How Kafkaesque it was to read Kafka

One can read Kafka. Appreciate Kafka. Reread Kafka. But to fully understand Kafka? It’s not within one’s reach.

Kafka writes about a maze — a muddle that has no beginning and definitely not a happy end. And within the maze the protagonist is stuck, staring at the heavy void of nothingness, looking for the answers whose questions are even undefined. He is hopeless and unhappy to live and helplessly scared to die. He is in a state of confinement with no autonomous faculty to lead his way out.

Describing your emotions while reading a Kafka is as difficult as understanding the story itself. We obscurely feel there is something more than just what has been trapped in words — more about inevitable guilt, sexual desires, orthodox beliefs, inaccessible law, family systems, and metaphysics. But we fail to identify it precisely.

However, reading Kafka makes you recognize the Kafkaesque elements of your life. There is a hopeless Kafka within each one of us. The one seeking escape from laws, from relationships, from expectations, from conscience, from routine, from responsibilities — basically from life.

This series is about my Kafkaesque journey of reading Kafka. How he made me discover my insecurities, confusions, guilt, and confinements.