११ जानेवारी, २०२३

"Martin Heidegger was recorded to have laughed only once.... It happened at a picnic in the Harz Mountains with Ernst Jünger, who 'leaned over...'"

"... to pick up a sauerkraut and sausage roll, and his lederhosen split with a tremendous crack.' Like Heidegger, Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was not known for his lightness of spirit.... In the spirit of [that] anecdote about Heidegger, I’ve often recalled that, in his diaries, Kafka reports sitting in a bar in Prague with his friend Max Brod after they’d left an opera. Brod accidentally sprayed soda water all over Kafka, who laughed so hard that seltzer and grenadine shot out of his nose."

Writes Dwight Garner in "The Kafka You Never Knew/An unabridged volume of Franz Kafka’s diaries restores the rough edges and impulses that were buffed out of past editions" (NYT).

If that — or anything else — makes you want to read Kafka's diaries, here's the new edition (at Amazon). I bought it.

Is there a category of intellect that only gets humor in slapstick form? Is their world so dark because they're waiting to see 3-Stooges-level high jinks in real life? 

Anyway, what's new about this new edition of Kafka's diaries? Earlier editions were edited by the accidental soda water sprayer Brod, who took out prostitutes and hints of homosexuality. 

Where Brod strove to clean Kafka up and foster a sense that he was, in [the words of the new translator Ross Benjamin], a “saintly, prophetic genius, whose purity places him at an elevated remove from the world,” this edition scuffs him up and returns him to earth, in an intimate manner that does no injury to our sense of his suffering, or his profound and original gifts.

These diaries are choppy; Benjamin compares them to studio outtakes. They often read like poetry.

Fine. I prefer that. The choppy, broken-up quality is a plus. Does it "read like poetry"? To me, it sounds most like blogging. My favorite form. Maybe I should only read diaries!

Kafka spent so many nights at the theater (he admired the way Goethe kept supplies of wine and cold food in his box)....

You never want to sit too close to Goethe.

Tragedy and forms of comedy don’t just coexist in these diaries but feed each other. He was not, at every moment, unhappy about being unhappy.

Yes, I do want to acknowledge that Kafka does not belong in that category of intellect that only gets humor in slapstick form. Perhaps there's a category of a intellect that only gets humor either as crude slapstick or complexly interwoven with tragedy. Nothing in between.

४१ टिप्पण्या:

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

Gah! I originally wrote: "Yes, I do want to acknowledge that Kafka belongs..." That's not what I was thinking and I hope no one is responding to that miswriting. It's correct to "Yes, I do want to acknowledge that Kafka does not belong...."

It's amazing how you can sometimes say exactly the opposite of what you mean to say.

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

It was so fun to get to use the "men in shorts" tag here.

Kate म्हणाले...

Selzer and grenadine out of the nose --- ow. That stopped me.

And then I kept going over and over the post trying to figure out men in shorts. Hahaha! Lederhosen seen in a new light.

Enigma म्हणाले...

Academics, intellectuals, and creative types are often narrow one-trick-ponies aka 'idiot savants' regarding whatever they do well. Their brains seem wired for one task only. Insert hackneyed claims that Einstein couldn't calculate small change when buying things. Read or watch any interview of Steven Pinker or Richard Dawkins or Steven King to see their small mental tunnels in action.

I never imagined that I'd be saying this, but Three Stooges and Laurel & Hardy slapstick is a whole lot funnier than much of what's pumped out as entertainment today. Slapstick is primal and it brings back childlike goofy playfulness.

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

Woody Allen famously said "If I got a paper cut, that’s a tragedy. If you fell down an open manhole and died, that's comedy."

There's a Woody Allen movie where he suddenly falls into an open manhole. Can't remember which one, but I saw it in the theater in London (for some reason), and the audience that hadn't been laughing at any of the numerous verbal jokes laughed heartily. Slapstick is a universal language. And yet some people reject slapstick. They think it's cheap or mean or something. Why would you laugh when someone falls?

