Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Read...Write as well

If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read?
So that it shall make us happy?
Good God, we should also be happy if we had no books, and such books as make us happy we could, if need be, write ourselves.
But what we must have are those books which come upon us like ill fortune, and distress us deeply, like the death of one we love better than ourselves; like suicide.
A book must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us.

Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924)

At first, I only love the last part. 'A book must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us'
In fact, the full paragraph even better...:)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear, one may indeed need an ice-axe to break the frozen bureaucracy anywhere in this damned country. This is what I wish to say to friends dealing with getting even (only) district budget documents. As I remember Kafka's The Castle, our friend Yayan's close-to-endless frustrated story about his struggle to get the Banjar district budget pushed my comical instinct. I like a comment made by wikipedia on the novel, saying: "The obvious thread throughout The Castle is bureaucracy. The extreme degree is nearly comical and the village residents' justifications of it are amazing. Hence it is no surprise that many feel that the work is a direct result of the political situation of the era in which it was written." Many of our state officials are actually (philosophically) funny and amusing. I hear you say they are not so. Or me, crazy? But, anyway, I admire Yayan's fight and struggle to get those documents, and by the way, you may also equally like to read a short story I had turned it earlier from a novel of another author, 2002 Nobel price recipient, from the same country as Kafka's, published in Kompas daily some times ago. This story is also about frustration but with a nearly comic skepticism of a teenager looking at adults. See here.

Ithoy said...

Cool short story. Through description and a well packaged ending 'Happiness from a concentration camp...'
Makes me wanna write my own, :)
Thanks Mas Pras

Anonymous said...

Mesti bagus ceritanya. Nanti ArahMan7 cari novelnya disini.

Semuga adik ku, Taibah berada didalam keadaan sihat wal afiat.

Salam dari Kuala Kangsar.

Ithoy said...

Thanks,
Saya sedang coba selesaikan sebuah cerita pendek...
Nanti saya share. ;)