1 00:00:05,400 --> 00:00:07,640 Or gender. It's really brilliant that you're here. 2 00:00:07,650 --> 00:00:15,900 Um, it's really important to me that we're also talking about Czech, uh, and Kafka and Prague Kafka and the Czech reception of him. 3 00:00:16,230 --> 00:00:24,480 Um, and I know that you've brought a couple of books. Uh, you have a couple of books in mind which, uh, respond to Kafka, talk back to Kafka in a way. 4 00:00:24,810 --> 00:00:31,020 Could you tell us a little bit about. Yeah, sure. Yes. I brought, uh, to, uh, different, uh, examples. 5 00:00:31,020 --> 00:00:39,120 Um, the first one, um, is a lecture, actually, um, given in 1992 by the former dissident philosopher Karel Kazik, 6 00:00:39,570 --> 00:00:42,270 um, which in Czech is called still Achi Marchetti, 7 00:00:42,270 --> 00:00:50,819 some of a um and uh, so at the century of Greta Samsa and both of my texts are actually about greater rather than Gregor, 8 00:00:50,820 --> 00:00:58,320 which is kind of interesting. Um, and, uh, I can tell you about Kostic, first of all, perhaps, and then to the second one. 9 00:00:58,320 --> 00:01:05,910 Um, so, um, he, uh, takes what I think is probably the conventional, uh, understanding of Grutter, which, um, 10 00:01:06,300 --> 00:01:13,890 I think was best expressed by Vladimir Nabokov, the Russian emigre writer who calls Gretta the villain of the piece in metamorphosis. 11 00:01:14,280 --> 00:01:22,799 Um, and this interpretation is, is, of course, based on Grace's speech at the end of the story, uh, when she demands that, uh, 12 00:01:22,800 --> 00:01:32,130 Gregor or the creature that Gregor has become is removed from the house, um, and, uh, she explicitly doesn't recognise this creature as her brother. 13 00:01:32,490 --> 00:01:36,690 Um, it has to go. It has to go. And it's, um. 14 00:01:36,780 --> 00:01:39,810 And it's it's causing hardship and disruption. 15 00:01:40,050 --> 00:01:43,740 And if it were Gregor, of course, he would understand that he was causing this trouble. 16 00:01:43,740 --> 00:01:44,580 But it's not Gregor. 17 00:01:44,580 --> 00:01:53,400 And so he doesn't, um, and, you know, when we read the story, I think we're very moved by the accounts of Gregor's death, which Kafka gives us. 18 00:01:53,670 --> 00:01:57,180 And then this very matter of fact disposal of the corpse. 19 00:01:57,180 --> 00:02:03,330 Um, and, uh, the narrator tells us at the end that this is going to allow the family to rejoin polite society. 20 00:02:03,780 --> 00:02:07,710 Um, and Gretel will be able to make a good marriage and pursue a career. 21 00:02:08,430 --> 00:02:12,899 So, um, the bulk of who reads the story is a story about an artist. 22 00:02:12,900 --> 00:02:22,379 Um, he he reads Gretta is the representative of the Philistines in society who, uh, don't appreciate the tortured artist that Gregor represents. 23 00:02:22,380 --> 00:02:26,460 And in fact, they want their removal because they make life harder to live. 24 00:02:26,490 --> 00:02:28,979 Because they they make they talk about difficult things. 25 00:02:28,980 --> 00:02:36,660 Um, and he takes this interpretation really beyond the artistic context, a more general sort of social context. 26 00:02:36,660 --> 00:02:41,639 And he argues that that is the main character in metamorphosis, um, which is not new. 27 00:02:41,640 --> 00:02:48,300 I don't think, uh, in that, uh, various critics have talked about the sort of blossoming of Gretta as Gregor declines, 28 00:02:48,330 --> 00:02:54,240 um, and they trace her transformation from child into woman in the story through caring for Gregor. 29 00:02:54,750 --> 00:03:06,000 Um, but, um, he argues that the key transformation is precisely the ceasing to regards the creature as her brother and her dehumanising of him and, 30 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:10,319 um, sacrificing empathy to secure peace and quiet. 31 00:03:10,320 --> 00:03:13,680 This is the thing that he he focuses on this idea of peace and quiet. 32 00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:22,979 And I can quote from him if you like, um, go to Samsa personifies that unshakeable calm of the modern age that nothing can knock off course, 33 00:03:22,980 --> 00:03:26,220 and thus marches to its goal over corpses. 