What is the anti-Kafka?

The butler and counting made me think antiKafka. Watermelon has too much sad and isolation.

and then he would have repeated that performance 50 pages later, and 50 pages after that, and 50 pages after that in and almost formulaic form...

Woodhouse is good, but best to stick to small doses separated by good amounts of either time or liquor.

Sad? It is plain and straight forward while giving your imagination endless freedom to run! The opposite of Kafka.

Wodehouse's prose is God tier. Reading him for plot is pointless, though at least in the Jeeves books the conclusion is not always Daddy's money but Jeeves' plotting, unlike the Psmith books. The plots are always going to work out dandy, it's the language and jokes that's amazing.

>I missed the point of Margaret
>And the bullying
>And the lack of imagination of the community
>And the Forgotten Works
Are you one of those people who thinks it's a prohippy book? It's a very sad book about abandonment and being stifled by those around you. It's very close to Kafka.

>A certain critic—for such men, I regret to say, do exist—made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained ‘all the old Wodehouse characters under different names’. He has probably now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have outgeneralled this man by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy
He's a palate cleanser extraordinaire. Wodehouse, Flashman or Patrick O'Brian are my go to refresher reads after finishing something long and heavy like The Magic Mountain

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That is only a small part of the book, you missed huge parts, Brautigan put more into his stories than just his depression, far more.

Margaret and the stifling community and its exiles are the whole point of the book, and you haven't actually provided anything that makes me think you read it let alone have an argument against that.
He does put more into his stories than depression, but Watermelon in particular is about pariahs and social oppression and abandonment. Which is why I recommended a different book which is less like Kafka. I'd also argue that while sad it's not about depression. He has other books for that which are also less like Kafka (Sombrero for instance is less like Kafka than Watermelon and less sad, though it is half about depression and bureaucracy)

you read his inspirations for various aspects of the book, sources for imagery, and reduced it to that, to make the book purely about him means you have to ignore half the book as just silly non sense that is just mindless entertainment or force it to fit in awkward ways that may work in the book but not with his life. Both ways that view falls apart, there is one that brings in it all and greatly deepens the aspects relating to Brautigan.

Go read it again without the bias of that biography you read, start a thread when you are done, I will be there to discuss.

No, Margaret is clearly isolated and everyone is ignoring her walks except the narrator. The sculptures the narrator likes best are the abandoned ones, and the Forgotten Works are clearly abandoned apart from pariahs who feel hard done by the community. The community bullies and isolates people for everything from not wanting to make a sculpture to making carrots wrong. inBoil is explicitly a pariah as are his friends. Even though the author notices and intervenes in Margaret's walks, unlike everyone else in the commune, he fucking hates her because of that loose plank, and he's the only one who could really be considered caring about her. The uniformity of the crop, despite its many colours, belies the social organisation; it's also contrasted with the bullying over carrots. The characters the author feels closest to are the fucking tigers for fuck sake, and he lives outside the community for a reason.

You have again provided no proof you have read it and if you have, you've missed all the major themes and whole point. I suggest you read it for the first time.

Probably Tolstoi, even his darkest stories are wholesome and somewhat happy.

Kafka aint healthy.
Don't read it thinking you're absorbing the darker more real aspects of reality: it is merely one man's inability to cope, expressed artistically

Saki (HH Munro)
It's dark comedy but should do the trick.

um no faggot this is the way life fucking is, you're just too un-intelligent to be blackpilled
fuck this earth I can't wait till I die tomorrow

lol loser

>Kreutzersonate somewhat happy

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

War and Peace is the most depressing book I've read. Andrei's arc is pure misery. He finds hope in spite of everything over and over again only to end up disappointed each time.

>Kafka's friend, Max Brod, talked of how Kafka found humour in his dark works - especially the chilling "The Trial", which he thought a hoot, laughing so hard while reading the first chapter aloud, that he repeatedly had to stop to collect himself.

If you think Kafka’s primary mood is desperation and despair than you’re no better than a child who believes that the night represents only the darkness and the gloom.

I never denied these aspects of the book, just said there is more than you are seeing but you are too caught up into trying to prove yourself correct or that I have not read it to bother even considering that you may have missed something. Why are you trying to prove things I never denied?

Good luck, if you give it a reread and start that thread, I will be here.

Why don't you BOTH read it and then get back to each other. I'll be here to curate if need be

Kafka's books are hilarious, the fuck are you talking about

You have provided again no proof you have read any of it. You have provided no argument against what I said being the main themes of the book besides "cuz I think so fer reasons".

