#stuck in the ghetto and forbidden from interacting with the German minority in Prague while also not part of the cultural Czech majority

[lanotteviene]

anyway it's funny in an interesting way how the internet turned Kafka into the sad boy with an existentialist + romantic flavour instead of the author of seminal works about alienation & the confusing, painful contrast between what society deems normal and what Isn't. how the rules that establish that divide aren't made clear, how to the marginalized they seem ever-changing, impossible to grasp, surreal to the point of despair.

if you've ever felt overwhelmed by the absurdity of a system that seems legitimately against you instead of for you, if you've had days or months or years where language or cultural barriers have made you feel wrong to your core, if you've dealt with so much stress or mental illness or abuse that you've struggled to recognize yourself in the mirror his work talks about your struggles and would probably speak to you

#this is a very resonant theme for queer and/or young people #and for good reason -- the latter group he was downright referring to in the metamorphosis (a work ostensibly about the clash between older #generations and the younger #wounded and lost #one he was part of). Kafka wasn't merely sad per se #he was a marginalized person - both ethnically/religiously and linguistically #as a German-speaking jewish man in Czechoslovakia #he was doubly alienated; #stuck in the ghetto and forbidden from interacting with the German minority in Prague while also not part of the cultural Czech majority #and that alienation followed him in his domestic life in the form of a wounding distance from his own parents and their generation #literature #franz kafka