SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
In the
third season of the American drama series Breaking Bad, Kafkaesque is
the ninth episode in the 29-episode season. Perhaps, this was my first interaction
with the world of Franz Kafka: nightmarish. The Czech-born writer often penned about the alienation of modern man in bizarre existence. Deft prose in German detailed in The Metamorphosis portrays the uneasy transformation of Samsa into a gigantic insect. Moving ahead, The Trial crushed Josef K in
bureaucratic nonsensicality. This claustrophobic dead end suggestive of Kafka’s
writings converged into a situation called Kafkaesque. As with Austenian
(Jane Austen) and Homeric (Homer), Kafkaesque became an adjective of the modern
world mired in conflicts. Owing to its overuse, its abuse only points to the
flammable situations that can’t be easily controlled, and if put out, the smoke
remains.
It's been a hundred years since Kafka’s death. One might wonder how Kafka gained such a strong
foothold over pop culture around the world, especially in America. In Annie
Hall (1977), Woody Allen’s ludicrous take on Kafkaesque experience watered down
the gravity of its use in depicting the highs and lows of life. But the comic
take wasn’t a blow on the author and the adjective. In defining Kafkaesque, Kafka’s
biographer Frederick Karl pointed out, “…. you fall to pieces. You don’t just
give up, you don’t lie down and die…..But of course you don’t stand a chance.”
Perhaps, it’s this intrinsic helplessness of a seemingly comic affair that brings
out the stifling reality of human existence. Perhaps, Café Kafka in The
Simpsons broods on the same. Fascination with mockery and incomprehensibility finds its way into Dan Erickson’s dystopian thriller Severance.
Austrian director Michael Haneke not only adapted The Castle but the
Palme d’Or winning film The White Ribbon is also styled after Kafka. One
can also watch David Cronenberg’s The Fly. Released in 1980, the Canadian
director was requested to write an introduction to grace the new translation of
The Metamorphosis. FBI Chief Gordon Cole in David Lynch’s Twin Peak
has portraits of Kafka in his office.
Less than Orwellian but more frequently than Beckett, the popularization of Kafkaesque sees no signs of abating. Kafka’s diaries are just out in the UK; a serialization of his life is in the pipeline in Germany and the Polish director Agnieszka Holland has a biopic in the making. Though, Charles Dickins’ Office of Circumlocution in Little Dorrit popularized the dead bureaucratic machinery way before Kafka- will you use Dickensian in a similar vein as Kafkaesque? Why is Kafkaesque different? Maybe, the difference lies in the fact that it intersects the world of both Orwell and Beckett.