I really have no faith you read the book at all, since you seem utterly unable to discuss it. You've had more than enough time to read it for the first time, and I'm not making a thread so someone who has no ability to enter into good faith arguments can post "no, it's totally different for no reasons I can remember and no points I can point to and just listen to my vague idea you're wrong because of reasons I won't provide". That is not worth killing a thread, especially as I have no faith that would make you read or analyse the text at all, since you have repeatedly refused to do so.

Read the book. Present your argument from the text, as I have and is standard in any literary discussion.

Agreed

Ok, you got me, I am trying to trick you into rereading a great book that only takes a few hours to read cover to cover, I am such an evil and useless person.

>He is so happy! I could almost believe he has found God
That’s Kafka himself on Chesterton, so there you go. Start with The Man Who Was Thursday

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I've demonstrated I've read itYou have not demonstrated you even know a character name outside those I've listed. That's why literary discussions refer to the text because it demonstrates you've read it. You haven't referred to the text once. The only indication you've read anything by Brautigan is a reference to the first page of a different book. I believe you have read the first page of The Hawkline Monster, but that is the total extent of your demonstrated familiarity with any of his texts: one page from a text you're not even talking about.

Still have not mentioned Pauline or Charlie. And you only have demonstrated reading a summary that is very focused on the personal aspects, but I never questioned that you read it, nor that you were wrong, just that you only saw the personal aspect.

Three Men in a Boat. My friend kept recommending it, and finally I read it. It was actually pretty funny. I think you could even find the pdf now

I laughed while reading The Trial. Did you not find the whipper humorous?

thanks

You have only demonstrated reading a character list at best. You'll notice the first chapter with those carrots (and Pauline and Charley's names appearing together in a chapter) I've been citing all day is only four chapters in and in Brautigan length that means you have read about 13 pages into the text, with large gaps for chapter titles. Other Anons can check that, the chapter title is Fred.

You have not demonstrated any other themes or over all points from the text that show you have comprehended it. That is the next step.

Outline your actual argument with reference to the text, rather than just listing character names like that proves anything of your supposed greater understanding.

I've demonstrated I've read past page 13 which is still more than you (The text of the book starts on page seven, fwiw)

>page 13 which is still more than you (The text of the book starts on page seven, fwiw)
So user read six pages, not thirteen?

Basically, yes, that's as much as he's demonstrated knowledge of besides some summary he keeps referring to, which he also hasn't properly cited so who knows if it even exists.

Or else reading the blank pages took up a lot of his afternoon, and that's why he's struggling, but has actually read all thirteen including the blanks and ISBN.

Can not believe how much effort you put into this. But from moment one you have been on the attack to proove your view correct and that you have missed nothing. Anything Ioffer as proof that I read it will be refuted with "you just read a character list" and so on, it is obvious. Odd that I picked the two characters that don't fit nicely into your view, the character list I read probably informed me of that. Get over yourself, i am done with this track, good luck, there is more to the book than a diary entry.

The Trial really is hilarious, the first chapter has K's accosters trying to steal his underwear, if Kafka took the comedy any further we'd be calling it heavyhanded.

You told me my view was wrong and provided no reference to the text, so I supported my argument with multiple references to the text. You refused to supply any argument supported by the text. This is stuff you learn in basic lit classes: your argument must be outlined and supported with reference to the text.
It's neither aggressive on my part nor out of the norms of literary discussion to ask you what your argument is and how you support it from what is in the text. That is considered basic competence, rather than aggression.

You still have no outlined you argument nor supported it from the text you want to claim greater knowledge of than me. Instead you've spent hours not reading the text, not outlining your arguments, not citing the text, and claiming some greater esoteric knowledge while also not being able to give any information that shows any real knowledge of the text, let alone a greater comprehension.
>diary entry
Cite it? No, of course not.

Also, one of the characters you mentioned is contrasted with the pariah inBoil directly as a major twist of the book. I'd hate to spoil it for you or user though so Charley is inBoil's brother, and both Pauline and Charley's not eating when inBoil and co might be coming is contrasted with Margaret having a surprising appetite, so the fact they're obvious foils and represent the norms of the commune which supports my argument seems to have escaped you

Stop beating him, user, he's already bloody

Move on man, I told you whatto do if you want to discuss the book. If you are right about me you have put a huge amount of effort into proving yourself to a troll.

Nah, I am good

I'm glad you admit you were just making shit up about a book you haven't read, but I see no point in waiting this long to admit it when any user can factcheck you by reading the text themselves. Though obviously they can't read the outside sources you made up since they have no citation for this summary, biography, or diary which you refer to as supporting my argument. Maybe next time, if you're going to rely on made up sources which are not part of the text in question, you should pretend the outside sources support your argument instead of your opponent's. I mean, you came up with a fictional diary, biography, AND summary to support my arguments, that's almost as good as directly supporting my arguments from the text.
Read the book sometime. It's very good.

