Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Bucket Rider
Okay, here goes. I am about to admit something terrible, something unimaginable to even the simplest of minds. I... I have never read Kafka. Not for any particular reason, I've just never had the need or the desire. That being said, I found The Bucket Rider to be quite surprising. It was not at all the unreadable, academic style that I had anticipated. Rather, I found the story to be quite enjoyable. One thing that struck me was the overall sense of distance that pervaded the peice, even though it's written in the first person. The reader is aware of the suffering of the narrator, but the surreal qualities of the action, setting, and dialogue leave the reader feeling somewhat detached. I was also struck by the coaldealer's wife. Why was she so opposed to giving the narrator a small amount of coal? The coaldealer himself did not seem at all bothered by the prospect.
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I have never found Kafka to be "academic" by any lack of a stretch of imagination. His stories are magic, Magical Realism and that is what makes his literature timeless. The distance is surprising. I feel pretty close to the narrator throughout but I can see how the "soaring" effect and the whimsy could be taken as distance. I'm not personally sure about the wife but in general Kafka puts his characters in a malevolent world facing a personal existential crisis.
ReplyDeleteThe tone and imagery of "The Bucket Rider" are wonderful. I found lines like, “…the stove breathing out cold air…” and “…the sky a silver shield against anyone who looks for help from it…” powerful and vivid. The second one in particular gives me a sense of the character’s isolation.
ReplyDelete- K. De Melo
Confession: I have never read Kafka either. But I'm with you, I found the reading to be quite enjoyable and easy to read. I, also, was not happy with the coaldealer's wife. But then, when she saw no one outside, or claimed to not see anyone, I wondered, was he really there? Or was he meerly a spirit. Because the coaldealer said he felt that someone was calling him, so maybe the narrator was already gone?
ReplyDeleteI think what inspires people to label Kafka "overly academic" are the heavy philisophical metaphors loaded into a lot of his stories. If you've read the Trial, you probably know what I mean. Or The Penal Colony, that was tough to interpret too.
ReplyDeleteNo matter what, though, whether you get his metaphors or not, Kafka is fun to read. He's just so damn eloquent and he makes such keen observations.
I especially love his descriptions of people, like the coal-salesman's wife raising her fist half-contemptuous half reassured. That's such an true to reality description of a gesture. I do wonder whether it is a violation of showing vrs. telling, but definitely don't care either way.