Why Kafkaesque is understood all over the world

Franz Kafka's unsettling texts captivate millions of readers worldwide and have made him one of the most widely read German-language authors. 100 years after his death, his works seem as relevant as ever. New generations of readers relate to his nightmarish, bizarre stories in novels like “The Metamorphosis” and “The Trial”. Directors, painters, writers and dancers from all over the world still find inspiration in Kafka today.
This despite the writer being full of self-doubt and wishing to be forgotten after his death. His last will and testament stipulated that all unpublished texts be burned without exception. Fortunately, his friend Max Brod ignored his wish and preserved for the world classic texts that seem both universal and contemporary.
Arts Unveiled meets international Kafka experts to find out how the writer found the perfect form to express the anxiety of human existence, and why we all experience life as “Kafkaesque” on a more of less daily basis.
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00:00 Introduction
01:32 Who Was Kafka?
04:22 What Did Kafka Write?
07:14 What Makes Kafka So Relevant?
10:37 How Kafka Inspires Other Artists
13:19 What Exactly Does "Kafkaesque" Mean?

[@PauloHenriquePeres-jg6zl]

Being on the autism spectrum, Kafka's message ressonated deeply about how human life often feels like: confusing, awkward and lonely

[@JohnTravena]

@@themarquis336 Go bother someone who wants to be bothered.

[@DWHistoryandCulture]

Thank you for sharing your personal experience with us and the community.

[@TinLeadHammer]

Kafka's message is on the autism spectrum?

[@NyznTvfk]

@14:31 my favorite Kafka quote : "I don't want to bother with anything useful." lol

[@DWHistoryandCulture]

You're so right! Thank you for that

[@francesbernard2445]

😀I am not sure it would be my place to see any man only as being useful. That would be on my part becoming only Kafkaesque myself wouldn't it?

[@FR-kb1fc]

For those of you that liked The Metamorphosis, I recommend Murakami's short story Samsa in Love.

[@jimthorne304]

There's something faintly Kafkaesque about a documentary about Kafka where much of the speech is drowned out by intrusive background music.

[@paulzhang5066]

I love Kafka! His works just blow my mind away. I have to reread his books again. Thanks for the excellent video.

[@NyznTvfk]

well this whole life is just Kafkaesque labyrinth nightmare

[@DWHistoryandCulture]

Quite often. Thankt you for your thoughts!

[@bakerkawesa]

I must now try and read some of Kafka's works. I've been a Philistine for so long.

[@FloatingCastle]

You're Chinese bro deal with it

[@barrymoore4470]

The moment in Kafka's works that moves me most is the closing passage of his short story "A Hunger Artist" (published almost a century ago), with the striking contrast between the dying protagonist, wasted away through denial and futility, and the caged panther that takes his place, electric and alive to all possibilities.

[@user-wt3bk9nl5x]

We, of a certain age and and culture all, obviously, know what adjectives "kafkaesque" or "orwellian" mean. Anyway for those who don't know I'm glad you've posted this.

[@fabiodeoliveiraribeiro1602]

The raw material of Kafka's literature is not the dream, nor the fantastic, but the absurd reality experienced naturally by people immersed in relationships that they accept and do not understand and/or do not want to understand. I like to write short stories more or less inspired by Kafka's work, because since I was a child I have observed the worldly absurdities that I prefer not to accept or experience.

[@DWHistoryandCulture]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us!

[@oorzuis1419]

more human than human, I am terribly dyslectic but at age 30 a friend gave me his collected short stories. I was pleasantly surprised while reading, it moved me deeply.

[@yonathanasefaw1202]

Having never read Kafka before, I would like to try reading The Trial.

[@DWHistoryandCulture]

It is a great novel. We'd recommend starting with either The Trial or The Metamorphosis.

[@triciac.5078]

Thank you for explaining this!! Always wanted more info on this phrase.

[@belalkhanfar3838]

The meaning of the term is presented in his novel "the Trial".

