I. One Sentence

"One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin."

The first sentence of The Metamorphosis. Possibly the most famous opening sentence of twentieth-century literature.

No buildup. No explanation. No "because of such-and-such he turned into a bug." No magic, no curse, no science fiction premise. He simply woke up. He simply was a bug.

The opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is "da da da daaaa —" — fate knocking at the door. At least fate knocked. You knew something was coming. You could prepare.

Kafka does not knock. There is no door. When you wake up, it has already happened. You do not know why. No one tells you why. Perhaps there is no why.

Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov murdered someone and then collapsed — at least there was an "after." There was cause and effect. You killed, therefore you collapse. Kafka's Gregor did nothing. He was a dutiful traveling salesman. He went to work on time every day to support his family. He committed no wrong. Then he woke up as a bug.

No cause and effect. No "because you did something, you became this." You did nothing. You simply are this now.

This is more terrifying than Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky's terror is: you did something terrible, and your basement will come for you. Kafka's terror is: you did nothing, and the world turned you into a bug anyway.

II. After the Bug

What happened after Gregor became a bug?

He did not panic. This is the most unsettling part. He woke up, saw he was a bug, and his first thought was not "my God, I am a bug" — it was "I am going to be late for work. I will miss the train."

He was worried about being late to the office. He was already a bug, and he was worried about being late to the office.

His manager sent someone to knock on his door and ask why he had not come to work. His mother called anxiously from outside. His father grew increasingly furious. He tried to crawl off the bed to open the door — using his new body, which he did not know how to control, with its countless tiny legs.

He opened the door. Everyone saw him. Screaming.

Then the rest of the story is this: his family gradually adjusted — not to him being a bug, but to being without him. He could no longer work. He could no longer earn money. He went from "the person who supports the family" to "the problem that needs to be dealt with." His sister initially cared for him — bringing food, cleaning his room. Eventually even the sister grew tired.

Finally the sister said: "It has to go."

Not "he." "It." He was no longer a person. Not just physically — socially, familially, he was no longer a person.

Gregor died. In his room. So thin he was nearly hollow. The cleaning woman swept his body away with a broom.

His family went on an outing.

III. The Trial

The Trial, published in 1925 (written by Kafka in 1914, published posthumously by his friend Max Brod — Kafka's will instructed that all manuscripts be burned; Brod did not comply).

Josef K., a senior bank clerk. One morning, two men arrive at his apartment and tell him: you are under arrest.

He asks: what is my crime? No one tells him.

He asks: who is trying me? No one tells him.

He asks: where is the court? The court is in the attic of a residential building. He finds it, but the trial is absurd beyond comprehension. The judge is leafing through a grimy book. The spectators are doing things unrelated to the proceedings. No one can tell him what he is charged with.

He spends an entire novel trying to find out what he has been accused of. He hires a lawyer — the lawyer is useless. He seeks out a painter — supposedly the painter knows the judges. He seeks out a priest — the priest tells him a parable about "Before the Law."

"Before the Law": a man from the country arrives at the gate of the Law. The doorkeeper says he cannot enter now. The man waits his entire life. As he is dying, he asks the doorkeeper: why has no one else come to this gate in all these years? The doorkeeper says: this gate was made only for you. Now I am going to shut it.

The gate he waited his whole life for was made for him. But he never entered. Not because he could not — but because the doorkeeper said "not now," and he waited. He kept himself out.

Josef K. is finally taken by two men to a quarry. One holds him. The other drives a knife into his heart and turns it twice. His last words: "Like a dog."

He died without ever learning what his crime was.

IV. No Why

Kafka is unlike everyone else in this series.

Socrates asked "why" — why do you think you know what justice is? Newton asked "why" — why does the apple fall? Freud asked "why" — why is your arm paralyzed when your nerves are fine? Darwin asked "why" — why do finches on different islands have different beaks?

Each person asked "why" and arrived at some kind of answer.

Kafka asked "why" — why did I become a bug? Why was I arrested?

No answer.

Not "we have not found the answer yet." Not "the answer is too complex." There is no answer. The answer does not exist. You became a bug not because of anything. You were arrested not because of anything. The world does not owe you an explanation.

Gödel said some true propositions cannot be proved. Kafka said some things cannot be explained.

Gödel's "unprovable" is mathematical — within a formal system, certain truths cannot be derived. Kafka's "unexplainable" is existential — within a human life, certain events have no cause.

Lacan's "Real" — that which language cannot cover — is not a concept in Kafka's novels. It is the experience of waking up one morning and finding yourself a bug. You cannot digest it with language. You cannot explain it with theory. It is simply there.

V. Kafka Himself

Kafka's life was itself a Kafka novel.

He was born in 1883 in Prague. A Jewish family. German-speaking (Prague's Jews spoke German, not Czech). He was a triple minority — among Czechs, a German speaker; among German speakers, a Jew; among Jews, the not-particularly-observant kind. He did not fully belong to any group.

His father, Hermann Kafka, was a rough, energetic businessman. Kafka wrote a famous Letter to His Father — over a hundred pages — describing in detail how his father's intimidation, mockery, and overwhelming presence had destroyed his self-confidence. The letter was never sent.

He studied law (not because he wanted to — because his father demanded it). He worked at a workers' compensation insurance company. During the day, he processed injury claims. At night, he wrote. He treated writing as his only real life — daytime work was a form of metamorphosis he was forced to endure.