Jeff Gee म्हणाले...

The paper cut / manhole line is from one of the Carl Reiner / Mel Brooks "Two Thousand Year Old Man" LPs.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

Thomas Mann said that Kafka was a religious humorist. That comes off in Kafka's work.

Quaestor म्हणाले...

"Perhaps there's a category of a intellect (sic) that only gets humor either as crude slapstick or complexly interwoven with tragedy."

Or it might be just a characteristic of Germans. Read a compendium of German jokes sometime. It doesn't matter whether they're in translation or in the original text, German jokes are pretty miserable. This may relate to the language itself. English syntax is more fluid than German syntax, consequently composing a punchy laugh line may be easier. But whatever the cause, it helps explain the Teutonic penchant for extremes.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

Genre-wise, if you die at the end, it's a tragedy; if you get married at the end, it's a comedy. - Stranger than Fiction (2006)

Tom T. म्हणाले...

I suspect it's more that people like Kafka and Heidegger deliberately cultivated an image of constant, glum seriousness. It was their personal branding. They disciplined themselves not to laugh at conversation, but unexpected physical comedy was sharp and sudden enough to allow laughter to break through the shell.

Quaestor म्हणाले...

Woody Allen famously said "If I got a paper cut, that’s a tragedy. If you fell down an open manhole and died, that's comedy."

If he did, he stole it from Mel Brooks.

Why would you laugh when someone falls?

Context. We assume the comedian is invulnerable in performance, like a character in an animated cartoon. When Wiley Coyote plummets two thousand feet into a puff of dust on the canyon floor we know this is an illusion, the most illusory of illusions -- ink and paint brought to a semblance of life. Harold Lloyd dangling from the minute hand of a giant clock one hundred feet above a Los Angeles street is a bit too un-illusory for me, at least, and therefore slightly unfunny.

Jim म्हणाले...

My wife lived in Germany for a number of years and says that slapstick is the only humor most Germans appreciate. Maybe it's a cultural thing in that part of the world.

Quaestor म्हणाले...

Hahaha! Lederhosen...

Kate's hair is often mysteriously ruffled, eh?

Saint Croix म्हणाले...

Why would you laugh when someone falls?

Maybe it's joy that it didn't happen to you. It's a sort of primal, mean glee. I'm Okay, You're Not Okay..

Schadenfreude.

God loves me most!

Quaestor म्हणाले...

Hahaha! Lederhosen...

I own a pair gifted to me by a long-lost GF who delighted in my cuteness thusly attired.

They creak.

Sebastian म्हणाले...

"You never want to sit too close to Goethe."

On the other hand, he'd give you something to blog every time.

traditionalguy म्हणाले...

Yes. Slapstick evokes a laugh that surprises the laugher. It’s a visual comedy that bypasses wit.

The other night we watched an old Cary Grant and Irene Dunne “screwball comedy” called The Awful Truth. It had lots of wit and creative word jokes, but the slapstick was the best part.

And Irene Dunne was a near perfect actress in the genre. First time I had ever seen her. She was born in 1898.

Ryan म्हणाले...

Paul Dirac, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, never laughed, according to his daughter.

khematite म्हणाले...

Thanks for the reminder of my childhood. I think that my formerly European family was the only one in our neighborhood to have a bottle of grenadine sitting on a kitchen shelf, waiting for a hot summer day to be well-mixed with seltzer. So refreshing, but never yielding even a single chuckle. And then there were the vinegar socks I had to wear when I got sick.

P.S. Fielding Melish got out of a car in Bananas and promptly fell down a manhole. Very Harold Lloyd-ish.

Yancey Ward म्हणाले...

Kafka had a big sense of humor the size of a small sense of humor.

Lurker21 म्हणाले...

Kafka was often seen as a "humorist" before the "absurd" and the "Kafkaesque" caught on as concepts.

