Kafka's Porn

[trieffiewiles]

There are a few very interesting articles on some of the seedy publications that it turns out Kafka was involved with.

http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuille...porn-unveiled/

http://entertainment.timesonline.co....cle4446131.ece

As with Joel-Peter Witkin, Floria Sigismondi, Cormac McCarthy, and David Lynch prove in a contemporary setting, the highest art often stems from the lowest of places. Some of these critics of Kafka's newfound associations act as though they've been buried alive in a sterile (both physically and subjectively) Victorian library for generations.

It is true that there is always a tendency to place major cultural figures for whom little is generally known about, into a kind of sainthood, amongst those in acedemic fields, but crying out loud, there was no shortage of insanity, corruption, and general unpleasantness in Kafka's fiction, do these people really think a man like him, in his circumstances could be two totally different and unrelated people in both life and art?

They're reacting with shock at Aubrey Beardsley. Now he certainly contributed significantly, but classic erotica had far more grisly artists amongst their ranks. These have apparently never looked upon some of the lowbrow art of today either. Loosen you damn book nazis.

[Jezetha]

The Kafka scholars don't seem to know their Kafka. I have forgotten where the passage in question is, but in one story/novel there is a picture hanging on the wall of a woman in fur - an allusion to Sacher-Masoch's Venus im Pelz, according to one study I read. And I have in my possession a whole book devoted to the Kafkaesque Eros, in German - Rainer Stach's Kafkas erotischer Mythos. And, finally, Kafka went to a brothel once (or more often, I don't know anymore).

So - Kafka a saint? No. And why should he be?

[Odalisque]

Des would say something about intentionality -- but my feeling is that artsists remain essentially the same person in life and art. Life informs art. It's hard to see how it could be otherwise.

[Nemonymous]

Life creates art, true, but who knows what baffles or two-way filters intervene in that process. Even when assessing the self itself.

[bendk]

There are some memoirs of people who knew Kafka personally that made him out to be wise and kind to a saintly degree. Then there was Max Brod's biography that tried to imply that Kafka was a very religious person. Those are the only things I can think of that could confuse people as to his character. I get the impression that he was good person. And I don't think going to a brothel is the worst thing in the world. I don't know how this latter fact could have escaped anyone's attention that is interested in Kafka. It is even in Kafka for Beginners illustrated by no less than Robert Crumb! There is more than an undercurrent of sexuality in his work; especially his novels.

Jezetha, the Venus in Furs picture episode is in "The Metamorphosis."

As for the posts pertaining to the artist vs human being, I recall a line by Evelyn Waugh that went "a person can sometimes be more sophisticated than experienced."

[G. S. Carnivals]

"His room, a regular human room, only a little on the small side, lay quiet between the four familiar walls. Over the table, on which an unpacked line of fabric samples was all spread out - Samsa was a traveling salesman - hung the picture which he had recently cut out of a glossy magazine and lodged in a pretty gilt frame. It showed a lady done up in a fur hat and a fur boa, sitting upright and raising up against the viewer a heavy fur muff in which her whole forearm had disappeared."

Franz Kafka - "The Metamorphosis"

[trieffiewiles]

Wow, I didn't really think any real philosophical discussion would generate out of this post. I can certainly see both sides of the argument regarding whether or not the art can be separate from the individual, but in Kafka's case I think there had to be an at least considerable degree of overlapping, considering the complex social themes, the free will versus fate issues, the idea that family bonds are not unconditional nor are they inseparable, all of which held relevance in Kafka's life, especially at certain intervals.

Considering the moral stance taken by many of these scholars who made a minor issue in his life a hot debate today, people seem to forget that were it not for their righteous image, the scriptures of all of today's modern 'chastity venerating' religions- your christianity, islam, judaism, and hinduism- would be seen as the biggest catalogues of smut and sleaze in the world, as they are ripe and brimming with incest, sadomasochism, pedophilia, extreme puligamy, torture, probably necrophilia somewhere, especially so in the apocrypha of the first three, which are indeed inseparable despite their bickering. I am not sure about Buddhism, but now it sounds like I am trying to change the subject.

Simply put erotica is all over the place, and seeing as how human beings are the only known species (besides dolphins I guess) that #### compulsively while trying to avoid procreation, indeed many probably hoping against all odds to be sterile, how could it be any other way. In Kafka's era there were far fewer 'club' types bars. Let's face it, from the male standpoint, except for the morbidly yuppie, who might go to 'just hang out' , most go to clubs looking nice in hopes to tip the odds in favor of them meeting a potential partner, or perhaps a one-nighter, or maybe preferrably a gorgeous ####-buddy. If one reads literature from post-French Revolution to post-World War II it seems as though damn near everyone spent at least a night or two in a brothel.

I shouldn't even get involved in debates. Verbally, in person, I am very foul-mouthed and impatient, and usually just ignore debatable issues, for fear of temporarily going insane, or at least I hope 'temporarily', but in letters I can go on and on.

I am just glad everyone seems to be coming to Kafka's defense.