He was engaged three times. All three engagements were broken off. He deeply loved several women — Felice Bauer, Milena Jesenská, Dora Diamant — but he could not enter marriage. Not because he did not love. Because he felt marriage would devour his writing. He needed solitude to write. But he could not bear solitude either.

He wrote in his diary: "The barrier between me and other people is total."

Gregor Samsa became a bug — separated from his family. Josef K. was tried by an incomprehensible court — separated from the world. Kafka himself felt a barrier between himself and all of humanity — he was a character in his own novels.

Dostoevsky's novels were carved from the memory of the firing squad — he experienced death, then wrote the basement. Kafka's novels were not carved from any particular trauma. His entire existence was the trauma. He did not need to experience anything extraordinary — his daily life was already absurd. Wake up, go to work, process injury claims, come home, write until the middle of the night. Then repeat. How is this different from Gregor Samsa's daily routine?

He was not carved into a writer. Being alive was already writing. Writing was his only way of breathing.

VI. Burn It

Kafka died in 1924. He was forty. Cause of death: laryngeal tuberculosis — the disease had eroded his throat until he could no longer swallow. A writer's throat — the physical channel of language — sealed shut by illness.

Before he died, he left instructions for his closest friend, Max Brod: burn all my manuscripts. Diaries, letters, novel drafts, everything. Do not let anyone read them.

Brod did not comply.

Brod organized Kafka's manuscripts and published The Trial, The Castle, Amerika (all unfinished), along with the diaries and correspondence. Kafka became one of the most important writers of the twentieth century.

If Brod had obeyed, we would not know who Kafka was today.

This is a story about remainder. Kafka wanted to destroy his own remainder — burn everything. But the remainder did not obey him. The remainder survived through Brod.

Qin Shi Huang burned other people's books. The remainder survived (Fu Sheng hid books inside a wall). Kafka wanted to burn his own books. The remainder survived (Brod did not execute the will).

Remainder does not vanish. Even when you yourself want to destroy it. Conservation of remainder.

VII. The Castle

Kafka's last (unfinished) novel: The Castle.

A man called K. arrives in a village. He says he is a land surveyor summoned by the Castle. But the Castle does not acknowledge having summoned him. He tries to enter the Castle, tries to make contact with its officials, tries to prove he was indeed invited.

He never gets in.

The Castle is there. You can see it. It is on the hill. But you cannot reach it. Not because the road is blocked — because every road you take somehow curves away. You think you are getting closer, but you are going in circles.

What is the Castle?

It is authority. It is meaning. It is the place where the answer to "why" resides. If you could enter the Castle, you would know why you were invited (or why you were not). You would know your place. You would receive confirmation.

But you cannot get in.

Kant said the thing-in-itself is unknowable — you cannot know what lies beyond your cognition. Kafka said the Castle is unreachable — you cannot arrive where you want to arrive.

Kant's thing-in-itself is epistemological — about the limits of knowing. Kafka's Castle is ontological — about the limits of living.

Kant said: you can live well within the phenomenal world, even though you cannot touch the thing-in-itself. Kafka said: you cannot live well in the phenomenal world. You keep walking, keep searching, keep never arriving. Your entire life is "never arriving."

Did K. ever arrive? We do not know. The novel was never finished. Kafka died.

Another incompletion.

VIII. The Empty Basement

This series has written three people who carved into the basement.

Freud carved to the basement and found it full of repressed desires — the id, the libido, childhood traumas. The basement was full. Dostoevsky carved to the basement and found it full of human darkness — guilt, the will to self-destruction, the impulse toward parricide. The basement was full.

Kafka carved to the basement. He found it empty.

No repressed desires (Gregor had nothing repressed — he simply woke up as a bug). No guilt (Josef K. committed no crime — he was simply arrested). No cause. No explanation. Empty.

This "empty" is more terrifying than Freud's "full."

When Freud's basement is full, you can do psychoanalysis — dig things out, examine them, understand them, come to terms with them. There is something there. You can work with it. When Dostoevsky's basement is full, you can confess — Raskolnikov eventually turned himself in. Not from conscience, but at least he did something.

When Kafka's basement is empty, you can do nothing. There is nothing to dig out. Nothing to confess. Nothing to work with. You can only sit in the empty basement.

Zhuangzi said bore seven openings and Hundun dies. Freud carved open Hundun and found things inside. Kafka carved open Hundun and found nothing inside — Hundun is not full. Hundun is empty.

Empty is more like Hundun than full. Because in emptiness you cannot find a direction. When it is full, at least you know where to dig. When it is empty, where do you dig?

This is Kafka's horror. Not darkness — in darkness you can still grope your way. It is nothingness. You reach out and touch air.

One more at the bridgehead. He is thin. He stands there, but his presence is almost imperceptible — you can barely see him. He does not look at the bridge, the water, the sky, the people. He looks in a direction you cannot see — a direction that is not a direction.

Freud stands in the dark, looking beneath the bridge. Dostoevsky climbed up from beneath the bridge. Kafka stands in a place you cannot quite say is anywhere. You look at him and feel he is not entirely here. He is like a person slowly becoming transparent.

He is disappearing. Not like Laozi, who chose to disappear — Laozi rode an ox and left. Kafka did not choose to disappear. He is disappearing. He cannot control it.

Just like Gregor becoming a bug — he did not choose. He woke up and it had already happened.

Han Qin (秦汉) · @hqinjarsy · Great Lives