KOCHI: Last weekend, our Kochi office hosted former Kerala finance minister Thomas Isaac as part of the Express Dialogues series. He is one politician who is always in his element, and has an amusing way with words. When asked about the ED’s notice to him for questioning on KIIFB irregularities, he termed it his ‘Kafka moment’.
“If you have read The Trial by Franz Kafka, you will understand this,” he said. “In it, somebody makes a false accusation against Josef K and he gets arrested with no explanation given. The current situation is such that you can be arrested but need not be told why. Having read Kafka, I’m prepared for such eventualities.”
That got me re-reading Kafka. Thanks, Thomas. Akin to Kafka’s 1915 classic The Metamorphosis, the story of Josef K, a bank clerk, too, is an intriguing one that can leave one seeking answers, frustrated.
The Czech writer wanted the 1914-15 manuscript of The Trial to be burned. But after Kafka’s death in 1924, Israeli writer Max Brod chose to go against his friend’s wishes. He published the book in 1925.
Since then, The Trial has been a subject of various studies and analyses. There are few concrete conclusions, though. “The main question is: Who’s accusing me? What authorities are in charge of the proceedings?” Josef asks the police in the book. There are no answers. The burden of angst is passed on to the reader.
Similar have been the results of attempts to decode the book. In a brilliant analysis for the Scientific American, Swiss neuroscientist and author Sebastian Dieguez notes The Trial is “often described as a descent into the ravings of a paranoid mind”.
“Beyond the psychological interpretation are the existential (K.is simply guilty of existing); the theological (it is the original sin that is on trial) and the political (Kafka is presaging the arbitrariness of totalitarian regimes). The narrative—simultaneously ambiguous, vague, abstract and bizarre—admits any number of approaches,” he adds.
In a subsequent passage, Sebastian succinctly sums up: “The Trial, like Kafka’s other works, suggests that the paradoxes and bottlenecks characteristic of the faceless bureaucratic systems that make people’s lives impossible are not always inherent in the systems themselves. Rather in Kafka’s books, these ‘Kafkaesque’ attributes exist in the minds of his protagonists. It is the human brain that makes a situation seem Kafkaesque.”
Incidentally, Thomas, the CPM’s star economist, valiantly reassured that there was nothing Kafkaesque about Kerala’s economy a la Sri Lanka, and there was no reason for paranoia. “Kerala is part of India...,” he reminded.
Similarly, ‘Kafkaesque’ has become an integral part of the English lexicon. It is, in fact, overused.
“In the nearly 70 years since his death, we’ve promoted Franz Kafka from a merely great writer to an all-purpose adjective, and that word Kafkaesque now gets tossed around with cavalier imprecision, applied to everything from an annoying encounter with a petty bureaucrat to the genocidal horrors of the Third Reich,” noted a Globe and Mail column, way back in 1992.
According to Merriam-Webster, however, lookups for ‘kafkaesque’ “spiked dramatically on May 17th after the Man Booker prize for 2016 was awarded to Han Kang’s novel The Vegetarian”. “This work, translated from Korean into English by Debbie Smith, has been described by its British publishers (and by a number of reviewers) as Kafka-esque,” it added.
Okay, let’s give Kafka a break, and move on to some random pickings of eponyms that may offer some food for thought. Machiavellian: “Suggesting the principles of conduct laid down by Machiavelli; marked by cunning, duplicity, or bad faith” Shakespearean: “Relating to the plays and poems written by William Shakespeare”. Shakespearean tragedy/comedy is often used to describe books, films and real-life scenarios.
Miltonic: “Of or relating to John Milton or his writings. As adjective, like Milton’s style, esp. in being solemn, elevated, majestic, etc.” Dickensian: “Relating to or similar to something described in the books of Charles Dickens, especially living or working conditions that are below an acceptable standard.”
Byronic: “Possessing the characteristics of [Lord] Byron or his poetry, especially romanticism, melancholy, and melodramatic energy.” Mostly used to describe men as “alluringly dark, mysterious, and moody”.
Orwellian: “Relating to, or suggestive of George Orwell or his writings; especially : relating to or suggestive of the dystopian reality depicted in the novel 1984.” Poesque: “Of, relating to, or reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe or his work; macabre, Gothic.” Proustian: “Of, relating to, or resembling Marcel Proust, his writings, or the middle-class and aristocratic worlds he described.” Also, “relating to or evoking the recall of a forgotten memory”.
Tolstoyan: Popularised by the “Tolstoyan movement... a social movement based on the philosophical and religious views of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy”. A Tolstoyan is viewed as one “who advocates and practises manual labour, simplicity of living, non-resistance, etc., holds that possession of wealth and ownership of property are sinful”.
Plathian: Honourable mention, as my Editor in Chief at home is a huge Sylvia Plath fan. The word is described as “of or pertaining to Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), American poet and novelist, or her works”. In modern usage, some link it to “feminine rage”. Finally, though not a literary eponym per se, I shall sign off with Freudian: “Relating to or influenced by Sigmund Freud and his methods of psychoanalysis, especially with reference to the importance of sexuality in human behaviour.” Most commonly used, the Freudian slip: “A slip of the tongue that is motivated by and reveals some unconscious aspect of the mind.”