daleestey.com/tag/renier-
stach/)

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wwwdonohue
Reiner Stach is probably the best to ever write about Kafka, and if you have
any interest in him then the biography set is worth reading ASAP. Unbelievable
scholarship and perspective.

------
mirimir
This is very cool! Kafka is my favorite Existentialist. The second excerpt
strikes me as a classic block-breaking exercise.

~~~
coldtea
> _Kafka is my favorite Existentialist_

Like one would say "Pistachio is my favorite ice-cream"?

~~~
mirimir
Yes. I could have added "author", I suppose.

~~~
superplussed
There was nothing wrong with your original phrasing.

~~~
coldtea
I didn't mean it was wrong with regards to syntax or grammar.

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.

~~~
gkya
"existentialism is concerned with the emptiness, horrors and anxieties of
being alive"

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...](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm)

~~~
coldtea
Yeah, read it, along with other works by Sartre, Camus, all the way down to
Kierkergaard and earlier examples of this line of thinking (note: European and
older, so those works were like Star Wars movies to us at the time, in the
sense that everybody read them, not just students dressed in black).

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.

~~~
mirimir
I suspect that angst stems largely from loss of faith. Whether it's faith in
some religion, or faith in some ideology. I rejected faith very early, and so
lack of inherent meaning doesn't occur as bleak. It's just what's so. And it's
arguably all about selection.

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andmarios
This site has one of the most annoying paywalls I've seen.

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.

~~~
inatreecrown
It couldn't be much more kafkaesque, could it?

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visarga
> YOU'VE READ 3 OF 6 FREE ARTICLES .

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.

~~~
manigandham
The measurement should be better (and not autoload articles) but if they feel
their content deserves direct payment, that's their right. This will only
start to become more anyway as adblocking continues and publishers need to
protect access - which means there will need to be accounts/logins.

~~~
gkya
Startup idea: Readbettr, a login and payments provider for online mags and
newspapers.

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.

~~~
Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd
[https://blendle.com/](https://blendle.com/)

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.

~~~
gkya
Thanks, happy to have found out about this, bookmarked. Though, I'd like to be
able to stay on the website of the content provider, and be able to get a PDF
of the page, as I archive some articles I read. It's not clear if this service
provides these, I'll try to see if it does.

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l33tbro
Apologies in advance for an off-topic meta comment, but I'm curious. I read
this 8 hours ago when you posted it and saw it had a couple of upvotes. So how
come 8 hours later and with only 6 upvotes this is towards the top of HN? Also
strange, it says the article was posted an hour ago, which prompted me to
check through your user submissions where it says that it was indeed posted 9
hours ago.

As mentioned, just curious how the upvoting works here. Would be great if
someone could help explain.

~~~
gexos
I think it has to do with the user's karma, a post from a user with heavy
karma ranks higher, if you noticed there is another post ranked 8th from a
user with 20000+ karma and only 5 votes.

~~~
dang
Karma doesn't affect story ranking.

~~~
gexos
My apologies, I thought post ranking has to do with karma.

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jkldotio
Flagged. I click the link, article loads and then a paywall steals it away. I
come back to HN and click the "web" link and it takes me to Google, I click
the article there and the article loads and then a paywall steals it away. I
try again in an incognito window, the same thing happens.

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.

