im moving to iceland, and theres not a thing you can do - Page 2

Samsa · 12-06-2002, 11:42 PM

i wanna post this here cuz it looks cool :X

Franz Kafka, b. Prague, Bohemia (then belonging to Austria), July 3, 1883, d. June 3, 1924, has come to be one of the most influential writers of this century. Virtually unknown during his lifetime, the works of Kafka have since been recognized as symbolizing modern man's anxiety-ridden and grotesque alienation in an unintelligible, hostile, or indifferent world. Kafka came from a middle-class Jewish family and grew up in the shadow of his domineering shopkeeper father, who impressed Kafka as an awesome patriarch. The feeling of impotence, even in his rebellion, was a syndrome that became a pervasive theme in his fiction. Kafka did well in the prestigious German high school in Prague and went on to receive a law degree in 1906. This allowed him to secure a livelihood that gave him time for writing, which he regarded as the essence--both blessing and curse--of his life. He soon found a position in the semipublic Workers' Accident Insurance institution, where he remained a loyal and successful employee until--beginning in 1917-- tuberculosis forced him to take repeated sick leaves and finally, in 1922, to retire. Kafka spent half his time after 1917 in sanatoriums and health resorts, his tuberculosis of the lungs finally spreading to the larynx.

Kafka lived his life in emotional dependence on his parents, whom he both loved and resented. None of his largely unhappy love affairs could wean him from this inner dependence; though he longed to marry, he never did. Sexually, he apparently oscillated between an ascetic aversion to intercourse, which he called "the punishment for being together," and an attraction to prostitutes. Sex in Kafka's writings is frequently connected with dirt or guilt and treated as an attractive abomination. Nevertheless, Kafka led a fairly active social life, including acquaintance with many prominent literary and intellectual figures of his era, such as the writers Franz Werfel and Max Brod. He loved to hike, swim, and row, and during vacations he took carefully planned trips. He wrote primarily at night, the days being preempted by his job.

None of Kafka's novels was printed during his lifetime, and it was only with reluctance that he published a fraction of his shorter fiction. This fiction *******d Meditation (1913; Eng. trans., 1949), a collection of short prose pieces; The Judgment (1913; Eng. trans., 1945), a long short story, written in 1912, which Kafka himself considered his decisive breakthrough (it tells of a rebellious son condemned to suicide by his father); and The Metamorphosis (1915; Eng. trans., 1961), dealing again with the outsider, a son who suffers the literal and symbolic transformation into a huge, repulsive, fatally wounded insect. In the Penal Colony (1919; Eng. trans., 1961) is a parable of a torture machine and its operators and victims--equally applicable to a person's inner sense of law, guilt, and retribution and to the age of World War I. The Country Doctor (1919; Eng. trans., 1946) was another collection of short prose. At the time of his death Kafka was also preparing A Hunger Artist (1924; Eng. trans., 1938), four stories centering on the artist's inability either to negate or come to terms with life in the human community.

Contrary to Kafka's halfhearted instruction that his unprinted manuscripts be destroyed after his death, his friend Max Brod set about publishing them and thus became the architect of his belated fame. The best known of the posthumous works are three fragmentary novels. The Trial (1925; Eng. trans., 1937) deals with a man persecuted and put to death by the inscrutable agencies of an unfathomable court of law. The Castle (1926; Eng. trans., 1930) describes the relentless but futile efforts of the protagonist to gain recognition from the mysterious authorities ruling (from their castle) the village where he wants to establish himself. Amerika (1927; Eng. trans., 1938), written early in Kafka's career, portrays the inconclusive struggle of a young immigrant to gain a foothold in an alien, incomprehensible country. In all of these works, as indeed in most of Kafka's mature prose, the lucid, concise style forms a striking contrast to the labyrinthine complexities, the anxiety-laden absurdities, and the powerfully oppressive symbols of torment and anomie that are the substance of the writer's vision. Kafka's fiction, somewhat like ink-blot tests, elicits and defeats attempts at conclusive explanation. Practically every school of modern criticism has produced a corpus of interpretations. Kafka's own aphorisms, however, may come the closest to offering a key.