Is there a category of intellect that only gets humor in slapstick form?

People say that about Nazis, and indeed, Germans.

Woody Allen famously said "If I got a paper cut, that’s a tragedy. If you fell down an open manhole and died, that's comedy."

That's an old line among comedians, often with a stubbed toe, rather than a cut finger. It's also been attributed to Mel Brooks. My guess would have been Albert Brooks.

Quaestor म्हणाले...

Eeeeeee-Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume Schopenhauer and Hegel.
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Neitzche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates himself was permanently pissed.

John Stuart Mill of his own free will
On half a pint of shandy got particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away --
Half a crate of whisky every day.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle.
Hobbes was fond of his dram.
And René Descartes was a drunken fart.
"I drink, therefore I am."

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed...
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.

boatbuilder म्हणाले...

If you don’t laugh at your German philosopher Buddy splitting his pants open, there is no hope for you.

William म्हणाले...

Slapstick doesn't lose much in translation. I saw a Korean action flick with slapstick elements. One of the characters performed an amazing stunt of acrobatic grace, paused for a moment to contemplate his accomplishment and then got run over by a bus coming in the opposite direction. It was funny and unexpected and I like to see such a scene incorporated into the next James Bond movie.....I don't think a remake of Charley's Aunt is on the books. Did Charley's Aunt go the way of Song of the South. Some things are just not funny.

Rusty म्हणाले...

Comedy = tragidy+ timing.
Getting punched in the nuts by a midget is painful. Watching someone get punched in the nuts by a midget is hilarious. You show that anywhere in the world and 99% of the men in the audience will laugh. Women will fail to see the humor.
Life is absurd. Enjoy the trip.

Lewis Wetzel म्हणाले...

The Ernst Junger who wrote _Storm of Steel_?
That Ernst Junger probably had a very dour demeanor.

Lewis Wetzel म्हणाले...

The Ernst Junger who wrote _Storm of Steel_?
That Ernst Junger probably had a very dour demeanor.

Anthony म्हणाले...

I dare anyone here to not laugh at someone's unexpected fart.

Aggie म्हणाले...

"...Kafka does not belong in that category of intellect that only gets humor in slapstick form."

The thing about slapstick humor, when properly done, is that one can't stop themselves from laughing at it - it's a visual connection with a visceral reaction. That's why it was so widely used in silent movies. All other humor is reflective and requires contemplative thought and reaction. Easy for a professional thinker to suppress that.

james म्हणाले...

For a sometimes humorous look at philosophers (bats about 300), there's Existential Comics. This week's (#480) is about aggravating factors.

Dr Weevil म्हणाले...

I clicked on the Amazon link to the new edition of Kafka's diaries and got a "Thank you, [my real name], for your order" page at Amazon, implying I'd downloaded a Kindle copy of the book. WTF? Did Ann just make me spend money on something I don't want? (I may buy the hard copy, but I am NOT interested in downloading some electronic copy that could be deleted or altered at any time.) And how much money did I just spend?

Maybe none: there's nothing listed under "Orders" or "Digital Orders" so maybe it was free for Prime members or something. There's also nothing from Amazon in my e-mail, so maybe the Thank You was Amazon's idea of a Kafkaesque joke, and nothing actually happened.

No doubt my verbal and gestural reaction would have amused most people here if they had been able to see it. A comedy for them, since it's not their money.

So, has anyone else clicked on the link? If so, what happened?

rcocean म्हणाले...

I could be wrong of course, but I sincerly doubt Kafka knew Heidigger or Jung very well, if at all. He visited Germany, but he was a German speaking Jew who grew up in Prague. He died in 1924. The key words "It is recorded that". Any yeah, Germans are known for their lack of witty banter.

Slapstick goes all the way back to Greeks, as do fart jokes. Universal indeed. Laural and Hardy were one of the few silent comedians who could do physical and verbal comedy. I'm trying to remember Chaplin being funny in a verbal way, and the best I can do is "Herr Hinckle" in "Great Dictator".

