Alex, it's great to have you here. Um, talking about Kafka.
Um, and a different angle on Kafka, which is we're going to focus on a graphic novel and a graphic novel by Peter Cooper.
Um, of the metamorphosis, uh, 2003.
And I wondered if you could, uh, set the scene as a little bit Peter Cooper, um, this, this book that you're going to talk about?
Absolutely. So, um, I work on comics. Um, and I have to spend a lot of time, as many comic scholars do, justifying the study of comics.
Um, so it's really exciting to talk about comics and Kafka. Um, Cooper is, uh, an American comics artist who has worked a lot with Kafka.
So he's produced three different volumes of Kafka adaptations, of which this book is a metamorphosis as one.
Um, and I think he's really interesting artist.
He's an illustrator. He does lots of comics, lots of strips, lots of covers.
But his adaptations of Kafka really interesting because of his kind of engagement with the original texts.
So Cooper came to Kafka as a student. He read metamorphosis, first of all, all the Kafka that he read, um, and he read it in the mirror translations.
So we're thinking about Kafka and comics and adaptation,
and it's already kind of interesting that this is a non-German speaking comics creator who's engaging with The Metamorphosis,
but already at a kind of one level of abstraction already through a translation.
I hadn't realised that he'd done so much with Kafka. Do you know the other texts as well?
The other comic novels? So there are two.
Um, he started working on Kafka in the late 80s, so I think this has been a real kind of labour of love and a real long term engagement with Kafka.
Um, and he's adapted many of the stories. So things like, um, Hunger Artist, he's adapted, um, in the penal colony.
So he's, he's worked a lot with the short, the short fiction, the short prose works.
That's fantastic. I mean, I know that, um, comics, the graphic novel, very big genre in Germany.
And you mentioned at the beginning that it's, you know, perhaps suffers in this country a little bit,
um, not being seen as serious, but actually, it's very important in Germany, isn't it?
Can you tell why? Why the difference or why has it developed that way in Germany?
So the development of comics has been quite delayed in Germany.
It's sort of ironic that some of the very earliest comics are coming out of Germany in the late 19th century,
and they're really significantly influencing US comics creators.
And then it's really only in the last kind of 30, 40 years that in Germany,
comics have taken more of a kind of central stance in the publishing industry.
And what we've seen is a lot of adaptations. So a lot of comics that are created based on kind of literary models, things like Kafka in particular,
but also writers like Thomas Barnhart, um, imagine Thomas Barnhart in comics.
It was kind of amazing. Um, but comics has been there's been an increasing push in Germany for comics to be seen as a kind of serious art form.
And, you know, the great thing about comics is, is that it's or can be very accessible.
So, for example, if you're reading in a second language, if you're trying to come to Kafka reading in German, but it's not your first language.
Comics can be a really nice bridge because it's usually a reduced version of the text, or maybe a simplified version of a text.
But comics can also be incredibly complex. It can demand really complex reading strategies.
You have to be able to interpret text and image at the same time.
Unlike film, where images move and as soon as you've seen it, it's gone.
In comics, you can have multiple images on the same page, which as a reader, you're being asked to interpret all at once at the same time,
but you're also being asked to kind of zoom in on individual images, individual words, at the same time.
And find a way through and a direction of reading.
Exactly. Yeah. So in some senses you have a lot more autonomy than you do with a prospect's.
Um, and there's something I think really great about that in relation to Kafka,
where Kafka is a writer who kind of famously demands a lot from readers and unsettles readers and makes them feel so uncomfortable.
And so there's something kind of exciting to get that into comics where you have all
these very different reading strategies that you have to do all at the same time.
That's really interesting. I mean, but I mean, one of the problems with putting this text, um, of all Kafka into comics is,
of course, the problem of how to represent the central character, Gregor.
Um, could you talk a little bit about that and why it's so tricky?
Yeah. So, I mean, famously, Kafka did not want a drawing of whatever it is that Gregor has become as a result of the metamorphosis.
He didn't want a picture of that. On the cover of the text, he wrote to his publisher,
expressing deep shock and alarm at the very idea that there would be an illustration on the front cover.
Um, so of course, for comics creation coming along and having to draw Gregor or draw whatever this creature is, is, is clearly a challenge.
And it's a challenge that takes in, you know, the comics creators, the adaptors, relationship with the author.
You know, we have this problem all the way through with Kafka. We know that Kafka wanted his works to be destroyed.
And yet here we are, a century after his death, still talking about them, still engaging with them.
So there's this kind of that level of it.
And then there's also just the, the practical problem of, of drawing what it is that in the text is described.
And what is described in the text is in many ways very ambiguous.
This is the same with a lot of Kafka's images. Kafka is a really visual writer.
But oftentimes when you try and really kind of actually sit down and draw those images, they really resist a kind of realist depiction.