34 00:03:26,730 --> 00:03:28,740 That's written in the early 90s. 35 00:03:29,290 --> 00:03:37,799 Yeah, and it sounds like there's a political agenda, or at least, uh, a kind of reflection on that particular historical moment in what he's saying. 36 00:03:37,800 --> 00:03:39,330 Would that be fair? Oh, absolutely. 37 00:03:39,330 --> 00:03:45,959 And I think that, you know, it's a very common response of intellectuals at this time, in fact, and through the um, 38 00:03:45,960 --> 00:03:53,110 mid 20th century, in post-war periods where we've had, of course, uh, successive authoritarian, um, uh, 39 00:03:53,130 --> 00:03:57,840 governments in, for example, Czechoslovakia, um, and um, 40 00:03:58,320 --> 00:04:03,809 intellectuals were very frustrated at people's willingness to accept oppression and to 41 00:04:03,810 --> 00:04:09,000 kind of look for ways to have peace and quiet rather than to resist and to protest. 42 00:04:09,030 --> 00:04:16,769 Um, and so I think we see cuts are very much in that light, uh, that she is one of these people who just wants a quiet life, 43 00:04:16,770 --> 00:04:20,730 wants to be allowed to, to, to sort of pursue her career, pursue her love life and so on. 44 00:04:21,150 --> 00:04:24,809 Um, he says that people are so imprisoned in banality, 45 00:04:24,810 --> 00:04:30,810 the everyday mediocrity and pettiness that they consider normal and customary that they have no power, 46 00:04:30,810 --> 00:04:34,740 will or desire to free themselves from these degrading conditions. 47 00:04:35,040 --> 00:04:41,460 And this is the sort of standard critique, even of a Marxist intellectual like cacique, of people's refusal to resist. 48 00:04:41,790 --> 00:04:45,870 Um, these authors authoritarian governments, communist governments, in the case of Czechoslovakia. 49 00:04:46,260 --> 00:04:52,979 So how does he read the end of the story? Is Gretta freed from the imprisonment of the family, 50 00:04:52,980 --> 00:05:03,420 or is she on her way to new imprisonment in a new in a new form of subservience to the, uh, I think he accepts at face value. 51 00:05:03,450 --> 00:05:08,299 What? Um, the. Narrator tells us at the end that indeed, these things will come to pass. 52 00:05:08,300 --> 00:05:12,770 Um. Uh, that that's greater will be liberated, I think. 53 00:05:12,770 --> 00:05:14,599 Not necessarily from the family, but the. 54 00:05:14,600 --> 00:05:21,679 Well, I think the implication is that the whole family will be liberated from the tyranny that has been visited on them by this creature, 55 00:05:21,680 --> 00:05:28,820 and they will be able to go back to polite society and get back to, you know, living what you know, that's a conventional bourgeois life. 56 00:05:28,880 --> 00:05:36,620 Um, so, um, this is interesting. I mean, if I go to the second story because, um, it the the other example that I have, 57 00:05:36,620 --> 00:05:41,750 um, is very much not accepting what the narrator tells us at the end of the story. 58 00:05:42,080 --> 00:05:49,190 Um, so my my second example is, um, uh, quite recent, actually, by a Czech writer called Milana Savitsky. 59 00:05:49,790 --> 00:05:59,929 Uh, and, uh, from this, this, uh, cycle called, uh, on, um, um, which means, uh, she and in this, uh, cycle of short stories, love, it's, uh, uh, 60 00:05:59,930 --> 00:06:06,020 tells us at the beginning that she is interested in taking minor characters from minor female characters, 61 00:06:06,020 --> 00:06:13,159 from texts written by men and exploring them. Um, and this is a relatively new thing, I think, at least in the Czech context. 62 00:06:13,160 --> 00:06:17,990 I think you're familiar with it from, uh, perhaps, uh, you know, Anglophone and French contexts. 63 00:06:18,020 --> 00:06:26,360 Um, and I think from what we've already discussed, you know, greater is not, um, a minor or a dispensable character really, in metamorphosis, 64 00:06:26,360 --> 00:06:33,889 but she is a character that, um, readers and critics tend not to have paid as much attention to is, uh, to Gregor himself. 65 00:06:33,890 --> 00:06:40,370 Um, and, um, uh, I think that, uh, perhaps I ought to tell you what the story is about. 66 00:06:40,370 --> 00:06:45,920 First of all, it's not. It's in translation in English, but very nice. Uh, if it is translated sometime. 