>Nah, I am good
It's not how it looks from here, but okay
There are hundreds of other pseud posts you can correct, lit101-sama, spread it out a little

Farmer Giles of Ham, by Tolkien.

Go right this minute.

You were a fool to continue after your second short story; its all NTR bad ending for (You), derriere reader. Its called plotrailroading, fixing the narrative so to kafkuck you, like the Saw franchise, or the philosophical runaway tram question.

Tell Franz in your mind to fuck himself like the little chomohomo shitlord he is. Immediate improvement.

I guess I just trolled you into writing an essay then, guess that means I succeeded in my goal and you fell for the bait.

>thinks greentext comprises an essay
I really wouldn't expect anything else of you.

Almost nothing you wrote was green text, 90% was just rephrasing the same thing, move on.

Rephrasing outline your argument and cite from the text won't get you many points in that essay. Most of what I said about the book is in greentext. Do you think the top half of the thread disappeared for everyone?

You got trolled user, I only made the first post today, but that user was right about Pauline and Charley. Most of your view is based on what other people think, only a third or perhaps half is concrete. Brautigan was inspired by The Torrents of Spring, which was a response to Dark Laughter, In Watermelon Sugar was a response to Fahrenheit 451. He wrote it from the view of someone who did not fit in with society but was sympathetic and had ties to society and enjoyed various aspects of it. Inboil and his crew are the moral mintority, Montage and co, their actions make no sense to the immoral majority, but the moral minority sees all the flaws in society, despite that society functioning quite well and being content.

The view that it was all about himself is flawed in a few ways, mainly the book would make no sense to anyone who was not familiar with the intimate life of Brautigan, so pretty much none of his audience at the time of its publication, Brautigan was a better writer than that.

It also poses the question of should we look for more just because there is more, hence the vagueness of the description of the forgotten works, he says, there is more, a great deal more that we know nothing about, but does it matter?

Should add, it being a response to Fahrenheit 451 is my view. Brautigan told a friend, forget who at this moment, that In Watermelon Sugar was done in the vein of The Torrents of Spring and nothing more. Fahrenheit 451 just seems obvious to me. Anyone know who it was that he told that too? There is a great interview with the guy, who ever he is.

Kinda drunk and just want to continue on with this path.

The forgotten works, while being drawn from his childhood imagination in the blackberry thicket, is most likely the remnants of the current society, it is filled with useless book, useless in the sense that they serve no purpose to anyone In Watermelon Sugar other than Inboil and his crew who are caught up in ideas, things that are of not much use to the folks of In Watermelon Sugar. This is the big parallel to The Torrents of Spring which while being a spoof of a single book, was meant to poke the lit world of the time as a whole.

I do not recall any bullying or obsession with uniformity in the crops. People would suggest he should do something such as a sculpture, but they were just trying to help the person they did not understand, any better then he understood them, to find something to make him as happy as they were. They saw that he often spent time looking at various sculptures and tried to encourage him, they may have been misguided but they certainly were not being bullies.

I have a full drink so there may be more to come. I really do love this book.

One more before bed.

The narrator is not stifled by society, he just does not understand them anymore then they understand him, he can not see how he fits in it but he loves that they try and help him find a place. There are people that are important to him, Charley, Pauline, the lamplighter, things he loves, iDeath, the way everything is made from watermelon sugar, the tombs and statutes, but he just can not see how he fits into it all but wants to, this is why he keeps going back to iDeath and keeps a room there. He is the contrast to InBoil and crew who do not fit in but unlike him, have found a place for themselves, unlike him they do not want to belong and can only see the bad, he only see the good. He is the objective observer in that he has things in common with both the the people of iDeath and the people of The Forgotten Works.

This is the correct answer. Kafka clothed himself in Walser's style, perverting his life-affirming childlike Germanic spirit

>The view that it was all about himself is flawed in a few ways, mainly the book would make no sense to anyone who was not familiar with the intimate life of Brautigan, so pretty much none of his audience at the time of its publication, Brautigan was a better writer than that.
I never posted such a view. The "other user" who you call a troll and I suspect is samefag (You) accused me of such a view. But I did not say any such thing.
>The forgotten works, while being drawn from his childhood imagination in the blackberry thicket
There is an old thread here which has this assertion in it, but I did not make that thread. You seem to be assuming that I am user here
warosu.org/lit/thread/S12700198#p12701037
Who does demonstrate a knowledge of Brautigan's work, but assuming that I'm every user who has ever written a post on Brautigan is a bit much, especially as you (and the troll who is not you, you claim) started with the assumption I'm some random user from that thread immediately in this thread. I position you are the troll, samefag, and the user namefagging as Brautigan in that old thread.

