The Trial : Franz Kafka

For this book, what I gather, the world of classic literature should be more thankful to Max Brod, the closest friend of Kafka, rather than Kafka himself. "The Trial, a classic, more of psychometric kind, was neatly placed in the drawer of Kafka at the time of his death in 1920. Max was instructed by Kafka to burn all the manuscripts after his death. Thankfully, Max Brod, after reading only few pages never felt like burning it. The Trial was published in 1925 with fragments added by Max Brod. Since then, it is incomparable.

This terrifying tale of Joseph K. gripped me from its very first lines : Somebody must have slandered about Joseph K. as one fine morning he was arrested in his apartment. The tale further unfolds into such dimensions that any sane man would fear to put himself in the place of K. He gets arrested without any reasons, faces the trial without any judge & gets death sentence without any vision of magistrtate. In his own words he gets killed like a dog.
It shook within me the very trust that we put on modern society. But how does a German-Jew reads it all to narrate in his novel. I tried to explore Kafka in his diary after I came across The Trial. The by-product of enimity of kinsmen, to be specific, his father, is evident in the pages of his diary. This constant clash made Franz Kafka. His mind piercing words were the only sanctuary for him.

The Trial, vanishes within us, the rare emotion of trust that we have for the surrounding world. Bizaare in it's plot, it narrates a story of a man who is convicted for a crime that he is unaware of. The height of fright reaches with the fable which an unknown priest tells K.
To be mentioned, I love the writing style of Kafka. The way he starts his story.
This book, I love a lot.

Zorba The Greek : NIkos Kazantzakis

I apologize dearly for my absence from this blog for a long time. I had been busy in unwinding the other aspects of life. I, in the future, will try to make it sure to not to repeat it again.

Though, I hadn't had any interest towards the fiction since I always liked to watch cinema instead but still there are several books that left upon my soul an impression which was hard to omit. Nikos Kazantzakis's Zorba the Greek is one of such books. This book came out of Kazantzakis in 1946 & since then has been unmatched. To be mentioned, Osho includes this book in his favorite list & based his way of life partly on the lead character Zorba.

Never had any other imaginary character like Zorba lived life in such totality. His passion for life goes to such an extreme where majority of us wouldn't even dare set foot at. The story revolves round a man who is imprinted by the Buddha & is on a feat to write a book on it. He also owns a mine in Crete, a small town on the southern Greek sea shores. Zorba, the chief assistant of his mining expedition, leaves a mark on his mind.

The Zorban way of life, albeit of it's dangers, attracted me. It had something in common with what we call in India "The Sufis". He dances when he gets angry or when he is happy or when he is filled with sorrow. In fact, the only outflow of emotions for him is dancing & that too uncontrolled. He is an atheist but still very much in love with the existence. He loves women & can go to any limit to capture them. He has a musical instrument "Santuri" which does not obeys him & has it's own temperament i.e. it allows to play itself whenever it's on the mood. He laughs at his master every now & then for searching the meaning of life in books. He never cares about tomorrow or yesterday. I won't get surprised if he didn't even cared about the next moment. That's what Zorba is.

I vowed to myself long ago to not to follow anyone but I never vowed to not to love anyone. I fell in love with Zorba. It may seem surprising that I never finished this book. I felt no need of it instead. This book & this character may be imaginary but aren't mean to be read & put aside. They, instead, are to be lived. Not finishing this book had some unknown reasons & they still guard it. With shaking hands I scribbled this thing on it's page. This book, in matter, occupies a space in my library but, in reality, lives somewhere within me.

Bravo ! Nikos for Zorba