ephemerry

Like eternally hopeful children they said farewell to their homes; the desire once more to labor on the wall of the nation became irresistible. They set off earlier than they needed; half the village accompanied them for long distances. Groups of people with banners and streamers waving were all on the roads; never before had they seen how great and rich and worthy of love their country was. Every fellow countryman was a brother for whom one was building a wall of protection, and who would return life-long thanks for it with all he had and did. Unity! Unity! Shoulder to shoulder, a ring of brothers, a current of blood no longer confined within the narrow circulation of one's body, but sweetly rolling and yet ever returning throughout the endless leagues of China.

—excerpt from the Willa and Edwin Muir translation of “The Great Wall of China”

Like, Kafka's other story “The Hunter Gracchus,” “The Great Wall of China” is also split into two segments, both combined into one single book on GoodReads; so, I will be reviewing both the original story, “The Great Wall of China,” and its afterthought, “The News of the Building of the Wall: A Fragment.” Both of these were published posthumously and were Kafka's candid, autobiographical takes on the event, as well as how it was received in the West.

It seems to be a flurry, a stream of consciousness, that is to say, a partial criticism of the stagnation in public consciousness and in other parts, an admiration for the culture. The building of a wall is more relevant than ever, with the last election United States election cycle, and Kafka points out the fallacy of such things, by saying in regards to the protection of China's nation: “the essential responsibility for it lies with government, which in the most ancient empire in the world has not succeeded in developing, or has neglected to develop, the institution of an empire to such precision that its workings extend directly and unceasingly to the farthest frontiers of the land.”

So, in laymen's terms: If there is a well-instituted, governmental system — there should be no need for a wall.

He also holds the people responsible for the mistake and states that because there is lack of unity and faith among the civvies, that their lack to help sustain the empire is the reason why a wall was even deemed necessary. Circling back to the United States juxtaposition, I think the same can be said, I think the lack optimism and motivation from the past administrations, was what ultimately lead to the proposition of the wall. As a country, we are unable to come to a moral consensus, and therefore, we leave ourselves open and unfortified to nonnative enemies, who often exploit the fact that our country's ethos strives for a diversity of opinion.

The last memoir, was a short essay, talking about the West's delusional view of China's wall. Kafka tells the story from his childhood and says that his father was infatuated with the beauty of the wall, so therefore, he was mortified when he discovered that the wall was not an artistic expression, but in fact, a Trojan horse, used as an excuse to protect the Emperor from foreign invaders! I thought that the way the media and China (with its citizens) practically disillusioned the WHOLE world into backing the fallacious venture was a powerful conclusion to an, otherwise, solecistic story.

“My father was holding me by the hand, something he was fond of doing to the end of his days, and running his hand up and down his very long, very thin pipe, as though it were a flute. With his sparse, rigid beard raised in the air, he was enjoying his pipe, while gazing upwards across the river. As a result of the pigtail, object of the children's veneration, sank lower, rustling faintly on the gold-embroidered silk of his holiday gown. At the moment, a bark drew up before us, the boatman beckoned to my father to come down the embankment, while he himself climbed up towards him. They met halfway, the boatman whispered something in my father's ear, in order to come quite close he had embraced him. I could not understand what they said, I only saw that my father didn't seem to believe the news, that the boatman tried to insist upon its truth, that when my father still refused to believe it the boatman, with the passion of sailors, almost tore the garment from his dress to prove the truth, whereupon my father fell silent and and the boatman jumped noisily into the bark and sailed away.”

—excerpt from the Tania and James Stern translation of “The News of the Building of the Wall: A Fragment”

Slowly the lid of the Designer rose up and then clicked wide open. The teeth of the cogwheel showed themselves and rose higher, soon the whole wheel was visible, it was if some enormous force was squeezing the Designer so that there was no longer room left for the wheel, the wheel moved till it came to the very edge of the designer, fell down, rolled along the sand a little on its rim, and then lay flat. But a second wheel was already rising after it, followed by many others, large and small and indistinguishably minute, the same thing happened to all of them, at every moment one imagined the Designer must now really be empty, but another complex of numerous wheels was already rising out of sight, falling down, trundling along the sand, and lying flat. This phenomenon made the condemned man completely forget the explorer's command, the cogwheels fascinated him, he was always trying to catch one and at the same time urging the solider to help, but always drew back his hand in alarm, for another wheel always came hopping along which, at least on its first advance, scared him off.

—excerpt from the Willa and Edwin Muir translation of “In the Penal Colony”

Plain and simple: this story is about a dystopian machine that inscribes the sentence of offenders into their arm, and after a span of 12 hours, the poisonous ink kills said reprobate. While the premise itself is interesting, the delivery mostly consists of elongated psychobabble and emotional torment. Like the second-person perspective in Mr. Kafka's “The Metamorphosis,” this style is implemented in this story to seemingly make the reader feel as dizzy and confused, as the tortured inmate.

As you can imagine, while I understand the purpose of the stylization, it's not fun to read. It can often be long, winding, and mind-numbing... until the prisoner gets his break in the end, after the inscription is put upon him. As you can imagine this narrative explores: the flawed legal system, the ethics and human rights of detainees, and the horrors that can come of the death sentence.

All are valid points to write about, but the story was not enjoyable to read. Skimming through the pages felt like, I, myself was being psychologically tormented. And while that may have been the point, it was excruciating. For a 52 page, short story... it can be difficult to get through.

An excerpt from The Brothers Karamazov, it is an insightful musing on theology versus the state of humankind, but I do not recommend reading it without context.

