Kafka: Vì một nền văn học thiểu số

by Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Nguyễn Thị Từ Huy (Translator)

Sức mạnh của Kafka. Chính trị của Kafka. Những lá thư tình đã là một thứ chính trị, ở đó Kafka tự thấy mình như một ma cà rồng. Các chuyện ngắn và các truyện phác nên những sự-trở-thành-động-vật, chúng cũng là những đường lẩn trốn có tính chất hoạt năng. Các tiểu thuyết là vô hạn. Hơn là chưa hoàn tất, chúng tiến hành một quá trình tháo tung những cỗ máy lớn của xã hội trong hiện tại và tương lai. Chính vào lúc ông trưng chúng ra và sử dụng chúng như một cái bình phong. Kafka hầu như không tin vào luật pháp, vào cảm giác tội lỗi, nỗi sợ hãi, tính nội tâm. Ông cũng ít tin vào các biểu tượng, các ẩn dụ hay các hoán dụ. Ông chỉ tin vào những cấu kết và những chuỗi được vạch ra bởi mọi hình thái mong muốn. Những đường lẩn trốn của ông không bao giờ là một nơi ẩn náu, một lối thoát ra khỏi thế giới. Trái lại đó là một phương tiện để dò tìm những gì đang được chuẩn bị, và để báo trước những “thế lực hắc ám” của tương lai gần. Kafka thích tự xác định mình về phương diện ngôn ngữ, về phương diện chính trị và về phương diện cộng đồng, bằng các khái niệm thuộc về một nền văn học được gọi là “thiểu số”. Nhưng văn học thiểu số là bộ phận của mọi cuộc cách mạng trong những nền văn học lớn.

Genres: Philosophy, Theory, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, France, Literature, Criticism

244 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Deleuze is a key figure in poststructuralist French philosophy. Considering himself an empiricist and a vitalist, his body of work, which rests upon concepts such as multiplicity, constructivism, difference and desire, stands at a substantial remove from the main traditions of 20th century Continental thought. His thought locates him as an influential figure in present-day considerations of society, creativity and subjectivity. Notably, within his metaphysics he favored a Spinozian concept of a plane of immanence with everything a mode of one substance, and thus on the same level of existence. He argued, then, that there is no good and evil, but rather only relationships which are beneficial or harmful to the particular individuals. This ethics influences his approach to society and politics, especially as he was so politically active in struggles for rights and freedoms. Later in his career he wrote some of the more infamous texts of the period, in particular, Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. These texts are collaborative works with the radical psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, and they exhibit Deleuze’s social and political commitment.

Gilles Deleuze began his career with a number of idiosyncratic yet rigorous historical studies of figures outside of the Continental tradition in vogue at the time. His first book, Empirisism and Subjectivity, is a study of Hume, interpreted by Deleuze to be a radical subjectivist. Deleuze became known for writing about other philosophers with new insights and different readings, interested as he was in liberating philosophical history from the hegemony of one perspective. He wrote on Spinoza, Nietzche, Kant, Leibniz and others, including literary authors and works, cinema, and art. Deleuze claimed that he did not write “about” art, literature, or cinema, but, rather, undertook philosophical “encounters” that led him to new concepts. As a constructivist, he was adamant that philosophers are creators, and that each reading of philosophy, or each philosophical encounter, ought to inspire new concepts. Additionally, according to Deleuze and his concepts of difference, there is no identity, and in repetition, nothing is ever the same. Rather, there is only difference: copies are something new, everything is constantly changing, and reality is a becoming, not a being.

He often collaborated with philosophers and artists as Félix Guattari, Michel Foucault, Guy Hocquenghem, René Schérer, Carmelo Bene, François Châtelet, Olivier Revault d'Allonnes, Jean-François Lyotard, Georges Lapassade, Kateb Yacine and many others.

Reviews

[Alex Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This tiny book reads like a chapter out of Thousand Plateaus. It's brilliant, erudite and deep. Deleuze and Guattari show how the different topographies of Kafka's novels reflect onto the bureaucratic realism that has swallowed today whole. They explain that it takes a deterritorialized language, an impoverished language in order to highlight the repetition that is generated by separate domains intruding on one another. In fact the "k-function" becomes a stand-in for generic subjectivity. This is the only way in which we can explore the hyperrealism of bureaucracy. By demonstrating the meaningless chaining that comes out of how bureaucractic states are, Deleuze and Guattari show us through kafka, the deeper connections that characterizes the stuttering teleology that rules contemporary life. Most of all, they illustrate a tool box of methods so that we can then go forth and consider the fine construction of our lifeworld. By seeing their structation we then have the freedom to consider alternate assemblages of completely different productions. These tools can allow us the choice of completely different human organizations.