There's a problem of scale, isn't that?
Um, that's one of the things that's very striking, and we're not really sure how big this creature, vermin, insect, whatever it is, is.
And then there is a lot of detail of wiggling legs and bellies and hard sort of carapace, but yet it doesn't quite fit together.
Yeah. And we know that the blanket on the bed is sort of rolling off of his stomach, which is now, you know, the wrong size.
The. I think. The, um.
The challenge for Cooper, and Cooper was very aware of the challenge of this.
Cooper was aware that there was this this prohibition by Kafka on drawing Greco.
Um, his original suggestion, which which the publisher didn't take up, sadly, was, um, that there would be a sort of translucent foam over the cover,
like a sort of dust jacket, so that the reader could only see the drawn picture of Greg, or if they took that off.
So there would be some kind of agency by the by the reader in revealing a conflict to resolve as well.
Yeah, exactly. The story fits really well with the story.
I mean, it's a shame, you know, we know that. We know that, um, literature sometimes comes down to economics.
Um, so, of course, if you're adding a lovely piece of film to every, every copy, the book makes it expensive.
Um, but I think it's a really interesting it's a really interesting problem.
And it was clearly a problem that Cooper was, was hugely aware of.
But it's a problem that the comics always has with adaptation that when you have ambiguity that's inherent in a prose text.
A comics creator has to make a decision whether to, as it were.
Get rid of that ambiguity because they have to, at some point draw it.
They have to at some point make whatever it is visible.
But they can also find ways to incorporate that ambiguity through other strategies, through other means.
So it's a kind of, you know, there's a problem, but there's also an opportunity.
It's like any form of translation, isn't it?
When you're translating a text between languages, for example, or into other forms, uh, ambiguity is the hardest thing.
Um, I feel like we need to look at something. Yes. Um, and perhaps we could look at the cover, first of all, because we've talked about that.
Now, the original cover, which Kafka approved.
Um, he wanted an open door. Let's look at this cover, um, for the Peter Cooper, which sort of incorporates Kafka's wishes.
Um, but also goes against them. Yeah. Can you talk about it a little bit?
Yeah. So on this, on this cover, we have that sort of, uh, not the image of an open door, but the light that's clearly shining from the door.
There's this shadowy figure that's kind of, um, coming into the frame from the top right hand corner.
Um, and there's this really nice use of kind of diagonal lines.
Cooper's really influenced by German expressionism and early 20th century art.
Um, and so there's this really kind of nice effect going on here that we have this this, you know, what, to me, looks like The Cabinet of Caligari.
Um, it it it's this kind of lovely nod to the period of the original text to German Expressionism.
What's also interesting is that we have Gregor. So Gregor, it appears as Basil.
Um, Vladimir Nabokov, writer, entomologist, drew pictures of Gregor as creature, based on the description of him in the original text.
And I think there is a little kind of hint of that in this depiction.
Um, but what's interesting, too, is the face. So one of the really interesting questions about the metamorphosis as a text is how human is Gregor?
How human was Gregor? Is Gregor still human?
The question is even posed in the text itself.
So there's also this question of if you're drawing Gregor, how much do you draw the animal insect body and how many human features are retained.
And so here, what I think, um, Cooper has done, which is really great, is we have a kind of humanistic head, but it's really abstracted.
This is not a realist depiction. This is a really abstracted image where the eyes are simply large circles.
They're not drawn in any kind of realist way. The mouth is is drawn in this very kind of geometric way.
There's no attempt to make this look realist, and I think that's a good example of what comics can do.
It's finding a sort of halfway position between not showing its at all, which we know it's wanted and and showing a kind of, uh,
showing an attempt at the kind of ambiguity that you get from the original text, but that you maybe can't necessarily get in the drawing.
It made me think of the Royal Ballet's, um, production of metamorphosis.
Um, and Arthur Pitre, the director, and had Watson, the, uh, lead dancer, were here talking about precisely that,
about how they wanted Greco to be still human within the, uh, the creature leanness and ways of making that visible.
So I find that really, really fascinating.
As soon as you go into the visual, you have that dilemma of how human Gregory's, which is, of course, one of the central things of the text.
Um, interesting. Uh, sort of also is the fact of this shadow, of this black shadow of authority of of course, we don't know who it is at this point.
Um, that's already there on the cover then. Yeah.
That's this kind of sense of foreboding. Um. Many comics artists, of course, use colour to achieve certain effects.
I think it's really striking here that the block text is in red.
The title is in red. This white, red black has obviously got certain resonances.
I'm not sure if that was deliberate, but the use of black and white throughout this comic also.
I mean, of course, again, it's a kind of, um, it's a kind of gesture to the early 20th century German expressionism.