While I will concede that the troll user is right that Pauline and Charley's are characters in the book, that is all that user said about them, besides some vague idea they did not fit my theory of pariahs Vs a stifling community (to which I pointed out they are foils). I do not see how you otherwise think he is right, since he did not expand on what he thought about them. Well, unless you don't need to be psychic because you're samefag as the troll and just telling me again you think you're right for no reason.

Interesting it was easier to find support for your blackberry theory off the internet (even if only from this board) than it was to find support for your theory of inspiration by Brautigan. Please provide your sources for Torrents of Spring and Dark Laughter.
Fahrenheit could be a minor inspiration, in that the author was the first author in living memory in the book, however that is not a theme, and a major theme of F451 is pariahs Vs a stifling society, so I fail to see how that would disprove my claim WS is about pariahs Vs a stifling society. As anyone who has read both books would easy see.
>not recall any bullying
You don't remember whose carrots they hate? Weird, because troll user read the start of that thread which runs through the book if he read the full chapter called Fred, where he got Pauline and Charley's names from.
>obsession with uniformity in the crops
You don't remember how everything is made of Watermelon Sugar or the repeated refrain that everything is done in Watermelon Sugar? How? It's the most common phrase in the whole book.

Walser and Kafka do have that same kind of bemused tone at times. He did very much admire Walser, too, but Walser's treatments are more whimsical. Walser's influence is more clearly reflected in Kafka's parables, I think.

Did no one else here find Kafka relatively funny, though? K's assistants in The Castle are really great.

>People would suggest he should do something such as a sculpture
Again, sculpture was the only accepted art in living memory. That is why him being a writer was so strange. It's also part of why he separates himself from the commune to write, because he feels living in the commune will make other art impractical.
You must be really drunk to not remember how the commune operated around the Watermelon farm or how everything was done in Watermelon Sugar though. That's like forgetting F451 has book burners.
>The narrator is not stifled by society, he just does not understand them anymore then they understand him, he can not see how he fits in it but he loves that they try and help him find a place
Charley is the only one who vaguely supports him, and that is arguably because of his history with inBoil. Margaret interrupts his writing all the time. He moves to the edge of the commune, and prefers tigers to the people there. He feels bad for the people he bullies and makes sure to gtfo at night.
>Charley, Pauline, the lamplighter,
The lamp at night is Margaret. She lives with Charley and Pauline and they are utterly shocked to discover anything has been wrong with her, because they cannot see how stifling the community is. The author is the only one who notices her wandering all over at night, despite him not living with her.
>iDeath
It's repeated noted he choose not to live near it, only goes for meals, unlike everyone else in the commune. He does not use the room there, because he does not like it there. It's a sign of a stifling community like when cult members tell escapees that there room is still there if they ever see sense. He chooses instead to live as far away as possible without losing access to food.
>the tombs and statutes,
It's specified he doesn't like most the statues that everyone else does and instead goes to see the ones that the community don't pay attention to. Especially the remote ones.
>He is the contrast to InBoil and crew who do not fit in but unlike him, have found a place for themselves, unlike him they do not want to belong and can only see the bad, he only see the good.
He is one contrast, but Charley is the bigger contrast, much like nobody pairs Cain and Seth, or Abel and Seth when reading the Bible. The conflict of the two societies is embodied in Charley and inBoil, while Margaret and the author pass into both societies, neither of them adhering to iDeath norms unlike Pauline and Charlie, while also being willing to investigate the Forgotten Works but not siding with inBoil and his crew either. That makes them doubly excluded and illfitting, and unable to conform to either established society (though Margaret does try before she gives up entirely)

You should tell less obvious lies on the internet if your ego is riding on it this hard. It is interesting that you accused me of using outside sources like you have. Look forward to your citation for Torrents of Spring