[David M]

I read this book a few years ago at my friend's insistence, and at the time I sent him my reaction in an email:

Well, their reading struck me as a little forced, an attempt to liberate Kafka, turn him on his head, make him into the opposite of what everyone thinks he is. I found this unconvincing; not just unconvincing but also limiting, as limiting as a strictly oedipal interpretation. Here I think Foucault is useful: liberation marks not a radical rupture but a mere inflection point in the history of sexuality. I definitely got the sense that D&G had a program to apply, and they were going to apply it to anyone regardless... Not that they didn't have interesting points along the way. The chapter on minor literature is provocative... I also think it's interesting how D&G try and make the case that, contra Benjamin, Kafka was not a failure, specifically that the incompleteness of his novels should not be taken as failure but a kind of success; I think they're right insofar as The Trial and The Castle are, let's say, intrinsically unfinished, ie, even if Kafka had lived another 30 years he never would have finished them (unlike Proust, who really just needed a few more months of life to put the finishing touches on La Recherche), but then they celebrate this unfinishedness as the manifestation of pure immanence , the infinite process of desire set free (I'm getting the terms wrong, I don't have the book right in front of me at the moment). This just seems wrong (like how Weil used the Iliad to make a case for pacifism). I find Maurice Blanchot much more useful in this respect: Kafka's inability to finish almost anything exemplifies the basic conflict between writing and the work; while the former would seem to lead the latter in fact they are incommensurable: each negates the other, just as dying is a process in life which only demonstrates the impossibility death.

[Narjes Dorzade · Rating 4 out of 5]

بوروکراسی در رمان های کافکا یا نزدیک تر جامعه ای که در آن زیست می کنیم.
گفتاری درست از ژیل دلوز که چون مرگ عادی را نمی خواست خودش را از پنجره ی بیمارستانی در پاریس به بیرون پرتاب کرد.

[Ali Moosavi · Rating 5 out of 5]

موقعی که بعضی داستان های کافکا رو میخوندم ( خصوصا داستان های کوتاهش ) از خودم میپرسیدم چرا آدم باید چنین چیزی بنویسه ؟ به نظرم دلوز و گتاری به خلاقانه ترین شکل ممکن و با ارجاع مداوم به کافکا به این سوال پاسخ میدن.

[SachChuyenTay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Đây chính là cuốn sách khóa lại một năm đọc sách (bị không ít anh em chê trách) của mình, và nhắc nhở mình nên đọc nhiều hơn thể loại Lí luận văn học cũng như Phê bình văn học. Ngoài ra, vì "Văn học là... nhân học" nên mình cũng cần được nhồi sọ Nhân học, Tâm lý học, Lịch sử, Địa lý, Nhân chủng học, Triết học và Ngôn ngữ học nữa ==''

Có kha khá người ác cảm với các môn Đại cương ở trường Đại học, nhưng mình cho rằng, nếu chưa từng nghe qua một mớ lý thuyết "tào lao và vô dụng" ấy thì sau này, việc đọc sách "non - tiểu thuyết" với các bạn sẽ không khác gì một cơn ác mộng. Cũng may là với sách thì ta có thể buông tay và dúi cơn ác mộng ấy vào góc khuất bất kỳ lúc nào!
Kafka: Vì một nền văn học thiểu số là một công trình phân tích đáng nể của Gilles Deleuze - Félix Guattar cũng như một công trình dịch thuật/hiệu đính công phu của Nguyễn Thị Từ Huy và Bùi Văn Nam Sơn. Bản tiếng Việt của cuốn sách này rõ ràng và logic tới mức, nếu thấy một luận điểm là "khó hiểu" thì ít ra là bạn sẽ hiểu là mình mắc ở đâu và tại sao. Đa phần các điểm gây gút não người đọc chủ yếu rơi vào lý do: Thiếu kiến thức nền! Để có thể hiểu khoảng 70% nội dung của cuốn này, người đọc cần lướt qua các kiến thức sau:
- Đọc và còn nhớ mang máng các tác phẩm của Kafka đủ để hệ thống hóa chúng.
- Tiểu sử Kafka (gốc gác, ngôn ngữ, lý lịch gia đình, trình độ học vấn)
- Khái niệm phức cảm Ơ-đíp (phiên âm luôn chứ mình thật không biết gõ từ gốc)
- Khái niệm Libido trong Phân tâm học/ Tâm lý học khi dịch giả vẫn giữ lại chữ này mà không dịch ra (Mình đã bỏ dở việc đọc giữa chừng để đi đọc mấy cuốn khác viết về cái này nhưng xem ra mình đã đụng phải một hố đen hạng nặng khi mà libido đã hút về phía nó quá nhiều ý kiến mà trái chiều).
- Chức năng, vai trò của ngôn ngữ trong văn chương hậu hiện đại (à, thế thì trước hết phải hiểu chủ nghĩa hậu hiện đại là gì?).
...

Như triết gia Bùi Văn Nam Sơn đã mào đầu, cách tiếp cận Kafka của tác giả ở đây là "cách tiếp cận mang tính triết học hơn là phê bình văn học" và "rất cấp tiến và đầy thách thức". Đây chính là kiểu sách mà người đọc tuyệt đối không nên bỏ qua phần Lời giới thiệu hay Lời mở đầu nếu thực sự muốn "đọc" nó.

Và dù đã đọc thật kỹ bài giới thiệu thì cảm nhận của mình sau khi "leo lên lưng ngựa" là "Úi chà chà... Tặc tặc!". Một phần là mình đã kì vọng sẽ thấy ai đó xé toang lớp vỏ ngôn ngữ để mà bóc trần Kafka từ nhiều hướng, cho phép mình được nhìn thấy Kafka một cách rõ ràng và dễ dàng hơn. Nhưng đời không như mơ còn cuốn sách này không phải là thơ, bộ đôi Gilles Deleuze và Félix Guattar, bằng tinh thần triết học vốn ưa phân tách mọi hiện tượng càng nhỏ càng rõ càng tốt đã đưa Kafka vào máy... chụp X-quang rồi chụp liên tục không chút xót thương!!! Thế là niềm háo hức thơ ngây đối với văn hóa phẩm đồi trụy trong mình bỗng bị thay thế bởi một cảm xúc kinh ngạc và kinh hãi như Hans Castorp khi nhìn thấy nào là xương sườn, nào là tim, phổi, nào là cột sống... lần đầu tiên trên nền phim đen trắng. Thoạt trông thì biết là sáng rỡ ràng đấy nhưng phải đến khi bác sĩ lấy que an-ten chỉ vào chỗ này chỗ kia kèm thuyết minh chi tiết thì ta mới "nhìn ra" được. Liệu sự tàn nhẫn trên có làm "ung thư" tình yêu và lòng sùng kính của bạn đọc đối với tượng đài văn học này không?! Xin phép cho mình không bình luận gì thêm :))))

