The World According to Kafka: “A Summary Court in Perpetual Session”
by Theresa Willingham


The work of Franz Kafka, the early 20th century Austro-Hungarian writer of a darkly existential, and yet somehow curiously hopeful bent, is enjoying a modern day resurrection of sorts. That may say more about our 21st century hell-bound-in-a-hand-basket fears than about our intellectual sensibilities, but with respect to modern literary and artistic movements – and even contemporary political movements - the ways in which Kafka is being reimagined are worth exploring.

A cursory glance at Kafka’s writings might inspire a glance to see if he’s reading the paper over your shoulder. "Every revolution evaporates and leaves only the slime of a new bureaucracy," he wrote, an observation that seems as fresh today, as revolutions sweep North Africa and the Middle East, as when he made it 90 years ago.

If our times feel Apocalyptic, Kafka tells us, we’ve set that stage.  "Only our concept of time makes it possible for us to speak of the Day of Judgment by that: in reality it is a summary court in perpetual session."

Franz Kafka’s writings went largely unnoticed until after his death in 1924 at the age of 40.  His short story, “The Metamorphosis,” routinely required high school reading for most of us in the Baby Boomer generation, is probably the work with which most people are familiar. In the story, traveling salesman Gregor Samsa awakens to find himself transformed into some hideous, insect-like creature, forced to live out his short existence in isolation within his family’s home, living under the furniture in his room, relying on the kindness of his sister for food, and existing, like the proverbial fly on the wall, on the periphery of his family’s world, listening and watching their lives play out, but never again a meaningful part of it. This is Kafka at his most “Kafkaesque,” an eponym employed to describe disturbingly disorienting, bizarre and complex situations like that faced by Gregor.

The German word Kafka uses to describe Gregor’s new form is Ungeziefer, which has been variously translated as “cockroach", "dung beetle", or "beetle”. The word Ungeziefer can also confer something akin to alienation. Interpretations of “The Metamorphosis” abound, and it’s been re-imagined in everything from theatre to video games. But with the advent of modern mixed media technologies, more readily accessible editing software, and inexpensive videography equipment, artists and writers have turned to reimagining more obscure Kafka works in ever more imaginative and relateable ways.

A case in point is the Australian short film, “Two Men,” which reworks Kafka’s short, Kabbalistic-type tale, “The Passers-by,” into a modern day parable of existential indecisiveness.  Coming in at just under 180 words, “The Passers-by” is more thought exercise than anything else, and sets the stage simply enough:

“When you go walking by night up a street and a man, visible a long way off - for the street mounts uphill and there
is a full moon - comes running toward you, well, you don't catch hold of him, not even if he is a feeble and ragged
creature, not even if someone chases yelling at his heels, but you let him run on.”  

Because, as the Aboriginal narrator in the film version of this brief story concludes, “You just bloody never know.”

And that’s basically the message of Kafka – you can never really know what’s going on or just quite why.

"We are as forlorn as children lost in the wood,” Kafka wrote when he was just 20. “ When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know of the griefs that are in me and what do I know of yours? And if I were to cast myself down before you and tell you, what more would you know about me that you know about Hell when someone tells you it is hot and dreadful?  For that reason alone we human beings ought to stand before one another as reverently, as reflectively, as lovingly, as we would before the entrance to Hell."

For American composer Philip Glass, Kafka’s dark nature is fertile ground for musical creativity. Known for his operatic works on Einstein and Ghandi, Glass finds Kafka, and in particular his short story, “The Penal Colony,” which he made into a chamber opera, no less inspiring.

“There’s a sort of authenticity about [“The Penal Colony”], he told reporter Karen Price, of the Telegraph last year. “He’s a doorway into the world of the imagination.“

The story tells the tale of a reluctant Visitor who comes to a penal colony to witness an execution, which, an Officer tells him, is conducted by a Machine that performs the execution by carving into the prisoner’s body the words of the law that has been transgressed. The Machine, however, is falling apart, as is the penal colony. The Officer, unable to obtain the validation he desires from the Visitor, sacrifices himself in the Machine as its final victim. And there you have it, another Kafka tale where no one lives happily ever after.

“One of the attractive things about the story for me as a composer is its formality,” Glass told the Telegraph.” The Visitor gets away, but by avoiding judgment actually fails. The Officer, in a strange way, redeems himself. It’s a perfectly calibrated outcome, like a trap for a hummingbird.”

Cue the string quartet and the double bass “to lend an extra gravity and darkness.” Are we having fun yet?

But there’s a method behind Kafka’s situational madness. A book, Kafka wrote, “should serve as the ax for the frozen seas within us.” Kafka’s work hacks away at our inner glaciers with great determination.

Artist Bob Barancik finds hope in that action of wrenching ourselves from despair, of moving forward in spite of the challenges. Blending his own abstract modernism with Kafka’s “Art Doodles,” traditional Jewish melodies and African-American blues in his piece, Blues for Kafka, part of an art and music trilogy he presented at TEDxYouth@TampaBay, Barancik puts a Kafkaesque spin on climate change. However, Barancik takes his intrepretation through the darkness to the other side to human triumph over adversity, even adversity of our own making.

At the end of Kafka’s life, Barancik notes, Kafka said: “If you believe passionately in something that doesn’t exist, you will help create it.”

According to Barancik, Kafka was telling us that “if you’re willing to persevere, you will get something. Maybe not exactly what you expected – but something of value, something worth sharing, and something that enriches lives far beyond our own.”

Even Gregor Samsa kept moving, until he could move no more. "Anything that has real and lasting value,” Kafka said, “ is always a gift from within."

Now that’s not so Kafkaesque, is it?




top page image: Fabio Sassi | bottom page image: Bob Barancik
Copyright 2011. All rights reserved.
Theresa Willingham can be found at her website.