[@henryvierimusic]

Thank you for this amazing video

[@drprofessorsoso208]

Verily, Kafka's vibrant and voluminous verbiage paints a vivid vignette of Kafkaesque conundrums, his life was a literary labor and familial friction. Born to a brood where business and materialism burgeoned, Kafka’s kinship with his father was a knotty knot, a kinetoscope of kingly command and Kafka’s own kowtowing. Beneath the bourgeois backdrop, Kafka’s being burgeoned, bound by the bookish beauty of his own brooding brainchild. His biography became a bastion of the bizarre, a bridge between the banal and the brilliant. Kafka’s creations, a cryptic chronicle of his own consciousness, were a canvas of consternation, capturing the chasm between his cherished aspirations and the chains of his circumstances. Crafting characters caught in the cogs of a callous cosmos, Kafka’s chronicles were a cathartic carving of his own condition. A chronicler of the cryptic, Kafka’s creations were a crucible of his own crises, a cross-section of his ceaseless contemplation. Dwelling in the depths of his own design, Kafka’s days were a diary of duality-dreams dashed by the drudgery of duty, desires drowned in the deluge of domestic demands. His dialogue with his father, a document of his deepest dread, was a discourse on the dissonance of their dynamic. Each entry of Kafka’s existence echoed the existential essence of his era-an elegy to the elusive equilibrium between the ethereal and the earthly. His engagement with the ephemeral, an epistle of his own exile, was etched in the ethos of his epoch. In the ink of his introspection, Kafka inscribed an indelible image of the individual’s isolation, an inventory of the inner inquisitions that inhabited his intellect. An icon of introspective inquiry, Kafka’s influence is an indomitable imprint on the intellectual landscape. Kafka’s life lead us through the layers of his legacy-a literary lexicon, a lone luminary. Kafka’s quest, quintessential in its quirkiness, remains a quill that quietly questions the quotidian, a quasar in the quietude of the quotable. I can relate to some aspects of Franz Kafka's cryptic chronicle of his own consciousness, were a canvas of consternation, captures the chasm between his cherished aspirations and the chains of his circumstances and his life experiences of life inexperience.

[@lightndark3817]

That's some brilliant prose . How much effort,or what literature can possibly amp up my writing to your level? Please reply

[@arbsan8366]

It’s funny I saw his picture randomly months ago and now after watching this video I find him very intriguing! I’m gonna do some more digging on him. Thank you for this video!

[@walkerrowe9534]

I read everything he wrote. But the problem is he did not write enough. So many people have. So we want more. Except skip his novel Amerika. It’s not in the same league as The Trial or The Castle.

[@shamirshakher]

Feels like watching a beaking news for some reason

[@Pbav8tor]

His depictions of the way the world is not at all what we've been taught. I think there are things we live through that disconnect us from reality a bit in order to survive.

[@dianamisca9643]

does anybody know what the song at the very end of the video is?:D

[@runnerawe]

awesome

[@abbysweat9202]

I would say "Orwellian" is pretty universal as well.

[@lostcat9lives322]

The classics are eternal.

[@TMIvey-gk4mw]

Sigmund Freud wrote books in the 20th century and the term Freudian is named after him. So Kafka is not the only “writer” to have his name become a term.

[@channamasala]

Orwellian

[@DWHistoryandCulture]

Good point! Yes, you're right

[@BeezerWashingbeard]

"Orwellian" is another example.

[@nedludd7622]

Here are two that maybe are more absurdist than kafkaesque but have elements of the latter. A bit of Kafka with humor. Gogol, "The Government Inspector" and Jaroslav Hasek, "The Good Soldier Schweik".

[@jimthorne304]

I've heard that Kafka used to laugh hysterically when reading from his works. That makes me confident about saying that much of Kafka is funny. My favourite is the scene with the village superintendent in 'The Castle', where the superintendent is laid up with gout, but thinks he received a letter about the Surveyor from Herr Klamm in the castle, but he can't find it in the file cupboard, he thinks maybe it's in the woodshed, or over at Lasemanns the tanner. The two assistants get everything out of the file cupboard, then they can't get it back in, and turn it over to try and force the doors shut. Anyway, it doesn't matter because the letter that K has received from Klamm isn't an 'official' letter...

[@DWHistoryandCulture]

There is definitely humor to be found in the absurd!

[@Abuamina001]

The 1966 Yugoslav book "Death and the Dervish" by Mese Selimovic is extremely Kafka-esque.