Đừng vội hoảng sợ nếu khoảng 50 trang đầu bạn thấy mình như đang đọc một cuốn giáo trình Ngôn ngữ (Đức) học nào đó. "Ngôn ngữ" - yếu tố mà với nhiều nhà phê bình khác, nhiều lắm thì cũng chỉ là lớp vỏ biểu hiện hay là "nghệ thuật dùng từ" - thì trong quan điểm của tác giả, nó đóng vai trò đặc biệt quan trọng với thế giới nghệ thuật của Kafka. Ngôn ngữ không còn là bộ da, là nền tảng, là xương sống, mà cao cấp và toàn diện hơn, nó biên thành một thực thể sở hữu một loại sức mạnh đủ để thiết lập mối quan hệ biện chứng với tác phẩm, tác giả, độc giả, thậm chí là cộng đồng và thời đại (số nhiều). Tác giả đã men theo 3 khái niệm trụ cột về tính chất của văn học/ngôn ngữ thiểu sốlà: sự gắn kết của cá nhân với cái "chính trị- trực tiếp", giải lãnh thổ hóa, sự kết chuỗi tập thể của phát ngôn để phân tích trường hợp của Kafka.

Đại để là dù có đọc sách rồi thì cũng khó mà tóm lại ý của tác giả bằng ngôn ngữ bình dân, bởi vì, bạn biết đấy, mình đang dùng ngôn ngữ "đa số" để nói về một cái gì đó rất chi là "thiểu số" (minor/mineure/kleine). Bạn buộc phải đọc để hiểu :">

Với những bạn theo Kafka-giáo thì các chương tiếp theo của cuốn sách này rất tuyệt để nhâm nhi và thảo luận. Nó nêu ra nhiều điểm rất xác đáng và có hệ thống trong sáng tác của Kafka - vốn chưa được dịch đủ tại Việt Nam. Có vài ý kiến không mới, nhưng cách phân tích lại rất mới mẻ và sâu sắc. Đương nhiên, vẫn phải dưới cái bóng của triết học Deleuze (hay từ rày ta nên gọi là Đại sư Deleuze cho có phong vị tôn giáo) :sss Nhưng, tương tự như sách của Kafka, mình dám chắc rằng sách chuyên luận về Kafka cũng không hề dễ hiểu hay dễ đọc, chỉ là, cũng tương tự lí do bạn thích đọc Kafka, bạn cũng sẽ thích Kafka: Vì một nền văn học thiểu số vì nó vui và hấp dẫn người đọc theo một cách "khó hiểu" :v

Rv muộn mằn của bạn T.T thuộc sở hữu của SCT ^.^ Chúc mừng năm mới!!!

[milad می‌لـاد · Rating 3 out of 5]

چه دشوار!!!

[Uroš Đurković · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kao i obično kada je u pitanju D&G tandem, ovo je bio spoj oduševljenja i kolutanja očima. U prvoj polovini knjige bilo je više onog prvog, dok je priča o shizo-incestima (116) i diskontinuiranim blokovima (128) pokvarila utisak. Moj opšti pogled na teoriju je da ona ne mora da ima ambiciju naučnosti (niti jeste nauka), te omeđivanje značenja termina nije neophodno, iako je više nego poželjno. Uz to, verujem u dobru volju komunikativnosti, jer, kao što je to slučaj sa književnošću, ne radi se samo o idejama, nego o načinu na koji ih predstavljamo. D&G pucaju na sve strane, pa šta pogode. Ipak, prestrogo bi bilo reći da je u pitanju razbojništvo, već više jedan, hajdemo tako reći, slobodniji odnos prema koherentnosti ideja, tekstu i intelektualnoj odgovornosti. Na primer, D&G ističu Kafkino protivljenje metafori i alegoriji (38, 123) i podržavaju je u svojim tumačenjima, nazivajući drukčije gledište budalaštinama. To mi je blisko. Ono što pak nije predstavlja to što se upravo služe onim što kritikuju. Pišući, na primer, o početku „Amerike” govore o mašini, odnosno, kotlarnici kao metafori šireg društvenog ustrojstva (143)! Pritom, pogrešno navode da se glavni junak ovog romana zove K., a ne Karl Rosman, kao što na drugom mestu priču o Odradeku ne naslovljavaju sa „Domaćinova briga”, već, pogrešno, „Odradek”. Osim što ovo nisu male omaške, jer nisu u pitanju sitnice, već ključni elementi dela, ono što jeste sitnica bira se tendenciozno, da bi išlo naruku teorijskoj skalameriji (mašini!). To je, vidljivo, na primer, u razmišljanjima o sećanjima koja vrše reteritorijalizaciju detinjstva (138), gde se, opet metodološki problematično, brka biografsko sa književnim, iako u knjizi postoji ograda u odnosu na to. 

