I went in with an expectation. I thought I’d read some of Kafka’s work. Sure as hell know who he is. Kafka, you know? I started reading. The first paragraph was close to what I expected but it seemed off somehow, so I paused and checked. Sure enough, what I thought was Kafka had actually been a story by someone else. The Guest or some such. Awful close, though. The way the Officer spoke. His mannerisms and speech. He started in on his explanation and I did what I do which is zone out. Same with the pre-revolution Russian writers. I get to wondering what the point is. Wait for the machine to kick into gear. You can describe an internal combustion engine or you can turn the key and listen to it growl. Unless the point isn’t in what it does, but what it is.
No names. I always find this interesting. I’m not partial to names myself and I have to wonder how deliberate a decision this is. Is the title meant to denote an archetype? Meant to divert attention?
The commandants’ presence is overpowering. You can’t get away from them.
I’m going to read it again in a few days. Let it sink in.
The faceless bureaucracy is something I got from it as well.
Thinking about it more—and still not content with “torture is bad” as the theme here—the ludicrous nature of the machine comes to mind. He spends so much time describing the process by which the machine does its business that you wonder why they don’t just shoot the man in the head and call it a day. A reflection of man’s needless complexity? Over-processing what nature makes so simple for us. Death can be quick, but man is so hellbent on process and elaborate expression of the psyche that even death becomes needlessly complex.
Of course I’m approaching this from a modern sensibility. I need to research the context of the time period now.