But I think there's also a kind of starkness about that that works incredibly well with the story that has been read metaphorically,
allegorically, not necessarily in a realist way. You know, we know in real life nobody wakes up and has turned into a giant insect.
We know that can't happen. So we're being asked to enter a story world where where that can happen.
And I think the use of black and white in this, you know, again, it gives you that,
that kind of distance that you get in a different way in the original.
Now, we can't talk about the whole, uh, book. People need to go and buy it and read it.
I didn't know it before. Um, you, um, uh, brought it to me, as it were, to talk about, um,
but let's just talk about a couple of the things from the beginning that are very striking, um, about the translation into images.
Um, I suppose one of the things that really struck me, um,
from the beginning is this room that he wakes into, um, which is so important in the story itself.
Um, it's it's the the story is based on that flat that Kafka actually lived in,
the apartment that Kafka lived in, and his room is sort of open with multiple doors.
People had to go through it to get to various places. Um, it becomes, uh, a prison and a safe haven.
And most productions sort of picture it as very bleak.
Um, tell me a little bit about this bourgeois.
Yeah. Decadence. This is. This is a kind of beta Meyer Paradise.
Um, so you have it looks almost like a doll's house.
Um, you have a bedside table clock.
You have a nice rug. A nice floral rug on the floor.
You have the sofa which goes. Which will be mentioned later. Chest of drawers, writing desk.
The picture of the woman in furs is, of course, prominently placed on the wall, but it looks, in a sense, incredibly homely.
There's floral patterned wallpaper, but I think what's interesting, too, is that you get these sort of very subtle small.
Details that we know are going to come back and are going to be more important later.
And I think the most important of them here is the key.
In the door, because that locked door and the doors to Gregor's room are going to be so important throughout this.
And actually, on the very next page and in the panel at the very top.
Gregor is front and centre, but actually that locked door is still there.
It's still there in the frame because that's that's what this is going to revolve around.
But I think it's also worth saying. Of course, every translation is an interpretation and every adaptation is different.
And Cooper himself has said, you know, this is my this is my metamorphosis.
Every single comics creator would, would, would do something different.
Something different would speak to them.
But there is something I think, I think quite interesting about, you know, what's the challenge for the visual artist in adapting this?
They do have to to make a decision about. Is that a public space?
Is there something actually quite bleak in the bourgeois homeliness this room with.
You know, Paul Gregor's suitcase full of wares for his wretched, wretched job as a travelling salesman.
There. There on the right. So the visual artist has to choose just a few moments of text, um, and then fills in with the pictures.
Um, I can't not talk about how when he wakes up, we see him with little stars round his head as if he's been hit.
You know, like pow in comic speak, but also then he immediately says, how about if I go back to sleep a bit for a bit and forget this prank,
which sounds like this something happened to him from outside rather than inside.
And I wonder if that's characteristic of this interpretation.
It's definitely positioning it explicitly as a comic.
So it's sort of playing with the tropes that you might expect from, as it were, non literary comic,
the more sort of popular comics that we would think of when we think of comics,
rather than graphic novels and graphic literature and things that sound much worthier.
So I think there is something about this that is playing with conventions and expectations of the form itself.
Um, I also think it's really interesting that Gregor has some kind of spittle coming out of his mouth.
So that's something that, again, it's this kind of mixture of the mundane.
He's just woken up, you know, it's just the result of sleep.
But there's also something clearly there's something incredibly sinister.
And of course, you can have the the soap bubbles, the combination of soap bubbles and the combination of narrative text.
Which in a way, the way that works in comics, in a way I think is, is not unlike the use of free indirect discourse for a later reader for which,
you know, as our students know, for which Kafka is famous, this muddying of the voice of the narrator and the voice or perspective of Gregor.
Again, perspective is hard to do in comics. Um.
So that that use of the speech bubbles, I think, is really.
Really helps to do what is happening in the original.
Absolutely. Um, we're going to have to stop.
But I again, I'm just going to ask you the last slide you've given me is, is could I go saying, to [INAUDIBLE] with it all?
Um, a kind of rebelliousness, which we don't generally see in the figure is, is that again,
something that's out of the comic world or is it of, um, this interpretation?
I think it's partly Cooper's interpretation, and I think it's partly, again, as convention of comics.
Um, this kind of boldness and I think, I think Cooper clearly is really, um, really loves Kafka.
So I think this is an adaptation that's done with a huge amount of care, but it's, I think in some ways a comic that is, you know,
it's playing with what it means to be a comic and what it means to take something like Kafka, you know, iconic writer, uh,
literature that is so famous that so many people have read, you know, to put that into comics and to see that as something productive,
something that can give us something new and not just a simplified version of of
Kafka's original or a version that somehow is sacrilege because it's changing.
It's changing the original. Um, so it gives us something kind of exciting and it gives us something also that that shows us what comics can do,
as well as showing us what comics can do with Kafka.