that was very kafkaesque ( )

Reading this omnibus edition of Kafka’s major works, a little more occurs to me concerning Kafka's literary skill. I may have gotten away from it a bit but one should keep in mind that Kafka, very pragmatically keeps us wavering between the simultaneity of the dream world and the real world, of a dream court with the psychological trappings of it, and a vague kind of real court with the legal trappings of one, and between an actor, Joseph K, who navigates perfectly simultaneously between the dream world he is living through and the real world he lives in. The effect of the interacting simultaneous worlds, neither of which can become dominant, both of whose logics have to be convincingly accounted for at all times, is an unparalleled and unequaled tour de literary force. And I think it really does correspond to our being in the world. A world that requires rationality from us but which we only have in limited measure and from which we require illusions. Being "under arrest" I think means "dreaming" as when the officer says "You can't go away when you are under arrest" right at the beginning. Dreaming of course is also a broad symbol of our mostly involuntary psychic life. Joseph K is a little like a novelized version of a real 4 dimensional person being psychoanalyzed who is being told the mechanisms of the dream (his unconscious) while he is both awake and asleep. We the readers are never forced too strongly into the dream world, we sense it, but we nevertheless read Joseph K as a person like ourselves. Joseph K should be glad he doesn't have to live through some of Kafka's shorter more enigmatic writings. What an incredible mind Kafka had. Perhaps no one will ever fathom it.

I think it a little weird that I’m cross talking about entirely different books. I wanted to re-read “The Castle” when I finished “The Trial” (that’s I chose this particular edition), but I confess I did not want to. I am not sure that what I am saying about “The Trial” is as on point in “The Trial”. Certainly “The Castle” can be compared to “The Court” but I am not sure the people of the village are equivalent to the denizens of “The Trial”, and if not, it surely means something. I wonder if I’m just finding myself in there instead of Kafka. And now I am off to dream. ( )