BOOK REVIEW – FRANZ KAFKA –
DESCRIPTION OF STRUGGLE 1933 Vintage Classics
One of Kafka’s earliest and most
surreal and mysterious surviving novella length short stories, which remains
partly incomplete.
It begins straightforwardly enough, the
narrator is at a party sitting alone, not quite fitting in with other
guests. He notices another man, a guest
who is the worst for drink, but who is getting on very well with the ladies,
and seems to be very popular.
Jealousy and genuine concern lead the
narrator to approach the man and warn him that he is danger of making a fool of
himself and embarrassing the hosts of the gathering. He talks the charismatic
drunk into stepping outside and taking a walk up the mountain road, despite a
howling blizzard and it being dark.
As they walk, the narrator becomes
convinced for no apparent reason, that the man will attack him, so in sheer
paranoia, he runs away, and slips, falling into a partly exposed cellar, where
he lies, in danger of freezing to death, but the other man finds him, and
rescues him, and they walk on.
Separated again, the narrator carries
on walking, and becomes convinced that he has omnipotent God-like powers. As it
gets warmer, he tells himself that he has made it happen, and gives himself
credit for every change in the landscape and each person and tree, etc that he
sees.
Things get really weird when he comes
to a river, and sees a group of four men carrying a fat Buddha figure on a
chair on the opposite side of the raging torrent. As the narrator watches, the
men walk into the water, and drown, but the chair, and its occupant float
downstream over the rapids, and the Buddha figure talks cheerfully to the man,
giving strange stories of his own before he plunges to his doom over a
waterfall. The narrator has walked
safely along the riverbank taking the information in.
Odd, like a bad hallucination induced
by drugs, but with unforgettable imagery and strong hints of the later
masterpieces Kafka would produce.
© Copyright. Arthur Chappell
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