After reading "The Process", I am about to start with "The Castle" now. 2 years ago, I heard a lot of negative things about Kafka, so I never really touched his works at that time. They say he's dry, boring, has depressions, a father complex (and huge problems with him), and on top of that, he's a person who is not able to love. Well, that sounds quite bad - I mean, at that time, I believed any person not able to love is worthless.
Now, my view of Kafka is /completely/ revised. 2 years ago, I tried the first page of "The Process" and effectively found it dry. Today, I love this simple and clear style.
Concerning his father, it seems like his father really is a little bit "strange" (to put it nicely) and Kafka felt guilty about that.
Although I'm still not very interested in depressed people (even less than 2 years ago, to be exact), Kafka seems to be one of those personalities who actually put an extremely big effort into trying to be normal. He tries to build up a social life by doing stuff with acquaintances, to marry, although he fails several times, etc. To some people this may look like opportunism, I think it's gorgeous, because there are people who are different and don't even try to integrate themselves into society (with the pretense to be "true" to themselves).
And last but not least, after encountering so many people that put too much weight into "emotions" and such (perhaps I just read too many shôjo manga *hrrr*), I feel relieved and I'm really interested in an emotionless character such as Kafka (and his book's protagonists that are actually just himself).
Now who says I'm stubborn and never change my opinions? *ggg*
PS. My book of the day is still "A Doll's House", it's the 3rd time I'm reading it now. I guess it's my favourite play of all times, even before Horváth's plays and "The Physicists".












