Quote:
Originally Posted by Ak Mike
Harmon, you are certainly have a true appreciation for literature, but your tastes run to the nineteenth century ideal of examination of the souls of characters and tracing their lives, rather than the twentieth century focus on the existential dilemmas of man. Kafka's characters are stick figures if even that, and maybe The Trial is not the book to reread again and again in the short twilight of a deserted tropical isle - but don't tell me that Kafka is not great.
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My taste runs to both. I just think that things like 1984 and C22 are one trick ponies, are not the best writing around, and therefore don't need or much bear rereading. I think it's not a question of taste, so much as a matter of density or complexity in the novels, coupled with how good the writing is. 1984 and C22 are neither dense nor complex, and the writing is competent but not masterly. Kafka is much more complicated than either, or so it seems to me. And Proust, certainly a 20th century author, or at least not a 19th century one, tops all of them. Actually, I'm not sure if anyone ever rereads Proust, so much as continues to read him...