[@yasinrajabi80]

To me the moral is even if you doubt yourselt on an issue, it's still worth giving it a go. You'll never know what the future holds in store for you. It may become your true calling one day.

[@traviscutler9912]

The music is too much

[@aamnahere6250]

Hee not the only 20th century writer to have his name in languages worldwide. We also have the term Orwellian after George Orwell who was also a 20th century writer.

[@flash.gordon]

Kafkaesque - Humanity sunken by Robotic action

[@randstahl4869]

Read The Metamorphosis to realize Kafka wrote my biography.

[@FBAagent]

c-ptsd from conservative parents. doubt, adhd, insecure, avoidant, trust issue, despair, longing for love, guilt, shame

[@joyghosh8610]

Kafka is generally seen as something where it can be said that he kinds glory in pain, something that you find in his life, you can see in the comments , I do not want to bother with anything useful, the reality. It is addictive glory in Pain, so people should understand there are things you can learn from Kafka but do not become that time and hence kafka.

[@rockets4kids]

I gotta pay taxes now? What the hell's up with that? That's messed up!

[@ahfei6847]

Kafkaïen!

[@Vyaptvishnu]

14:33

[@timothyberg7720]

So great, when people, that kicked the notion of "reading books" out of their list of would-be-hobbies ten or twenty years ago...and than make videos like this, interviewing people that are the same as them. People like you killed the book. Autodafe!!!

[@GurpreetSingh-fm3nz]

Real

[@user-cg3nx7dl6w]

Umm u forgot Machiavellian. It’s not only kafka’s name that has been turned into an adjective. Read up.

[@DWHistoryandCulture]

You are right!

[@samrajbuttar6469]

With the quality of your country's beurocats, who vulgarly eat free food in 5 stars , everything will be kafkaesque. ❤❤❤

[@answerman9933]

Why does DW has English language programs?

[@DWHistoryandCulture]

Why not?

[@lostcat9lives322]

Why wouldn't they? It's a world market.

[@mdkamruzzaman7174]

KAFKA = KIMMICH

[@floydblandston108]

'Kafkaesque' is terribly overused by people uncomfortable with the many varieties of 'alienation' we experience and are unable to process, or to understand as mere parts of an extended aspect of consciousness. It becomes a placeholder- a mimetic device- signalling our incapacity, like the words 'cool' or 'rad' are uttered as a means to express or process joy.

[@Colin-Fenix]

I don’t understand why we have to constantly be shown the narrator? She has no part in the narration… either present facts and documentary about the subject or make a video about the narrator! Sorry, you will decide this is harassment, but I got so irritated with this format that I left the otherwise interesting video after 5 minutes and asked YT to no longer recommend you channel! 👎🏼👎🏼👎🏼👎🏼👎🏼

[@haha-cl8zp]

i was watching peacefully till i heard "is * ra * el" then u lost me

[@dawn7491]

Not a huge fan of the presenter.. she seems to green to be doing such an important piece. She sounds like she should be doing TikTok than a long reel. Her voice is boring…

[@DWHistoryandCulture]

Thank you for sharing your opinion. We appreciate Melissa Aparicio as a very experienced journalist.

[@dawn7491]

@@DWHistoryandCulture My opinion isn’t around her professionalism… being a great journalist and a great presenter is two separate things. If you want to be replying your viewers, at least get the opinion right. This is shocking.

[@lostcat9lives322]

Whine, snivel, bitch and moan.

[@annemiura7767]

I agree and I think your reference to Tik Tok is apt. She may or may not be knowledgeable but her rapid speech really leaves the impression of a high schooler presenting a paper.

[@js70371]

The best thing about Kafka is that he was an anti-Zionist

[@user-yg7fv3jo8v]

You ignorant, in Ignorant channel comments, He was a Jewish genius who mainly wrote about the suffering of Jews in the diaspora.

[@ghostjacker]

I think Shakespearen definitely deserves a mention. Darwinism too.

[@Zibonnn]

I got to know Kafka not very long ago. *The Judgement* was the second story I read and at the end, I was like... "Wow! Didn't see that coming!" I am almost done with my first Kafka book - The Metamorphosis and Other Stories published by Barnes & Noble. Can't wait to read more of Kafka!

[@erwinheinz3206]

awesome

[@shamirshakher]

Feels like watching a beaking news for some reason