Episode 8: Kafka And The Dread of Uncertainty

There's no character growth quite like growing to love an artist you dunked on because you didn't understand their work.  In this episode, Crow tackles the works of her arch nemesis: Franz Kafka, an author whose works she's always struggled to understand the literary art behind. Why is he revered as one of the fathers of absurd fiction? What is this dream like feeling he manages to create through the written word? Above all else, though, how does he create a sense of anxiety that no author has since been able to replicate in his stories? Crow talks to us about Cognitive Dissonance, Tone, and the inescapability of the absurd to help us understand just a few of the techniques Kafka implements into his works, that have made him the weird-fiction genius we all know today. Join her and Fern as they take a look at the world through the eyes of Gregor Samsa, the smol bug boy who just wanted to make his family happy, and hop on a ride of collar tightening anxiety! NOTE: Hypnogogic hallucinations happen as you're falling asleep and hypnopompic hallucinations happen as you're waking up. Crow sincerely apologizes for her mistake and has since had her license revoked, shredded, and fed to her in the hot pot soup base she's obsessed with. Intro music: Beeckmans: Hymne for Theremin, Oboe, String Quartet and Piano (2018) - The Alba Septet (Listen to the whole thing on youtube, you'll thank us later). Outro music: Magic Hour by Three Chain Links Social Media Accounts: Instagram: crowandfernsguide TikTok: crow_and_ferns_guide Twitter: @Crow_and_fern Email: [email protected] Links:  Tumblr blog with different metamorphosis translations: https://petitchou.tumblr.com/post/225168928/various-translations-of-the-first-sentence-of Wikipedia page for The Metamorphosis translations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis Christine W. Sizemore: Anxiety in Kafka: A Function of Cognitive Dissonance: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3831182  Books:  Understanding Franz Kafka by Allen Thiher.  Essential Novelists: Franz Kafka by August Nemo.