Ali dobro, jasno je da D&G nisu filolozi, niti da posebno mare za to. Jasno je takođe i da nisu naučnici, ali ono što zaista cenim jeste rafal inspirativnih ideja koje su pogođene. Među njima i famozna priča o malim, odnosno, manjinskim književnostima, o tome kako je Kafkin antilirazam zasnovan na tome da se svet zgrabi da bi se naterao na uzmak, umesto da se prigrli ili da se pobegne od njega (106). Izuzetno cenim i proširivanje recepcije prema svetu više od ljudskog, u odnosu na tzv. „postajanje životinjom” i Gregoru Samsi kao nedovršenoj metamorfozi... Ali kad povezuju Kafkina pisma sa Drakulom vegetarijancem koji sisa krv ljudi-mesoždera (52) javlja mi se instinkt da zafrljačim knjigu što dalje. Aman, ljudi.

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was stumbling across the concept of "minor literature" and the "minor author" that my thesis turned an important corner, and even if I eventually had to cut out all the sections explicitly referencing the theory it still integrally informs the theoretical underpinnings that developed around my thoughts and ideas.

What I love about Deleuze and Guattari's idea is how counter-intuitive it is—if Kafka's not a "major" author, than who can be? But the two French theorists aren't thinking about issues of canonicity, of course, rather, they use the concept as a means of analyzing the use of language: "a minor literature doesn't come from a minor language; it is rather that which a minority constructs within a major language." The general line of thinking is that as a man of Jewish ancestry who lived most of his life in German-speaking areas (Prague, Berlin, etc), Kafka was able to utilize his marginalized social status to employ the German language in unexpected, ultimately revolutionary ways (Deleuze and Guatarri would say that he "deterritorializes" the German language). In his introduction to this volume, Reda Bensmaia put it this way:

"For Kafka, therefore, it is never a matter of 'trafficking' in language or of mishandling it—how many writers and poets have supposedly 'subverted' language without ever having caused the slightest ripple in comparison with the language of Kafka, Joyce, or Kleist?—but of essentially proposing a new way of using it."

I think of it as the concept of "major" and "minor" as employed in music. To me, what Deleuze and Guattari are getting can be visualized by something like a piano keyboard, with only a select group of individuals discovering how to best use the black keys (the flats and sharps), while the rest of us—and even many who we consider our best writers—simply have to use the white keys as best we can.

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last essay I ever composed for grade concerned this book and the (very) Minor Literature of Isabel Allende. That strikes me as incomprehensible in this day and age, where everything is surface and seditious. I appreciate D's arguments about a subversion via a dominant language. I can't believe I read all those Allende novels. One shouldn't bother with my bastardizing Deleuze's coherent exposition. Youth.

[Yousef]

سواد و زور نوشتن ریویوی محتواش رو ندارم هنوز لکن لذت بردم و قطعا در کافکا خواندنم کمکم خواهد کرد.

[Emma Lotta · Rating 5 out of 5]

väga hea ja tore, aga siis tulevad eikusagilt sellised sõnad nagu ”skisoklounaad” ja ”metamorfoseeruma”…

[Karl Hallbjörnsson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading this work was somewhat disappointing.

Chapter 3 on Minor Literature was the most interesting and felt lucid enough, and I believe I really managed to get the gist of it, as well as the central motif of the work: Kafka is an example of a Minor Literature, a body of text or writing through the medium of a major language by a minority group, a subversive literature of escape that manages to hold political significance without being an escapism or a refuge. Jam-packed with references to Kafka and micro-analyses of his texts, creative in philosophical interpretation and forceful in its assertions — I can see why people like this text. I might even have liked it myself. At least I can see the potential for my liking it.

But for the most part, the text felt a little nonsensical to me. It felt like a jumbled mess. I'm a slow and careful reader and gave this very short book a whole month of my time but even then I had real trouble parsing any sort of important meaning from the work for a grand majority of my reading it. Of course, I might just not be smart enough. But even if it were so, I've had a much easier time reading Anti-Oedipus, D's work on Nietzsche, What Is Philosophy, etc. — so I truly believe that the fault isn't mine in this instance.

Nevertheless, I know for certain that they filled the text to the brim with interesting material. That much is obvious from my reading. I just loathe how inaccessible they make it, almost as if purposefully. There is just so much fluff surrounding the central idea, making the actual argument very hard to identify and follow through. They jump from concept to term to precept to jargon like hot-footed frogs, leaving few clues for the reader to understand their pattern of thought and expression.

I'm not against philosophy being a little (or very) verbose — certainly not. But I do have a line and here I felt it was crossed. Their texts can sometimes (and certainly here, in their Kafka) feel like monstrous posthuman "assemblages," expressing a general atmosphere of constructive decay, of a perfected imperfection — and some people can dig that sort of style. I guess I just don't.

Maybe I'll come back to this text later and realize it's a gold-mine, maybe I'll never read it again, maybe I'll reread it in the future and dislike it even more. We'll see. But right now, I gotta say — it ain't my favorite.

[Özlem Güzelharcan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bazı kitapların gerçekten iyi reklamı yapılıyor. Reklamcıları tebrik etmek gerek. Bir koşu gidip heyecanla bu kitabı almıştım ve şu an büyük hayal kırıklığı yaşıyorum.