>He feels bad for the people he bullies
for the people *iDeath bullies, not *he

Long post to say nothing, but more of the same.
>You don't remember whose carrots they hate?
That is not quite bully.ing, and what is there other than the carrots? That is far from a theme of the book.
>You don't remember how everything is made of Watermelon Sugar
Did you not read my posts, There is no hint in the book that they strive for that, it is just they way they are., and just because it is all made from the same raw material does not mean it all looks the same. Also, they use other materials, such as pine.
>Again, sculpture was the only accepted art in living memory
Show me where it says it is the only ACCEPTED, or even hinted at. At best you can say it is the only thing really remembered, but there is a book remembered as well. Art is a part of the forgotten works/past, anyone can do it if they desire. Also, there is hints of music and story telling, both are ART.
>The lamp at night is Margaret.
LAMPLIGHTER, not lamp at night, was his name Chuck? escapes me at the moment.
>It's repeated noted he choose not to live near it,
Yes, as I said, but he still goes there daily, overnights at time and he spends most of his time talking about the people of iDeath. But he is not from iDeath, he went there after his parents were eaten by the tiger, he is from a shack in the woods. Fair amount of suggestion there are many who live In Watermelon Sugar but do not live at iDeath, but he only talks about the people of iDeath. But he leaves this vague and purposefully so.
>he doesn't like most the statues
And? We know that.

Perhaps I will respond more later, but you are terrible at discussion.

>riding on it this hard
You are the one that responded endlessly to obvious trolling to prove what?

>That is not quite bully.ing, and what is there other than the carrots?
The author views it as bullying. You seem to have missed every other point about conforming (the statues, the fact there's an entire community of exiles) Keep in mind he feels less bad about the Tigers and thinks people should still consider them nice for stopping eating his parents for a little while when he describes other people as nice. His bar on nice does not preclude killing his parents in front of him.
>Did you not read my posts, There is no hint in the book that they strive for that, it is just they way they are
That does not stop the crop and materials being uniformly watermelon sugar. You told me there is no uniformity of crops>obsession with uniformity in the crops
Being obsessed over and yet the author mentions it more than anything else and contrasts it with the materials he likes for the statues which are devalued by everyone else. The different materials the two communities obsess over are a major contrast with things from the forgotten works being seen as highly suspect, and the entire of the commune being done in watermelon sugar is their unifying material. They did use pine and stone, but since most of the neglected things in the community are from pine and stone, and metal is considered suspect, the idea that watermelon sugar is not a thing they strive for when it's the basis of pretty much all their activity (explicitly in the refrain) is patently ridiculous. Do you think Brautigan repeated it so you would think the opposite?
>Show me where it says it is the only ACCEPTED, or even hinted at. At best you can say it is the only thing really remembered, but there is a book remembered as well. Art is a part of the forgotten works/past, anyone can do it if they desire. Also, there is hints of music and story telling, both are ART.
You just told me art is part of the pariah society they are afraid of, so I think you know that sculpture is the only thing they accept as art. Hence also the constant suggestions to make more and the ubiquity of them. This is like saying the TV screens in F451 are not the accepted art of the state.
>LAMPLIGHTER, not lamp at night, was his name Chuck? escapes me at the moment.
You mean the guy who has to struggle against everyone except Charley saying he's too old to have a job he likes? Yeah, his name is Chuck. Though bringing him up does bring up the spectre of bullying and social control again. Charley's privileged position lets him engage in some points of noblesse oblige but that doesn't make the society less oppressive or less likely to try to bully you out of your job. Brautigan repeats that people think he should quit twice in the chapter when he comes to the bridge. He also points out in the same chapter everyone has forgotten about the bridge and the person killed by the tiger there, but remember the statue. Apparently that's caring more about people than statues to you

>Yes, as I said, but he still goes there daily, overnights at time and he spends most of his time talking about the people of iDeath
As I said, he needs food. Without them he'd die or have to go to inBoil. We also haven't discussed how the commune is called iDeath and most readers assume it's named from death of identity.
It's also what inBoil tries to show is the meaning by cutting himself to pieces in front of everyone

I see you have no citation for your Torrents of Spring idea. I guess you must be doing that later.
>You are the one that responded endlessly to obvious trolling to prove what
That I can make you read the book for the first time and slowly spoonfeed you to the point you might be able to comprehend the text. Using your ego against you seems to have worked for the first part, so I think we're doing nicely.

>Using your ego against you seems to have worked for the first part, so I think we're doing nicely.
Considering you pulled one of my old posts out of the archives, seems you failed here. But you are only interested in winning. This is tiresome.

I give, your knowledge is beyond refute and you have anonymously proven that to all the anons here, good work! I really hope you are not like this in person, but i fear you are.

>Considering you pulled one of my old posts out of the archives, seems you failed here. But you are only interested in winning.
Well, no, the fact you seem to still have a vendetta against the user for that thread so bad that you freaked out I might be him for half the page, I'd say your ego's a pretty easy way in.

I guess you're not refuting my points or going to provide that Hemingway reasoning, then, or is this another one of your endlessly repeating lies about being done? Let's see.

Kafka's work is intensely psychedelic.