There are direct parallels to Notes from Underground: Ivan speaks of hiding away underground in the catacombs, whereas the narrator in Underground merely speaks of looking up through the cracks.

In the selection of Ivan's reading provided in my book, it doesn't include the part where Aloysha accuses Ivan of being a freemason. The underground part would make sense contextually, in accordance with that.

The freemasons first arose as an underground movement, to escape the corruption of a tyrannical, inquisition-based theocracy. Ivan references the condemnation of heretics, through auto da fé (act of faith).

He ironically invokes the name of an inquisitor, perhaps God, despite being of poor faith. His foil, Aloysha, chastises him for sinking into debauchery. This is a pivotal point in the development of Ivan as a villain, him casting away his devout brother.

“You comedian!” Georg could not resist the retort, realized at once the harm done and, his eyes starting in his head, bit his tongue back, only too late, till the pain made his knees give.

—excerpt from the Willa and Edwin Muir translation of “The Judgement”

The shame and guilt imposed by ones' family can cause great grief. Put simply, that is the point of the story. The ending has no direct, moral catharsis. It isn't a conclusion, laden with high-minded irony, nor is it an exemplification of schadenfreude, where the reader experiences a bad person getting their comeuppance.

The lines are blurred, the idea of right and wrong are less black and white. The story is about a young man, who has decided to leave his ill father, in order to pursue the prospects of marriage. Little does he know that his wise old man already knows of his scheme to abandon him, and has devised a way to emotionally torment his son.

This eventually leads to the young man's suicide: by drowning, emblematic to the suffocating pangs of conscience that a pre-wed person feels; leaving behind their home and known familia, in the process. It's not certain whether this is supposed to be perceived as an allegorical death or literal. The father telling him to drown himself, might be a signifier to immerse himself in his new life. On the opposing interpretation, the old man holds onto a stopwatch, in the story, and refuses to part with it, he keeps fiddling with it. This is an indication of the fixation on the past and memories.

I have been pretty middle-of-the-road with Mr. Kafka's bibliography, so far, but this one really jumped out at me! Great story, an intensely meaningful double entendre!

Warning: I am spoiling the whole book in this review. It's difficult to digest what I've just experienced without doing so!

“My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath—a source of visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff—he's always in my mind—not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself—but as my own being.”

The etymology for the word passion is interesting, the Greek version of the word: πάσχω, means “to suffer, to be acted on,” whereas the Latin prefix, pati (or passus) merely means “to suffer.” Catherine suffers because of her passionate love for Heathcliff, and Heathcliff for Catherine. They are one and the same.

This novel is a lot to take in, it examines really heavy topics, such as: an all-consuming love that is forbidden to the two participants, class struggles, and the generational cycle of abuse. This book takes an interesting approach to forbidden love, differing in approach from other tales like Romeo and Juliet, where the point of the conflict is widely interpreted as: These people love each other, their families won't let them be together because of hate, why don't you just leave them be!

Not in Wuthering Heights! In this story, the main male protagonist, Heathcliff, is essentially an anti-hero. He's dark, brooding, hate-filled, and vengeful. Not something that you would typically look for in a suitor. His amour, Catherine Earnshaw, is a flighty, spoiled girl who is insanely dedicated to him—to the point where she is willing to use the wealth gleaned from her betrothed, Edgar Linton, to elevate Heathcliff's status, and right the wrongs of the discrimination dealt upon him.

As you can imagine, all of this ends in a disaster. Not to mention that Catherine's brother, Hindley Earnshaw, is unbearably spiteful to Heathcliff and treats him like a slave; and when his wife passes away, he becomes more antagonistic and cruel, one could even say he has gone mad. Him and Catherine's husband, Edgar Linton, duke it out, Heathcliff swindles Edgar out of his fortune while he's on his deathbed, and all of this could have been prevented if prejudice and classism wasn't a thing.

Heathcliff is described as a nice kid when he's younger, but he gets tormented by Hindley, treated as lesser by Edgar, and perceivably jilted by Catherine because he hears a part of a conversation that she has with Nelly, the narrator, and takes it out of context. Catherine is never even able to clarify the misunderstanding because she's dies in the midst of giving birth to her daughter, Cathy, in the first ½ of the book! The writing in this story is gorgeous, but god, is it a labyrinthine tome to unravel, not to mention a huge downer! Don't read this and expect to feel good afterward!

A misgiving I have with the story is that there are too many characters that don't have a very crucial part in the plot, they just exist to progress the narrative, like: Frances, Joseph, Zillah, Dr. Kenneth, and I believe that Hareton Earnshaw only exists to further incite Heathcliff's rage. It was difficult for me to keep up with who is who in the story, and the official Wikipedia page even has a character flow chart because it gets so convoluted. I read Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, for Christ's sake and I feel like the extensive character count didn't need its own chart!

It's not easy to sympathize with any of the characters, especially Heathcliff. The descriptions of him are nightmare inducing, ghostly and devilish. It's interesting that Emily Brontë chose to tell the story of a cast of unlikable characters, from the point-of-view of their slave! Maybe that's the point, maybe we aren't meant to sympathize with any of them. We are just meant to see their follies from an outsider's perspective?

Then the question really is: If we had seen things from Heathcliff's point-of-view, would he have been more likable?

Though, I can't imagine Heathcliff's brutal beating of Catherine's daughter, Cathy, conveyed as any less horrible from another point-of-view.

I'm still not sure what to think about this novel, other than it made me feel miserable!