Eğer okurken "köksap" "dilin yersizyurtsuzlaştırılması" "bireyleştirilmiş bir söylecem" "kolektif söylecem düzenlemeleri" "altkesitliliğin doğası" gibi kelime ve söylemleri her iki paragrafta bir duymaktan ve kupkuru bir tezvari anlatıma tabi olmaktan gocunmazsanız bu kitabı sevebilirsiniz.

Aksi taktirde gidip Kafka kitaplarını yeniden okumak daha mantıklı. Zira en iyi analizi her zaman okur kendisi yapar.

Not: Goodreas artık yarım artı sistemine geçmelisin lütfen.

[Fin · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many dead writers must have wept over what was written about them. I hope that Kafka enjoyed the book that we wrote about him

Well he might but tbh this book brought me closer to tears than any other recent book. wtf are they talking about in this dude

The judges, commissioners, bureaucrats, and so on, are not substitutes for the father; rather, it is the father who is a condensation of all these forces that he submits to and that he tries to get his son to submit to (p12)

Diaries, 1921: "Metaphors are one of the things that makes me despair of literature." Kafka deliberately kills all metaphor, all symbolism, all signification, no less than all designation. Metamorphosis is the contrary of metaphor.

...

The danger of the diabolical pact, of diabolical innocence, is not guilt but the trap, the impasse within the rhizome, the closing of all escape, the burrow that is blocked everywhere. Fear. The devil himself is caught in the trap. One allows oneself to be re-Oedipalized not by guilt but by fatigue, by a lack of invention, by the imprudence of what one has started, by the photo, by the police—diabolical powers from faraway. Thus innocence no longer matters. The formula of diabolical innocence saves you from guilt but does not save you from the photocopy of the pact and the condemnation that results from it. The danger is not feeling guilt as a neurosis, as a state, but judging guilt as a Trial. And that's the fatal outcome of the letter; the "letter to the father" is a trial that closes in on Kafka; the letters to Felice turn into a mock Trial, with an entire tribunal, family, friends, defense, accusation. Kafka has a presentiment of this from the start, since he is writing "The Judgment" at the same time he begins the letters to Felice. But "The Judgment" comes from the great fear that a letter machine will entrap the author. (p32 i think)

so it's not guilt that's the issue, it's the form that guilt takes???? as a trial/trap??? and kafka's endless trial (D&G decide unilaterally that the ending of The Trial is false and Brod fucked up putting it there lol) is in fact a kind of endless deferral that frees these intensities of guilt and desire??? i think?

We will term "low" or "neurotic" any reading that turns genius into anguish, into tragedy, into a "personal concern." For example, Nietzsche, Kafka, Beckett, whomever: those who don't read them with many involuntary laughs and political tremors are deforming everything. (footnote to ch4).

Awesome, totally agree

If everything, everyone, is part of justice, if everyone is an auxiliary of justice, from the priest to the little girls, this is not because of the transcendence of the law but because of the immanence of desire. p50
...
The Trial is the dismantling of all transcendental justifications. There is nothing to judge vis-a-vis desire; the judge himself is completely shaped by desire. Justice is no more than the immanent process of desire. The process is itself a continuum, but a continuum made up of contiguities. The contiguous is not opposed to the continuous —quite the contrary, it is a local and indefinitely prolongable version of the continuous. Thus, it is also the dismantling of the continuous-always an office next door, always the contiguous room(p51)

Ok so it's all about desire as an endless and contiguous process. its not about bureaucracy or tyranny or guilt it's all intensities of desire. got it

Everything Kafka does works to an exactly opposite end, and this is the principle behind his antilyricism, his anti-aestheticism: "Grasp the world," instead of extracting impressions from it; work with objects, characters, events, in reality, and not in impressions. Kill metaphor. Aesthetic impressions, sensations, or imaginings still exist for themselves in Kafka's first essays where a certain influence of the Prague school is at work. But all of Kafka's evolution will consist in effacing them to the benefit of a sobriety, a hyper-realism, a machinism that no longer makes use of them. (last chapter)

yes i agree. metaphors are a nono, its all immediately there.

SO i think this is less about deciding what kafka is about than what the kafkaesque form, process, reading experience actually is. Like Beckett on Finnegans Wake, this ouevre is an object and in its (usually broken, unfinished, endless) shape (which in the penultimate chapter D&G actually draw as a piece of impossible architecture - a hallway divided into blocks that start off close and segmented but at the opposite end are contiguous and far away - love when people draw their books e.g. woolf the lighthouse) are lines of flight and functions and opportunities. This is why they love the novels the most. Ok this next bit prolly the crux:

K becomes increasingly aware that the transcendental imperial law refers in fact to an immanent justice, to an immanent assemblage of justice. Paranoid law gives way to a schizo-law; immediate resolution gives way to an unlimited deferral; the transcendence of duty in the social field gives way to a nomadic immanence of desire that wanders all over this field. This is made explicit in "The Great Wall of China," without being developed in any way: there are nomads who give evidence of another law, another assemblage, and who sweep away everything in their journey from the frontier to the capitol, the emperor and his guards having taken refuge behind the windows and the screens. Thus, Kafka no longer operates by means of infinite-limited-discontinuous but by finite-contiguous-continuous-unlimited. (Continuity will always seem to him to be the condition of writing, not only for writing the novels but also for writing the short stories such as "The Verdict." The unfinished work is no longer a fragmentary work but an unlimited one). (last chapter)

idk dude they're obsessed with these weird words and i havent finished mille plateaux and so idk what machines and assemblages really are. Idk if i learned anything but it was fun ig and also funny when they started talking about kafka's "famous love of tight clothing" ?? lol