Lurker21 म्हणाले...

Germans have gotten better at comedy in recent decades, but there's still a didactic strain and a need to spell everything out beforehand that can spoil things. German feminist comedies in particular get so much praise for their socio-political perspective that they don't have to have many real jokes, but it's not just feminist films. When Germans aren't the beery conventional types who only laugh at people falling on their asses, they congratulate themselves so much for not being that way that their comedy doesn't have to be funny. America is getting to be that way too.

Narr म्हणाले...

Wile E. Coyote, not Wiley.

I'll be back . . .

Josephbleau म्हणाले...

"My wife lived in Germany for a number of years and says that slapstick is the only humor most Germans appreciate. Maybe it's a cultural thing in that part of the world."

I remember sitting at a bar in Frankfurt watching an episode of 'Hogan's Heroes' on tv.

It was the episode where they went to the dungeon and asked the gestapo guy to tell them what cell the girl was in. "Nein! Nein! We will shoot you if you don't talk! No! No! she is in cell number 9!" It brought the house down.

J. Farmer म्हणाले...

There is a tradition going back at least to Seneca of presenting the figures of Heraclitus and Democritus as a contrasting pair, with Heraclitus the melancholic "weeping philosopher" and Democritus the cheerful "laughing philosopher."

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"I suspect it's more that people like Kafka and Heidegger deliberately cultivated an image of constant, glum seriousness."

Has that been documented, that Kafka cultivated an image of constant, glum seriousness? I don't think so. Perhaps that image has been created about him posthumously by critics and/or readers who emphasize certain aspects of his work in such that way. I read years ago that when Kafka would give readings of his current work to friends, he and they would often break into laughter. He (and they) saw much humor in his work. And it is humorous, in a dead pan, mordant way.

AMERIKA, his first novel, is more overtly rollicking with humor than THE TRIAL, it being about a 16 year old boy who flees Europe for the USA after having been seduced by a maid working for his parents. The book is basically about the young boy's experiences in this foreign land, (a common type of tale). I've read AMERIKA once, THE TRIAL twice, and I began but did not complete THE CASTLE, due to other distracting things going on at the time when I began it. I do intend to have another go at that.

Nearly 40 years separated my first and second readings of THE TRIAL, and it was a different novel on my second reading. It is another common type of tale, the comic tale of misunderstandings between a protagonist and those around him, such as a naive young man or frustrated bumpkin struggling but failing to assimilate and fit smoothly into the prevailing but unfamiliar society into which he has entered. In short, "hijinx prevail!" THE TRIAL isn't laugh out loud funny, but there is humor in it.

Narr म्हणाले...

A lot of German humor is about dialect, and punning wordplay. As noted already the sentence structure hinders some of the things English does best.

Hannah Arendt always said that once you got to know him, Heidegger was a laff riot.

A quote from Junger gets pride of place in the (US) WWI Memorial and Museum--at least, it's featured in display below the see-through floor of one the main exhibit areas.

Victor Klemperer's diaries "I Will Bear Witness" are brilliant, the record of a mind that never stopped trying to learn even under horrendous conditions, and who records it all clinically at times, including the cynical jokes. He was cousin of the conductor Oskar and second cousin to Werner "Colonel Klink" Klemperer, who got out.



garrison म्हणाले...

Ernst Junger is a fascinating guy. His book on WW1 is the best.

Assistant Village Idiot म्हणाले...

Heisenberg, Godel, and Chomsky walk into a bar. Heisenberg looks around as says "Hey! We must be in some kind of joke. But is it funny?" Godel says "We can never tell if it's funny, because we are inside the joke." Chomsky shakes his head in irritation: "Of course it's funny! You're just not telling it right!"

traditionalguy म्हणाले...

NB: slapstick is. Mostly slip and fall by an otherwise serious character. Think Chevy Chase.