Franz Kafka - Blog Posts

The Trial by Kafka

*Spoilers if you want to read*

If you think you're oppressed, you are.

In the story the main character Josef K (referred to as "K") gets arrested at the start. Through out he learns drips and drabs about the legal system he's being accused by. He does not learn what he's accused of, when his court date is, and what his punishment might be. But rest assured, he is told his case is very serious and he is in a lot of trouble, so best behaviour yeah? During the year that follows he becomes a shell of what he used to be and what he stood for, becoming unfocused on work and no longer making meaningful relationships with those around him.

At the end he is unceremoniously killed at the middle of the night with a knife in the chest on a rock under the moon. K was strangely at peace with this.

K suffered more in the year leading up to his execution, every minute looking over his shoulder, wondering what, where and when any of the process would take a step forward. What a relief when it finally came to an end.

Most of our daily life is spent worrying bills, rent, relationships and anything under the sun. Worrying that the sky is going to fall causes more harm than the sky actually falling.

Has anyone encountered the phenomenon of people pretending to read?

I was chatting with a girl and we were speaking about Kafka. She claimed to really love his work and even that she visited his residence in Prague, yet when I asked what she read she said she hadn't read his stories yet... Is that common?

Stay yourself, stay curious

An Introduction

Hello, this is sort of a basic introduction of me, and what this blog will upload. Obviously I will branch out further with time, as I change as a person, yet currently I would like to grab the right blogger's attention -

I am pearl, I am a very curious academic person and always open to learning new things. I want to start uploading on Tumblr to discuss my Interests with like minded people - I don't have many friends in my day to day life, and even fewer that I share my academic Interests with, so I'd be thrilled for people to interact with my blog.

She / Her | Queer | Marxist | Academic

Interests;

Literature; More specifically, Classics and Gothic. I find stories that examine the human condition to be very interesting! If you have suggestions for novels, I encourage you to leave me some.

Art; I sketch almost daily. I love the romantic period and Oil paintings in general..

Tv; I like philosophical movies and ones about girlhood. Also dark academia.

Favorites;

Artist; Lana del Rey

Novel; The Secret History

Movie; Heathers (1989)

I intend to upload my daily observations, opinions of Novels and other media, Communist content, and thoughts about my Academic interests - Classical literature and the Torah. This'll be my corner and if you'd like, you're welcome to stay.

Stay yourself, stay curious

Kafka, this drives me crazy wth bro, please don't set false standards T-T god, men like this don't exist anymore, this pmo, I'm gonna cry. [As a sidenote, this is one of my favorites from 'Letters to Milena'. Franz Kafka, the man you were. He deserves the biggest, warmest hug ever.]

I never wish to be easily defined

Franz Kafka

y'all kafka was the realest of all time "had a lifelong suspicion that people found him mentally and physically repulsive" babe same

*•☆°

I love Franz Kafka with all my heart! ♡

should i reread the secret history, the phantom of the opera, finish the trial by kafka, start white nights by dostoevsky, or start a hungarian book that i've been wanting to read for years? life is so so hard

I try not to fall in love. I really do, because I know that I'll think about them, those things that will make it hard to forget. The curve of his back, the outline of his hips, the way his necklace falls at the base of his neck, the way its only something I can admire when his back is turned, because he likes to tuck his necklaces inside his T-shirt, the matching bracelet hangs off his wrist and sparkles in the light the way his eyes do when morning comes the next day. I have his sleepy smile when I'm the first thing he sees as he opens his eyes, memorized, and his low playful drawl to"take a picture, it'll last longer," before he scoops me up in his arms with the strength of someone who had definitely-been-awake-for-a-while and I'll remember it all. These are the things, the things I'll think of when you're gone, so I try my best not to fall in love.

—Camille Lee, I'll remember everything

He was the first guy, I tried the "talking stage" with. I told him slow, glacially slow, like a candle burning into the late hours of the night, but he didn't hear over his own wants, his own needs. It was part of the reason it was the end of our season, on his way out the door he broke my heart all over and I knew I dodged a bullet when his ego started talking. Suddenly, oh so suddenly, I wasn't worthy of someone like him. Suddenly my beauty was too little and there was something wrong with me, so much for "you're my ideal girl" because now apparently I "wasn't even that pretty" and my version of normal was a problem. The way I was, was a problem. You said if I'm not happy with you, I'll never find a boyfriend. At the mere age of twenty with so much life left to live ahead of me, did you really think that's what I'd believe? The audacity— to try to convince me I wasn't worth loving, if I didn't want to be with you. My only regret is I didn't laugh in your face, so much for the "talking stage."