[natalia · Rating 4 out of 5]

“(...) é claro, existem n maneiras de drogar-se, por exemplo: em relação com a comida, podemos nos drogar sendo bulímicos, ou vice-versa, nos drogamos ao não comer nada, anorexia, sempre pensei que uma das técnicas de franz kafka fosse uma droga que ele mesmo secretava: não ingeria drogas, evitava isto, mas drogava-se por uma espécie de anorexia, ou por insônia. pelo fato de não dormir, colocava-se em um estado alterado de mente. há uma relação específica com o código quanto a isso. podemos achar um traço em comum: ao imaginar o “drogar-se” como uma forma de se apoderar de si mesmo, de se retirar para dentro de si, uma forma de se desligar de uma determinada relação, com o tempo, com o outro. talvez assim, podemos distinguir mais precisamente os mecanismos psicofisiológicos das drogas.” guattari, em ''a questão da droga'', de 1985

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ran through at a pace since I got hit with a recall request from the library :'(
Lovely brilliant piece of the D&G oeuvre all the same 4.5, straying into the territory of ATP without feeling overcomplicated. It'd make a nice bridge between AO and ATP.

It's a book I see cited a lot in articles all over the place, usually without any relation to Kafka. Glad to be here minor literature abounds

[Mohammed Yusuf · Rating 3 out of 5]

على الرغم مما يضيفه ��لكتاب للقارئ من ابعاد عن كافكا وكتاباته الا انني لم احبذ فكرة أن يجلبه الكاتبان الى عالمهما بدلا من الذهاب الى عالمه هو

[sologdin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Forward by scholar recalls that D&G’s language regarding “the idea of the machine producing effects is not used metaphorically or symbolically but always in the most concrete sense” (xv).

Translator introduces the text with:

Even the key words of the Deleuze-Guattari procedure, words like rhizome, lines of escape, assemblage, become battle-sites for a process of deterritorialization as the authors violate their own proprietary authorship of terms and make the words tremble, stutter. […] Seeming to refer to fixed conceptual fields, the words seem initially territorialized, literally the guardians of two inviolate and irrevocably distinct conceptual realms. But a kind of sliding contagion occurs, and through the course of the book, each term comes to refer to elements within the original territorial space of the other term. So, to a large extent, the translation lets the words slide […] each engaging in unsystematic war-machine attacks on the other. (xxvii)

Of course, the translator’s reading of the notion of ‘territorialization’ does quite a bit of work in territorializing ‘territorialization’ itself, which is kinda cool.

Principal argument is fairly straightforward. The basic assumption: “What Kafka anguishes or rejoices in is not the father or the superego or some sort of signifier but the American technocratic apparatus or the Russian bureaucracy or the machinery of Fascism” (12). In response to the “inhumanness of the ‘diabolical powers’” aforesaid, Kafka answers with one of D&G’s favorite concepts, “becoming-animal: to become a beetle, to become a dog, to become an ape, ‘head over heels and away,’ rather than lowering one’s head and remaining a bureaucrat, inspector, judge, or judged” (id.). This may be a form of deterritorialization/reterritorialization, surely: “The acts of becoming-animal are the exact opposite of [spiritual reterritorialization]; these are absolute deterritorializations, at least in principle, that penetrate deep into the desert world invested in by Kafka” (13). The animals “never refer to a mythology or archetypes but correspond solely to new levels, zones of liberated intensities where contents free themselves from their forms as well as from their expressions, from the signifier that formalized them” (id.). Similarly, “Kafka deliberately kills all metaphor, all symbolism, all signification, no less than all designation. Metamorphosis is the contrary of metaphor” (22). Again, “there is nothing metaphoric about the becoming-animal” (35).

The key chapter (the third) is the definition of a ‘minor literature’: “A minor literature doesn’t come from a minor language; it is rather that which a minority constructs within a major language” (16). It is marked out by a language “affected with a high coefficient of deterritorialization” (id.): “Kafka marks the impasse that bars access to writing for the Jews of Prague and turns their literature into something impossible—the impossibility of not writing, the impossibility of writing in German, the impossibility of writing otherwise” (id.). This group has “an irreducible distance from their primitive Czech territoriality” (id.); Prague German is a deterritorialized language, appropriate for strange and minor uses,” immediately conjuring the association with “blacks [sic] in America [sic] today” (17). Minor literature’s second characteristic is that “everything in them is political” (id.); the third characteristic: “everything takes on a collective value” (id.).

The three characteristics are “the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual [sic] to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation” (18), leading to the inference that “minor no longer designates specific literatures but the revolutionary conditions for every literature within the heart of what is called great (or established) literature” (id.). On this basis, the notions of marginal, popular, proletarian literatures might be meaningfully built, say. There is in fact “nothing that is major or revolutionary except the minor. To hate all languages of masters” (26).

Nice note about the “three worst themes” in the literature on Kafka: “the transcendence of the law, the interiority of guilt, the subjectivity of enunciation,” which are “connected to all the stupidities [!] written about allegory, metaphor, and symbolism in Kafka” (45).

Thereafter follows an analysis of the forms/genres used by Kafka (28 ff), some Kantian considerations (43 ff), some various Freudian ruminations, &c.

