The 140th anniversary of Kafka's birth, thinking who is "alienated" today?

Today (July 3) marks the 140th anniversary of Kafka's birth, who, along with French writer Marcel Proust and Irish writer James Joyce, is known as a pioneer and master of Western modernist literature. What is the real Kafka in the biography? How is the multimedia video drama "Metamorphosis" presented in a modern context? How does our daily life work? Not long ago, in June, One-Way Space Joy City Store held an offline salon, where Ren Weidong, professor of the School of German at Beijing Foreign Chinese University, and Li Jianjun, director of Independent Theater, discussed how we read, watch and understand Kafka today.

Salon site

Kafka as a scholar

In recent years, many new approaches and perspectives for understanding Kafka have emerged. Guangxi Normal University's Shanghai Bebet's "Literary Monuments" series has launched the "Kafka" trilogy, "The Key Years" and "Early Years", which will be published in 2024. Ren Weidong translated the volume of "Early Years". In this detailed and voluminous biography of Kafka, the author Stach consults 4,000 pages of letters, diaries and other manuscripts, leading readers into Kafka's life and solving the mystery of his creation.

Kafka: Early years

Ren Weidong is an early scholar in China who began to engage in Kafka studies and its reception in China. She introduced that Kafka has been a prominent scholar in China since the 80s of the last century and has been prosperous for a long time. "Kafka reset contemporary Chinese literature and was one of the most influential modernist writers." Li Jianjun believes that Kafka's influence is not only reflected in literature, but also in visual art, "His novels have a prominent feature, that is, strong imagery: people become insects, and the visual impact is very strong." ”

Kafka: The key years

Why is Kafka so powerful in contemporary times? Ren Weidong believes that this comes from the uncertainty of Kafka's work. "This is also what stimulates many literary theorists or literary researchers: they feel that Kafka can be explained by various theories, from various perspectives, through various methods."

In recent years, more methods and perspectives for understanding Kafka have emerged. Guangxi Normal University's Shanghai Bebet's "Literary Monuments" series has launched the "Kafka" trilogy, "The Key Years" and "Early Years", which will be published in 2024. Ren Weidong translated the volume of "Early Years". In this detailed and voluminous biography of Kafka, the author Stach consults 4,000 pages of letters, diaries and other manuscripts, leading readers into Kafka's life and solving the mystery of his creation.

Li Jianjun adapted Kafka's classic work "Metamorphosis", which combined with the current Chinese context, replacing the salesman in the original work with a courier, presenting Gregor's fate of being alienated by digital technology, allowing the audience to see the life state and epitome of the individual's "having to be involuted".

Animality and human alienation

Ren Weidong believes that Kafka did write many works with animals as the protagonists. In addition to "Metamorphosis", there are "Caves in the Ground" and "A Report to the Academy of Sciences". In fact, the beetle was not "invented" in the "Metamorphosis", as early as the early twentieth century in the "Preparations for a Country Wedding", there was an imagination of the beetle. Ren Weidong pointed out that "animality" is a central issue in Kafka's work. "All animals in Kafka's pen have a particularly strong ability to reflect, more like people, around people, are better observers than people, he can observe himself and others. Of course, its animality also has a function of being domesticated by humans. Kafka is more about seeing ourselves through the eyes of animals. ”

Li Jianjun pointed out that the core issue raised by Kafka is "alienation", and we should return to the present and face the question of "what is alienation". Who is "alienated" today? "At the beginning of Kafka's 'modernity,' the technology that caused us many problems reinforced the transformation of people. Our anxieties, existential pressures, ethical dilemmas, human myths, these changes are all in the process of technology," Li Jianjun said, and when they were rehearsing the Metamorphosis play, they did an exercise to try to adapt the first sentence of the Metamorphosis: "Gregor woke up from sleep and found himself transformed into a giant beetle. "While doing this exercise, we found that everyone had a very strong sense of identification with this sentence. I think the charm of "Metamorphosis" still comes from this resonance, and all the adapted works are trying their best to make this strong sense of absurdity occur. ”

Two giant fathers

After the reunification of Germany in 1871, national sentiment was on the rise, Bismarck became a symbol of political power, and Goethe was the representative of the national spirit. Goethe has been the "superfather" of German literature since the end of the 18th century. For the younger generation of writers at that time, they either gained confidence and legitimacy by being close to Goethe and imitating Goethe; The other is to distance yourself from Goethe and go your own way, thus surpassing him. These two contradictions are also reflected in Kafka. Ren Weidong introduced that "The Verdict" can also be understood as Kafka's summary of Goethe's thinking: the father in the novel is like Goethe. Although old, he is still a giant; Benderman wants to imitate his father and become the one to replace him; And the lonely friend who ran to Russia is like another way to stick to himself, away from the "giants".

And in "Kafka: The Early Years", the relationship between Kafka and his biological father can also be seen, which influenced Kafka's entire life and writing. "We know that Kafka's father was particularly burly, very loud and rude, like a tyrant. Kafka was thin and small, shrinking next to his father, shivering - this impression was actually created by Kafka for us. Ren Weidong said. The Kafka family had two lines: his father was a do-get-man who grew up hungry and cold, and his mother was well-off and had sensitive artistic qualities. In Kafka, it seems that his mother's genes are dominant, but he has not shaken off the inner self-blame because he has not become like his father.

For Li Jianjun, the world in Kafka's novel is full of an artistry, and we can see the terrified eyes in his writing. He has an unusually sensitive understanding of the environment, the human condition, etc. Ren Weidong pointed out that in the book "Early Years", there is an excerpt from Kafka's letter to a friend, which says: What do we want happy literature for? We can be happy without literature. Literature should be a misfortune, it should be a pain, it should be like an axe. He believed that literature was meant to show pain, without pleasure.

Kafka once said, "I am literature itself." Ren Weidong explained: "I think this sentence is not an exaggeration, not a metaphor, but it is talking about his whole life, his literature, is a part of his inner life, including his imagination of his father in life and the shaping of himself." He was trying to make his life literary. ”