Too late in the day to realize my plan, I read a few lines from Baraka, Bataille's Literature and Evil, and, for good measure, I ended my evening with Kristeva. The plan was to read Franz Kafka's Amerika throughout the day; to escape, stealthily, to my room or some other convenient corner where I could sit, undetected, and ingest a few paragraphs with my guests---one of whom did not show, and thankfully!---none the wiser. I would thus return to the party with new material. With Karl Rossman, with throngs of porters, and balconies from which to better observe the life of the street; with the American girl, just as beautiful as he had pictured in his mind's eye. I would return with Kafka's Amerika, no citation required, sensorium lifted from non-sequential pages.
No matter that the material was not agreed upon, none would know. The familiar process of dulling my thoughts to a single, blunt point--they call it "takeaway"--in a (shameful) attempt to appeal to a conversant solicitous of positivity and / or "reality" in the form of lachrymose sentiment, is an unduly painful process of conversion. I do not court such conversations, I assure you. Yet because "books" have become a euphemism for "the reason that she is a late-28 and without marital prospects," they remain a popular topic for discussion, a charitable speech act that serves as an entre into the questions too delicate to be asked "directly."
I should not complain, and I do not mean to, because I am fortunate enough to be a cheerful depressive who prefers repartee (which is, if nothing else, about LANGUAGE) to the usual thing, rendering my interaction with others, even potentially hostile others, much more pleasant than it would be otherwise. I know many, many people who cannot or refuse to weather such events for fear of a too-slow recovery. Those, too, who know the impossibility of ever recovering.
When I read this, decided to respond, and then dallied, the parts that stuck were not the gems: "books" as a euphemism for prolonged maidenhood and the candid confession that reading itself is more of a cultivated identity than the essence of an affinity. These are almost too illuminating to require response. The former point sounds so right on about how the money and materials of the publishing and academic industries end up providing a shield of legitimacy for us otherwise seemingly wastrel thinkers. The latter point is great: Dina does not need books, they are a means to intellectual stimulation, whose efficient black-on-white is by no means an ideal form for such stimulation.
ReplyDeleteInstead of these, the more accidental parts stuck with me. I too expected to read Kafka's Amerika over the last 4 months and didn't. Instead, its middle was where I hid my passport and US dollars while abroad.
Hot start, Dina!
The accidental brings me to wonder about these two minds, yours and mine, settled on Kafka's AMERIKA. What brought you to it? Often, and this is even more true for theoretical and philosophical texts, a title--as language and as image (AMERIKA has shape, does it not?)--can occupy me for half a day.
ReplyDeleteThough admittedly not a fan of Kafka, I hated Amerika, and think you should marry somebody instead of committing yourself to that book which divorces its reader anyway!
ReplyDeletest