Recommended for those who translate everything into assemblages, readers who proliferate doubles until they become indefinite, and penetrators or an unlimited field of immanence.

[سپید · Rating 4 out of 5]

«ادبیات اقلیت، ادبیات یک زبان اقلیت نیست. کاری‌ست که یک اقلیت در دل یک زبان اکثریت انجام می‌دهد.»
ادبیات اقلیت همواره سیاسی‌ست، هر جنبه‌ای فردی در آن نمود جمعی پیدا می‌کند و همواره نماینده آگاهی ملی‌ای است که از برون غیرفعال و دچار زوال شده است، در چنین وضعیتی ادبیات وظیفه می‌یابد این زوال ازهم‌گسیخته را به همبستگی‌ای فعال تبدیل کند. ادبیات اقلیت جمعیتی را گرد هم می‌آورد که مدت‌هاست سرزمینی را پشت‌سر گذاشته‌اند، ادبیات اقلیت جهان سومی‌ست در میان زبان مسلط و زبان رها شده.
«نوشتن همچون کاری‌ست که سگی در گودال یا موشی در نقب خویش می‌کند. و نوشتن کشف نواحی توسعه‌یافتهٔ خویش، دهات [patois] خویش، جهان سوم خویش و برهوت خویش است.»
برای خلق این سرزمین دو راه وجود دارد؛ یکی بازقلمروگیری زبان از طریق استعاره‌ و سمبل‌هاست که البته تلاشی مذبوحانه است و راه به «رویای صهیون» می‌برد.
اما راه دوم راهی‌ست که کافکا برمی‌گزیند. راهی که در آن معنا تنها آنقدری باقی می‌ماند که خط گریز را راه ببرد. دیگر نه سوژهٔ گزاره‌ای و نه سوژهٔ بیانی کارکرد دارند، زبان از معنای دلالت‌گر و استعاری خود تهی می‌شود و دیگر هیچ‌چیزی خلق نمی‌شود مگر توزیع وضعیت‌های مشدد در مدار کلمات.
«تقریبا هر واژه‌ای که می‌نویسم واژه‌ای دیگر را خراش می‌دهد؛ می‌شنوم که صامت‌ها با سنگینی تمام روی هم سائیده می‌شوند و مصوت‌هایی که مثل سیاهان معرکه‌گیر آواز می‌خوانند.» (یادداشت‌های کافکا، ۱۵ دسامبر ۱۹۱۰)
زبان از بازنمایی دست می‌کشد تا به سوی کرانه‌ها و حدود خویش حرکت کند. و این مسخی‌ست که دلالت‌های دردآلودی همراهی‌ش می‌کنند، مثل همان کلماتی که به جیرجیر دردآلود گرگور یا ضجهٔ فرانتس بدل می‌شود.

[Tam Sothonprapakonn · Rating 3 out of 5]

D&G be like: Kafka and chill? Doing cokes and going off on creative lines of flight? Becoming-animal as an escape from the territorialized zones of bureaucratic modernity? Haha, just kidding... Unless?

[sadeleuze · Rating 5 out of 5]

This rather short book was published in 1975, between the two volumes of capitalism and schizophrenia. d&g try to define what a minor literature is, by using the example of Kafka.

It is rather easy to talk about Kafka using neurosis, guilt... (cf: the letter to the father). Yet Deleuze and Guattari will say of the oedipus in this letter that he is forced. Thus, Kafka by exaggerating the oedipal situation, dismisses the very effects of this situation, allowing totally different solutions to the oedipal conflict: becoming-animals that dot his work for example (cf: the metamorphosis), since the father has invaded everything and it is therefore necessary to find places where he is not there.

D&G want to free Kafka's text from a desire to interpret a number of details that we would like to be insignificant (music, screams, heads bent and raised, portraits). It is true that all these details can enter into a symbolic and meaningful order, up to a point where they reach their own abolition; they are dissolved into something absolutely new and which cannot be attached to any signified.

Because Kafka's writing creates issues and does not let code according to references, common ideas, then this literature is qualified as minor by the authors (it does not seek to become a cultural reference, to create an official language ...). Besides, let's talk about language. Kafka, a jew speaking in german with the influence of czech, then even created a sort of deterritorialized language.

Thus, there can be no individual history in a minor literature, because the social and the political are directly related to the individual; there is no separation, any statement that the author produces is then collective.

For Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka created a literature which minor and unfinished side allows a revolutionary possibility, because his work is above all an exploration and deconstruction of a number of alienating processes.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

"because it has no object of knowledge, the law is operative only in being stated and is stated only in the act of punishment: a statement directly inscribed on the real, on the body and the flesh; a practical statement opposed to any sort of speculative proposition. All these themes are well presented in The Trial. But it is precisely these themes that will be the object of a dismantling, and even of s demolition, throughout Kafka's long experimentation. The first aspect of this dismantling consists in "eliminating any idea of guilt from the start," this being part of the accusation itself: culpability is never anything but the superficial movement whereby judges and even lawyers confine you in order to prevent you from engaging in a real movement - that is, from taking care of your own affairs. Second, K will realize that even if the law remains unrecognizable, this is not because it is hidden by its transcendence, but simply because it is always denuded of any interiority: it is always in the office next door. [...] Finally, it is not the law that is state because of the demands of a hidden transcendence; it is almost the exact opposite: it is the statement, the enunciation, that constructs the law in the name of an immanent power of the one who enounces it - the law is confused with that which the guardian utters, and the writings precede the law, rather than being the necessary and derived expression of it." P.45

Ja, ook Kafka is een vreugdevol schrijver!

