#770 Reeling for the Empire- Karen Russell

#770 Reeling for the Empire- Karen Russell

What I have found over the last few years during this project, is that the entire genre of short story writing is filled with the fingerprints of Kafka, from mere references, respectful homages or outright theft of ideas. So far no other story has come close to reminding me of the depth and soul of Kafka until now. I am left breathless by this story. Where Kafka often goes dark and desolate, Russell infuses hope and human endurance. Imagine metamorphosis meets fight club!

We are in the Japanese Empire mid nineteenth century. Someone has found a tea that can turn a human into a silkworm hybrid. Girls are “recruited” to drink this tea and work in silk factories where they spend their lives in the same room spinning out the best silk the world has ever seen. But they will never see the outside again, never see their families, never truly be human.

We see these Kaiko-Joko (silkworm workers) in a place they have dubbed “Nowhere Mill”. One girl, for the first ever, has drunk the tea voluntarily and a little too fast. She survived the metamorphosis, but remains a little off inside. Eventually this boldness has made her aware of the potential of her new form, or the ability to turn bad to good, weakness to power. She will not be marginalized again, and neither will her co-workers.

“For the past several months, every time I’ve reminisced about the Agent coming to Gifu, bile has risen in my throat. It seems to be composed of every bitterness: grief and rage, the acid regrets. But then, in the middle of my weaving, obeying a queer impulse, I spit some onto my hands. This bile glues my fingers to my fur. Another of nature’s wonders. So even the nausea of regret can be converted to use.”

Wow…I love this!!!

Notable Passage: “These wings of ours are invisible to you.”

Rating: 10-10-10-10 Total= 40

#754 Mr. Kafka- Bohumil Hrabal

#754 Mr. Kafka- Bohumil Hrabal

Mr. Kafka: And Other Tales From the Time of the Cult (of personality) has only recently been published in English. Mostly written in Czechoslovakia in the 1950’s when Prague was still recovering from the war and a Stalinist government was reeking havoc on their culture. There is something both dark and intensely human about these stories, something that could only be crated behind the Iron Curtain. 

“This book is an expression not only of my own evolution, but of a part of society’s evolution as well, a society I live is that, like me, wishes to live in habitations where humor and the possibility of metaphysical escape reign supreme.”

There is such an intensity of mood and a richness of language that comes from oppression. But creativity will never be suppressed. This reads like a cold war echo of Henry Miller, living a wild life that’s both surreal and intently deliberate. Of course you have to love a story that references both Kafka and Job.

Notable Passage: “It’s good to live in anxiety, good to hear one’s teeth chatter in fear, good to push life to the brink of ruin and start fresh the next morning. It’s also good to part forever and praise misfortune.”

Rating: 9-9-9-9 Total= 36

#669 Acrobatique- John Keene

#669 Acrobatique- John Keene

Reading a short story about a trapeze artist, you immediately think of Kafka. Whether this is an homage or merely a wink at the old master is of no matter, the seed is planted in your mind. Like Kafka’s artist, the acrobat here is tragic performer, trapped in her own success. She feels the glamour of attention and accolades from great composers, statesmen, and painters—but she also feels keenly the seedy stares and gropings of drunken stalkers. Her fear is not of falling from her high-wire act but of losing the freedom of the act itself.

“How am I to exceed every limit placed on me unless I place it there, because that is what I think of when I think of freedom, that I have gathered around me people who understand how to translate fear into possibility, who have no wings but fly beyond the most fantastical vision of the clouds, who face, death daily back out into the waiting room, and I am one of them.”

Great writing.

Rating: 10-8-9-8 Total= 35

#212 King Bee-T.C. Boyle

#212 King Bee-T.C. Boyle

Wow, what a nightmare! A couple has trouble conceiving a child. They look to adopt but do not want to wait the many years it would take to adopt a new-born of their choosing. They get duped into adopting a 9 year-old boy named Anthony. He appears at first to be the Norman Rockwell archetype of the American male child, but things turn quickly.

“The smile was a regular feature of those first few months—He stopped smiling when the trial period was over, as if he’d suddenly lost control of his facial muscles. It was uncanny. Almost to the day the adoption became formal—the day that he was theirs and they were his—Anthony’s smile vanished.”

His calm demeanor turns to erratic behavior, foul language and an obsession with bees. He likes bees because they have no mercy, “You fit in or you die.” Nothing seems to rid him of his psychotic behavior and he goes in and out of institutions and youth prisons until he becomes an adult, scarier and even more bee-like.

There are obvious literary links here, from the Kafka-esque alienation insect references, or a twilight zone story arc. Personally, I see a lot of Stephen King in this story, which is something I wouldn’t have expected from Boyle. This is a fun outlier so far in this collection.

Rating: 7-8-8-7 Total= 30

#170- The Human Fly- T.C. Boyle

#170- The Human Fly- T.C. Boyle

With a name like the Human Fly, you’d expect Metamorphosis, and then when you get a Kafka quote at the head of the story, its from The Hunger Artist. Then you start reading it and it’s about a circus performer pushing the boundaries of his daring and you think about First Sorrow and the trapeze artist that wants to stay on his trapeze a all times. Cleary this is literary tribute to Franz Kafka.

This homage comes in the form of an inside look at the world of a low-level entertainment agent. At this moment, he had three clients: “A nasally infected twelve year-old with pushy parents…a comic with a harelip that did only harelip jokes; and a soft rock band called Mu, who believed they were reincarnated court musicians from the lost continent of Atlantis.”

That was until a man dressed in a red cape with a swim cap walked into his small back office. The man was Zoltan Mindszenty aka. La Mosca Humana, the Human Fly. He wanted to be famous. He had already gotten press for his public climbing stunts in Mexico, but wanted exposure here. He began by hanging himself 21 stories above the street in a sack.

“As it turned out he, stayed there, aloft for two weeks. And for some reason—because he was intractable, absurd, mad beyond hope or redemption—the press couldn’t get enough of it.”

Sounds like a familiar mix of modern reality TV and David Blaine. He survived the stunt, and a few more before taking one step too far. But he did become famous. Boyle, like many writers seem to have a love/hate thing for entertainment agencies. They can be

“…a mercenary, a huckster who’d watch a man die for ten percent of the action.”

While they always disdain the agency or the business, the agent themselves seem to be written with a more gentler pen, be it respect, empathy or just pity, who knows?

Rating: 8-7-8-7 Total= 30