67 00:06:46,340 --> 00:06:55,070 Um, so the story takes place in 1929, um, 14 years after the events of metamorphosis um, which was published in German in 1915. 68 00:06:55,460 --> 00:07:00,710 Um, and, uh, none of what is predicted in the final paragraph is actually come to pass. 69 00:07:00,740 --> 00:07:04,520 Um, the family didn't recover from the episode of The Creature. 70 00:07:04,520 --> 00:07:08,749 Gretta is living alone in the same apartment, which was never sold, and she has. 71 00:07:08,750 --> 00:07:13,790 Witold been caring for her parents through long illnesses, uh, for which they've now died. 72 00:07:14,180 --> 00:07:16,669 And, I mean, if we do the sort of maths. 73 00:07:16,670 --> 00:07:23,780 Um, she's only in her 30s, but she comes across really as a as, um, you know, a much older woman, and she's struggling with her memory. 74 00:07:23,990 --> 00:07:29,360 She struggles with interactions with other people. Um, I think we would say she's traumatised. 75 00:07:29,360 --> 00:07:38,000 Probably. Um, um, and in the story, she has opened, uh, Gregor's room, which had been sealed, uh, since his death by the family. 76 00:07:38,360 --> 00:07:45,620 Um, and she found a text that he'd been writing, and, uh, she takes the text to the editor of a popular magazine who, 77 00:07:45,620 --> 00:07:50,269 uh, comes to the apartment to interview her, but she's not able to answer his questions. 78 00:07:50,270 --> 00:07:56,540 Um, and the editor then also takes photographs of the room where, uh, Gregor had Gregor's bedroom, basically. 79 00:07:56,960 --> 00:08:00,170 Um, and after he leaves, um, gets a reproaches. 80 00:08:00,170 --> 00:08:05,780 Gregor. And I'll quote from the story she says for you, it is all over and you're even going to be famous. 81 00:08:06,020 --> 00:08:11,839 But what about me? I'm just stuck here. And she recalls an incident from when they were little. 82 00:08:11,840 --> 00:08:17,960 Um, they were playing a game of forfeits. Um, and they each had to remove an item of clothing if they lost around. 83 00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:23,570 And at a certain point, she senses that he wants to kiss them, and then he kisses her on the neck. 84 00:08:23,600 --> 00:08:31,430 Um, and then the father interrupts this, and he beats her, and Gregor does nothing to defend her or protect her, 85 00:08:32,120 --> 00:08:38,000 so that this sort of incest motif and the kind of troubled relationship with the father are both in the Kafka. 86 00:08:38,120 --> 00:08:45,230 Yes, yes. Is this a sort of psychoanalytic or an Oedipal drama that's playing out in in this text? 87 00:08:45,260 --> 00:08:52,130 I yeah, I think that, um, in terms of the, the incest story, um, I think that, um, 88 00:08:52,850 --> 00:08:57,049 and again, I'm not sure if this is completely new, but it's sort of developed here. 89 00:08:57,050 --> 00:09:07,490 The idea that actually, possibly Grutter performed this metamorphosis that in discovering Gregor's desire for her, but also implicitly, 90 00:09:07,490 --> 00:09:15,200 I think, her desire for Gregor, she she turns that feeling, if you like, as you say, in a kind of psychoanalytic way, into the creature. 91 00:09:15,620 --> 00:09:18,650 And then finally wanted this, wanted rid of this creature. 92 00:09:18,980 --> 00:09:23,719 Um, and, uh, you know, she she is she's kind of bereft in various ways. 93 00:09:23,720 --> 00:09:33,860 She's bereft of the man that she loved. Therefore, um, and this is how we see her, you know, in this story, um, and, um, I think another, um, 94 00:09:33,860 --> 00:09:38,390 interesting aspect of this is actually this business around the finding of the text because, 95 00:09:38,780 --> 00:09:42,049 um, I think anyone who who knows a bit about Kafka will know this. 96 00:09:42,050 --> 00:09:46,850 Of course, when he died, he made his, uh, very good friend Max Broad's the executor of his estate. 97 00:09:47,240 --> 00:09:50,389 Uh, and he told him to burn everything, and Broad's didn't do it. 98 00:09:50,390 --> 00:09:54,860 And he, of course, gave us, uh, so much more material by Kafka than had been published at the time. 99 00:09:55,250 --> 00:09:59,059 Um, and so I think in the story's love, it's got turns greater in some plots. 