[Bere Tarará · Rating 4 out of 5]

La primera parte, referente a la literatura menor, me ha parecido fluida e interesante. La segunda parte, donde ahonda sobre el dispositivo y la máquina, no me quedó tan clara. Pero en general es un texto riquísimo, que se relaciona con otras ideas de Deleuze, como la de la inmanencia

[Kitty]

have to say I was unconvinced - I’m wary of things that build theory upon theory, and this felt like following a map to someone’s mind palace, with abstraction balanced on abstraction. And only tangentially connected to Kafka, like they were writing a book anyway and Kafka just happened to be included. Also, incomprehensible - reminded me of my old philosophy professor: “you can be as clever as you like, but no one can understand you, who will care?”

[Steven Hoogwout · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eigenlijk vijf sterren waard, mits ik alles zou hebben begrepen.

[thevibe300 · Rating 4 out of 5]

ma intreb care din cei doi autori era fanul godard si care era fan fritz lang si robert wiene

[Sol]

que dor de cabeça

[Razi · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazingly complex little book on Kafka and literature of the minorities in major languages. Deleuze elaborates his concept of art as affect and what better example of art as affect than the writings of Franz Kafka. Kafka's very words themselves smell of the helplessness of his characters in face of a system against which they can never win. Narratives happen to them, they don't drive their stories of the whips and scorns of time,the oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, the pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay, the insolence of office and all the other evils (mostly man-made) that flesh is heir to. Hamlet summed up human misery in these words, Kafka gave them flesh and blood and a local habitation and a name. These are Kafka's wheel. Life is a system that is gone out of control, its wheels running over and crushing its own worshipers like the fabled Juggernaut. Nowhere does Kafka explicitly condemn life, his method is to wonder at the efficiency with which life destroys the living. This is also a celebration of life, a depiction without judgement: Kafka's 'minority report'. His writing has the feel of a detached report which invokes the situations with its faithful depictions withholding the writer who does not betray any sense of judgement, disappointment or condemnation. Who is he to judge? He is himself a stranger, a minority-figure. So when Gregor Samsa wakes up as a bug, he just does that, wakes up as a bug, nothing more, nothing less. Red Peter's Report to the Academy is put forth as the best example of this simple detachment.

It is a difficult book and I can't say that I understood everything or even most of it, still it has gems to offer and is a rewarding read. Slowly and steadily I keep crawling my way into Deleuze's thoughts, understanding some of them as I go along.

[Ted Moisan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hooray for the death of Oedipal psychobabble! Go read this book, it's short and you'll look really smart.

[Karl Joosep Pihel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Suurepärane - ja ilmselt üks parimaid sisenemiskohti D&G ühisloomingusse. Kõik mõisted leiavad rakenduse K. peal.

Kõige peamine kana on neil - ka siin - kitkuda psühhoanalüüsiga, kelle jaoks Kafka on nii ahvatlev analüüsiobjekt. Aga ei - asi ei ole daddy issue'des, looming ei peegelda, pole kurb representatsioon, vaid demonteeriv masinavärk, mis moodustab võimaluse põgeneda ennetades tulevat maailma. Kirjutamine on vabastav protsess - transkribeerimine ja demonteerimine, kirjutamine ise ja ei mingit 'kirjandust'. Vahel õnnestub, vahel mitte. Analüüsida tuleb selleks, et leida tee välja, leida uus tee. Panna keel kokutama, leida uusi väljendusvahendeid, et luua uut sisu. Näidata süü ja seaduse teket suurtes protsessides - näiteks tuleb "Issi" teha maailmasuuruseks: leida "issi" igalt poolt, preestrid, bossid, valitsejad... kõik peksmas "issit" nagu tema peksab kodus sind. Issi taga on mikro- ja makropoliitika, seeriad, kurbuse ja langetatud peade seeriad. Ja seda kõike nähes on juba naljakas, see lõputu kurbus paneb naerma. Isa äramanamine läbi seeriate paljundamise. Sotsiaalsete jõudude, protsesside ja seoste lahtikirjutamine.

Ühtlasi avastame näiteks, et 1) Kafka on 'kiri-Dracula', läkitamas oma nahkhiir-kirju, et imeda inimestelt välja verd-kirju. Epistolaarne vampirism. "Ta kardab vaid kaht asja, perekonna risti ja abielu küüslauku." Saada kiri enda ees, lubadustega, aga ise ära kohale ilmugi. Lõputu viivitus-vereimemine. Pagemine läbi kirjade. 2) Et probleemid õdedega on igatahes paremad kui probleemid emadega - skisod seda juba teavad.

Tundub, et D&G lähenemine on vajalik ja üsna loogiline järgmine samm Sontag'i "kunsti erootikale" interpretatsiooni asemel. Ka D&G on interpretatsiooni vastu ja teatava "iha" analüüsi poolt. Teisalt ei ole siin mingit ohtu manduda pelka sensualismi ja anti-intellektualismi, sest igal teksti tasand moodustab seeriaid, millesse on implitseeritud kogu sotsiaalne väli. Muljete ja sensualismi asemel tekst peaks seda tegelikkust "pigistama" - leidma valupunkte, mis võimaldaks neid seeriaid katki teha ja uuel viisil ühendada.

Ühesõnaga, väga hea kõik.