—Camille Lee, you'll never find a boyfriend

You and I were stranded. Trapped, in the school’s gymnasium. The rain was starting to coming down, it was pouring. There was this hummingbird rhythm in my chest, loud as drums, where you and I lie, side by side, in dark blue skirts and white school shirts, on worn gym mats. The sound compelling, if I let it. Supposedly my feelings lie on some sort of spectrum? All I know is you and I, no matter what, aren't clear cut. I fantasize, or do I fetishize? I'm hoping you don’t realize, I want to kiss between your eyes, and that mine linger on your thighs. Echoes in a empty colosseum, ourselves as our own audience and with no one to witness it. I’m too young to know what I want, young and confused, in a "phase I'll grow out of eventually." Does it mean anything? If your hands linger on my waist? You make a mistake in your haste, kiss the corner of my lips instead of my cheek, before you leave. You giggle, because what else could it possibly mean? 

—Camille Lee, her

She's sickenly sweet like honey with her crooked teeth, her breath smells like candy and her pretty stray eyelash, decorates her cheeks. She's a Venus fly trap. She's got stickers in her hair, glitter on her face and paint on her shoes. She gives her heart away like she has nothing to lose. She's the kind to make wishes on dandelions and to believe that when the stars align she can communicate with the divine in her dreams. We drove out to a field, laid under her "special tree" and watched the tall grass sway in the sunlight. It was something out of a movie. Do I want to be her or do I want to be with her? I couldn't pull it apart without leaving behind spider webs of her and I, traces of each other, like perfume clinging to a sweater I haven't worn in months. She's like a dream.

—Camille Lee, dream girl

I'm terrified one day I'll look around and realize for all my platonic love, it isn't enough. For all my friends have paired off like Noah's ark, all over again, one by one, I am but the exception. The lonely outlier, the undesirable creature, alone in the raging storm of living. The one to throw overboard to make space, the easiest at least, because they know there's no one here to miss me. I watch as they gaze into the eyes of their lovers with all the romance I've longed for, talking of the new world and the "rest of their lives together" I'm sick to my stomach but I pass it off as the back and forth rocking of the ark, sea sickness— I send a silent prayer to the sky or to God or to whoever will listen to me I can't possibly be fated to live out my days alone, right?

—Camille Lee

An old sparkly journal is buried at the bottom of a weathered and worn, old cardboard box. Every other page has an "I ♡ Alex" written in pink ink on it. That girl used count every hand-holding, shoulder-touch, head-pat her first real crush ever gave her and wrote it all down. "He held my hand and rest his head on my shoulder." Fast forward three years and I started a new school, I'm fifteen years old and I reminisce fondly over my younger self's crush, at a party. Everyone around me mistakes my smile as lingering feelings for him, after all, I wasn't very subtle with my feelings back then. They just don't know. Now with older eyes to look back with, I realized something. I was always made of love. Love was never something I had to look for outside of me, it was always within me, I just didn't know it. I am love and love was always made of me.

—Camille Lee, love is what I was always made of

Franz Kafka didn't say, "I love you". He said, "you're the knife I turn inside myself".

And to mimic him, I want to say:

"You are the love I've prayed for my whole life, in a shape of a mortal being. But how can I call you mortal, when you had stayed in my mind longer than I could recall, living and breathing fire, melting all the awkwardness and wishless dreams."

lesGOOO KAFKA MY MAN

Source: Pinterest

I’m tired, can’t think of anything and want only to lay my face in your lap, feel your hand on my head and remain like that through all eternity.

― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

Yours

(now I'm even losing my name - it was getting shorter and shorter all the time and is now: Yours)

― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

Picture source:Pinterest

I am autumn in a tropical country.

I struggle with my identity when you paint me all orange and brown from memory. You make me miss a place I have never lived in, a place you had to leave to find me.

"I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself."

-Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

I have read books after books, seen series after series, listened songs after songs. nothing, just nothing moves me anymore.

I have stopped caring about myself, my beard is unkempt, hell I don't even know how long it has grown. I don't even remember when was last time I looked at myself in mirror. I just do not want to look into my eyes anymore, what will I answer to my reflection? Who am I? What have I become? the existential dread I have is far more greater than my willingness for self care.

How long is my hair? when was the last time I had a haircut? Why do I feel no love? for myself, for others? I can't help but think about Gregor Samsa, how he must have felt when he turned into a bug, to not able to associate with your body, not able to recognize yourself, not able to care about yourself. How did he feel when none of his family members cared about him, the ones he expected some amount of sympathy were the ones who were the very first to abandoned him. How did it felt to be different? in the most unwanted way.

Maybe I know, No, I am not a bug, or some character from Kafka's dreadful fantasies but I have known all those feelings at some point of my life, those situation which make you stop and think, am I real or some figment of Kafka's stories?

Have you ever felt a moment where all eyes were on you and you felt like you were the oddest one of all humans which exist on this earth? If yes, you definitely know how it feels to be in my situation, this constant paranoia of my life which keeps on asking me to put a facade on my face is the reason I am always on the edge looking for a way to jump out of my skin and crawl underneath a chair just like Gregor.

I would be normal one day, I will look into my eyes someday. Hope it is not like Gregor.

(Image taken from Pinterest)

˜ Necromancer