100 00:09:59,060 --> 00:10:04,130 And so we can sort of see that the that's a Gregor relationship is actually the broad Kafka relationship for. 101 00:10:04,530 --> 00:10:09,870 Love, it's God. And I think actually there's also a sexual dimension to that because people have discussed, 102 00:10:09,960 --> 00:10:15,600 you know, whether there was a kind of unrequited love between Brod and Kafka from which side. 103 00:10:15,870 --> 00:10:18,540 It also, of course, creates a hierarchical relationship. 104 00:10:18,540 --> 00:10:25,350 And that's your Brod is forever in the shadow of Kafka, just as glass is always forever in the shadow of her brother. 105 00:10:25,380 --> 00:10:29,820 Um, so so so this guys playing with quite a lot of these kind of themes is really there, 106 00:10:29,820 --> 00:10:33,690 as you say, in the text itself or relates closely to the text. 107 00:10:34,770 --> 00:10:38,040 Um, so is it a feminist text? 108 00:10:38,070 --> 00:10:48,000 I mean, is it about, um, so is it about kind of, uh, shifting the focus to greater, 109 00:10:48,510 --> 00:10:53,399 um, or do you think it kind of given that greater remains stuck and in the shadow? 110 00:10:53,400 --> 00:11:00,610 And is it easy to is it in a sense, about the failure of that kind of development for women? 111 00:11:00,630 --> 00:11:05,490 Yeah. I mean, I think this is a really interesting question because if you, um, if you do look back, 112 00:11:05,490 --> 00:11:10,680 I mean, Nina Pelikan stress in 1989 presented this sort of feminist reading of the story. 113 00:11:11,010 --> 00:11:20,969 Um, but, um, she at least initially sees this actually as a story of we talked about Gregor's decline and the blossoming of Gretta becomes, 114 00:11:20,970 --> 00:11:26,930 um, kind of, um, Gregor's incapacitation becoming the emancipation of guts. 115 00:11:26,940 --> 00:11:34,019 Um, and so it's quite a sort of positive feminist reading of what happens to go through, um, uh, Gregor's, 116 00:11:34,020 --> 00:11:40,049 um, suffering, whereas it's doesn't give us that sort of, um, you know, positive idea of emancipation. 117 00:11:40,050 --> 00:11:43,260 As you say, she's not in that space. She's stuck. She tells us that she's stuck. 118 00:11:43,530 --> 00:11:52,740 So I think that the idea that she's a victim of trauma, I think is, is is kind of, um, you know, the more important, uh, uh, aspect of this. 119 00:11:53,040 --> 00:12:00,809 And I think that, um, given the sort of time of writing so, you know, we're talking about 2018, um, I think I related this story. 120 00:12:00,810 --> 00:12:04,799 When students talk about it, they tend to relate it to, um, you know, 121 00:12:04,800 --> 00:12:11,910 the MeToo movement and to the discoveries we made in that period in the later 20 tens around, you know, the kind of, 122 00:12:12,300 --> 00:12:18,810 um, the, the abuse that women experienced in all sorts of contexts that we have lots of court cases, 123 00:12:18,810 --> 00:12:23,490 um, and, uh, you know, and again, lots of women talking about these experiences. 124 00:12:23,790 --> 00:12:29,210 And so she seems to be, you know, a victim, a prisoner of male abuse from the father, 125 00:12:29,550 --> 00:12:34,310 uh, but also of kind of male limitations that Gregor not defending her, 126 00:12:34,320 --> 00:12:39,750 you know, is as bad in a way, as the abuser, which, again, came out of this sort of MeToo narrative. 127 00:12:40,110 --> 00:12:49,739 Um, and so I think it is feminist, but I don't think it's necessarily that sort of joyous, you know, emancipatory feminism, it's more about, um, yeah. 128 00:12:49,740 --> 00:12:52,860 I mean, what does emancipation actually look like? 129 00:12:52,890 --> 00:13:00,990 Um, and it doesn't look like this that places the story in a kind of or the reception of the story in an international context. 130 00:13:01,290 --> 00:13:09,960 But I suppose I'm interested. Do you think there's anything particularly Czech, if I can put it like that, about these two approaches to Kafka's text? 131 00:13:10,650 --> 00:13:18,510 Um, I, I don't think in, in that kind of first order of things, there is, I think, possibly the opposite that I think in both cases there's a, 132 00:13:18,540 --> 00:13:27,620 you know, quite a common use of Kafka by Czech intellectuals and writers to internationalise themselves that, you know, Kafka is their root house. 