| Author Quoted | Franz Kafka |
| Title Quoted | Castle |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1967/06/12 |
| Imprint | |
| Quotation | Finished The Castle except for the fragments at the end. This is I think the third time I have read it. Surprising how much I had forgotten. It is as though the first time, because this time I have been really open to it. The extraordinary scene in the upper floor of the Inn, the corridor of the officials, where they wake up in the morning, the files are distributed etc. Fascinating: a very great piece of writing. Kafka is one of the few writers still capable of making me want to write a story because he is one of the few whose approach I find credible for myself - a dream-like, free association dealing with subliminal events, letting them organize themselves, and not bothering to find an "end." True, it is sometimes a bit boring. (Need to study the fragments he deleted, and see why perhaps.) After reading Kafka all life becomes much more curious because one sees it in that strange perspective, hears people talking and sees them acting as automata, and it is very revealing. Because to a great extent that is what they - we - are. |
| Quotation Source | Learning to love: exploring solitude and freedom. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 6, 1966-1967.; Edited by Christine M. Bochen. / [San Francisco] : HarperCollins. 1997, p. 249-50 |
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| Link to Merton's Copy |
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