Well, for two days leave, at least. If all is well I’ll report back to the bin on Wednesday morning and get discharged. I’m feeling pretty good. Over these past few days I have been able to read books, something I haven’t been able to do since November, my mind has been in such a mess. One of the things I started reading today was a book of Kafka short stories. In one of the turgid tales one of the turgid characters says, “You don’t impress me, everything you say is either boring or incomprehensible”, and that pretty much sums up the Kafka experience for me. I’ve fought my way through The Castle and The Trial and that is enough to realise I despise Kafka. He is really crap.
Tasting notes will follow when I go wine shopping next.
David, you bring the same clarity to literary criticism as you bring to wine writing. Give us more! Glad you’re back. But what, no wine in the house?
Well, I’ve got a bottle of NZ Pinot Noir which I am told is one of the best from that far-away land. The night is but young, I may pop it (unscrew the top) yet.
Many thanks for your kind words about my totally correct comments about Kafka. I suppose it is possible to like his stuff, but you’ve got to be a painful teenager who has no friends and only wears black. I’m middle-aged and wear flowery shirts and red cord suits so obviously I’ll spot his work as being drivelly toss.
It is great to be out, and really wonderful not to be feeling so harassed. Many thanks to all of you who have sent messages of support over the last difficult period of time.
Have the days when you were a teenager wearing only black been gone for that long? I suppose they have. And you did have friends. Why are you reading Kafka anyway? Why waste time on anything that isn’t fun? I’d be depressed if that was all I had to read.
I like to think I was quite a well balanced teenager for one who wore largely black; I would often open my curtains, for example. And I did have friends, some of whom still speak to me. Anyway, I read Nietzsche when I was a teenager…. No comment on that necessary, I fancy.
The thing with the Kafka short story book is I’d hoped it wouldn’t be so utterly, mind-numbingly, soul-meltingly boring as his novels. How wrong I was.
I’d just read a Milan Kundera book before that so I was in a good mood. Old Milan realises the value of humour, and that is terribly important.
I don’t think it was that long ago that I last saw you in black, David. I seem to recall you having black phases every now and then (personally, I liked the black coat and peroxide blonde hair look the best).
I thought Kundera mostly wrote about sex.