My Gosh, but it's true: Kafka is a Failure
This is a funny thing to say, presumed in the first place, but the irony is that it requires deep and intense study of him to understand that it's true.
This is because it requires a shitload of work for your average person, it would require a great deal of study in the first place to understand where he's coming from, and to understand that his work is one big joke whose answer is unclear if you don't get it. But that's just the thing, it's a joke; if you get it, you've gotten it. It's done. It makes you laugh, perhaps uncontrollably, perhaps forever, but when the laughing's done, if it ends, you realize that the laughing can't quite take you where you want to go.
In other words... Kafka failed in the context of his own life. He was an outrageously good writer, brilliant beyond most, and I sincerely mean the word 'most' when I use it here, most!, but he failed in his own context. He failed relative to how great he could have been. And what else is there? If he sincerely could have been so much more, which he could have, then he failed. His method, his result, his effect, his philosophical and personal influence, they were all huge, but in the end all that he could give us was "You will fail." By definition this means that Beckett won by giving us "Try! Keep moving!". Beckett seemed, if anything, far more depressing; it is all the more fantastic that Becket gave us far more than Kafka ever did or, if we're to follow Kafka's deterministic truth, could have.
And this is the funny thing, Kafka IS almost-great literature, don't get me wrong; he needs to be read. And by your average person, discovering the great astounding message of his works will propel them limitlessly-- or almost. And that's why there's always a problem: it will propel them limitlessly IF they ignore the true and final conclusion, the ultimate truth of what he's saying. If out of this sentence "YOU CAN! YOU SHOULD! ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS RUN! But your legs have been broken" they ignore the final bit, they'll be well off. And luckily it's easy to ignore.
This is because it requires a shitload of work for your average person, it would require a great deal of study in the first place to understand where he's coming from, and to understand that his work is one big joke whose answer is unclear if you don't get it. But that's just the thing, it's a joke; if you get it, you've gotten it. It's done. It makes you laugh, perhaps uncontrollably, perhaps forever, but when the laughing's done, if it ends, you realize that the laughing can't quite take you where you want to go.
In other words... Kafka failed in the context of his own life. He was an outrageously good writer, brilliant beyond most, and I sincerely mean the word 'most' when I use it here, most!, but he failed in his own context. He failed relative to how great he could have been. And what else is there? If he sincerely could have been so much more, which he could have, then he failed. His method, his result, his effect, his philosophical and personal influence, they were all huge, but in the end all that he could give us was "You will fail." By definition this means that Beckett won by giving us "Try! Keep moving!". Beckett seemed, if anything, far more depressing; it is all the more fantastic that Becket gave us far more than Kafka ever did or, if we're to follow Kafka's deterministic truth, could have.
And this is the funny thing, Kafka IS almost-great literature, don't get me wrong; he needs to be read. And by your average person, discovering the great astounding message of his works will propel them limitlessly-- or almost. And that's why there's always a problem: it will propel them limitlessly IF they ignore the true and final conclusion, the ultimate truth of what he's saying. If out of this sentence "YOU CAN! YOU SHOULD! ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS RUN! But your legs have been broken" they ignore the final bit, they'll be well off. And luckily it's easy to ignore.