133 00:13:27,660 --> 00:13:31,080 Um, uh, and that's quite an interesting thing to explore, actually. 134 00:13:31,080 --> 00:13:39,899 Um, uh, but I think the other way around of that, which I think, uh, we also see in the Czech context, is, is a desire, um, 135 00:13:39,900 --> 00:13:49,709 over the last certainly 50, 60 years, to kind of reclaim Kafka a little bit, at least for, um, Czech culture, which is, which is complicated. 136 00:13:49,710 --> 00:13:58,710 Um, uh, I mean, I read, um, I think there was a survey a few years ago where I think 75% of Czech schoolchildren thought that Kafka wrote in Czech, 137 00:13:59,190 --> 00:14:02,969 which is a quite an interesting sort of, uh, thing that's going on there. 138 00:14:02,970 --> 00:14:12,360 Um, of course, writing German, um, uh, but living in Prague, um, and, uh, from a family that had had lived there for, uh, you know, decades and, 139 00:14:12,360 --> 00:14:22,469 um, he, uh, but that he, I think is the only non writer who doesn't write in Czech who you will find in the Czech section of bookshops. 140 00:14:22,470 --> 00:14:29,900 Um, we would, uh, you know, talking before that, uh, you know, his name is assumed, I think, by Czechs to refer to, uh, 141 00:14:29,910 --> 00:14:35,520 Jack straw, and in that the family themselves are aware of Kafka and Jack, although I think it actually has a Hebrew origin. 142 00:14:35,880 --> 00:14:40,920 Um, and it's interesting, actually, that classical Slavic scholar also names that his blackbird and nightingales. 143 00:14:40,920 --> 00:14:42,690 So we've got lots of birds today. 144 00:14:42,690 --> 00:14:53,120 Um, but I think that they, um, you know, they, they see him as, as a way of being seen, um, by sort of major and larger literatures, 145 00:14:53,150 --> 00:14:58,650 by the international a, you know, a this is a place that is important for literature, for culture. 146 00:14:59,040 --> 00:15:04,260 Um, so I think that we can see two things going on there, the kind of appropriation of Kafka to discuss. 147 00:15:04,360 --> 00:15:07,360 Things that that Cacique and Stubbies Club would like to talk about. 148 00:15:07,690 --> 00:15:11,170 Um, but also kind of getting a legitimacy for it through Kafka. 149 00:15:12,100 --> 00:15:13,680 Um, one final question. 150 00:15:13,690 --> 00:15:24,040 Um, I was intrigued that both, uh, the people you mentioned approach Kafka and perhaps sort of draw on Kafka for for the reasons you say, 151 00:15:24,460 --> 00:15:27,530 but through female character, through character. 152 00:15:27,550 --> 00:15:31,570 Um, so is it the is it still the century? Is it the new century of writer? 153 00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:36,340 Do you think, I mean, or what's going on that they approach Kafka obliquely nowadays? 154 00:15:36,550 --> 00:15:42,250 Um, I think again, I would need to think more about that because there's attempting, you know, of course, 155 00:15:42,320 --> 00:15:46,360 the sort of idea of the Czech as the feminine to the German masculine, and that's all very tempting. 156 00:15:46,390 --> 00:15:52,150 I don't know if that's being played out here. I think that what's I mean, Slavic skies responding as much to caustic, I think, 157 00:15:52,150 --> 00:15:59,740 as she is to Kafka and I think to this kind of male appropriation of female characters, which is the theme of her whole collection. 158 00:15:59,780 --> 00:16:06,129 Um, and, you know, um, really, you know, in Kostic, in Nabokov, we see this kind of, you know, 159 00:16:06,130 --> 00:16:12,110 Adam and Eve story playing out again, that it's the woman who is bad and who leads the the man to disaster. 160 00:16:12,130 --> 00:16:21,090 And, um, I think that, uh, uh, this guy is really trying to repudiate that idea, which I think we might feel has been long repudiated within sort of, 161 00:16:21,100 --> 00:16:27,429 um, you know, successive waves of feminism in Western literature, but is really still quite a new thing in Czech literature. 162 00:16:27,430 --> 00:16:33,700 And so I think that, you know, some of its purpose is really to to introduce the kind of literary feminism, 163 00:16:33,730 --> 00:16:38,260 uh, that is still not, not sort of entirely well received, I think, in Czech context. 164 00:16:38,920 --> 00:16:40,360 Thank you. Thank you very much.