Bibliography: Brod, Max, Franz Kafka, 2d ed. (1960); Citati, Pietro, Kafka (1990); Flores, Angel, ed., The Kafka Debate (1977); Glatzer, N. N., The Loves of Franz Kafka (1985); Gray, Ronald, ed., Kafka: A Collection of Critical Essays (1962); Hayman, Ronald, Kafka (1982); Heller, Erich, Franz Kafka (1975); Karl, Frederick R., Franz Kafka: Representative Man (1992); Lawson, R. H., Franz Kafka (1987); Pawel, E., The Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka (1984); Politzer, Heiny, Franz Kafka: Parable and Paradox (1962); Sokel, Walter H., Franz Kafka (1966); Udoff, Alan, ed., Kafka and the Contemporary Critical Performance (1987).

Text Copyright © 1993 Grolier Incorporated

Samsa · 12-06-2002, 11:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jenny4ever
i had a friend in middle school who im pretty sure was czechoslovakian. her last name was slovak. and she had hair growing out of her neck.

um. ew.

anyways, literacy rates:

Turkey
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 85%
male: 94%
female: 77% (2000)

United States
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
male: 97%
female: 97% (1979 est.)
total population: 97%

Iceland
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 99.9% (1997 est.)
male: NA%
female: NA%

Germany
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 99% (1977 est.)
male: NA%
female: NA%

OH i just remembered. i think it was china that struck me as havin ga huge literacy rate lemme see

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 81.5%
male: 89.9%
female: 72.7% (1995 est.)

hmm

i guess not. what is my problem

you know it's possible that they just got a very high literacy very early on or something. oh. was it russia? i doubt that so muhch i'm not even gonna check

Samsa · 12-06-2002, 11:46 PM

WHOA

maybe it was russia of which i was thinking. i am so scatter-brained tonight :erm

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 98%
male: 100%
female: 97% (1989 est.)

jenny4ever · 12-06-2002, 11:47 PM

ive never read any kafka

im sure i will at some point but right now i need to do my africa reading. have you read anything by Steve Biko or Donald Woods by any chance? probably not. . . but yeah. im supposed to be writing a paper about them right now. Im taking a class on africa. . .well southern hemisphere actually but the whole first semester is about africa and its really interesting but we have to write SOOOOOOOOOOO many papers. like almost one every week and it wears me out

we had to write a paper about rape too. that was weird. and sad.

Smiley33 · 12-06-2002, 11:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jenny4ever
someone told me once that if you're born inbetween like that, it means youre more unstable.

i must be really unstable

I was born in Belgium on the 21st, but it was still the 20th in the U.S. And that's when the whole Aries/Pisces thing happens

jenny4ever · 12-06-2002, 11:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Smiley33

i must be really unstable I was born in Belgium on the 21st, but it was still the 20th in the U.S. And that's when the whole Aries/Pisces thing happens

we is crazies.

Samsa · 12-06-2002, 11:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jenny4ever
ive never read any kafka
im sure i will at some point but right now i need to do my africa reading. have you read anything by Steve Biko or Donald Woods by any chance? probably not. . . but yeah. im supposed to be writing a paper about them right now. Im taking a class on africa. . .well southern hemisphere actually but the whole first semester is about africa and its really interesting but we have to write SOOOOOOOOOOO many papers. like almost one every week and it wears me out we had to write a paper about rape too. that was weird. and sad.

oh this girl who used to live in my hall like loved africa i think she wanted to major in african studies or something? or african poetry? i forget but she loved africa but she's gone now she dropped out

Smiley33 · 12-06-2002, 11:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jenny4ever

we is crazies.

*moves to iceland with you* woohoo!

jenny4ever · 12-06-2002, 11:52 PM

that is crazy about russia's literacy rate.

i would have NEVER guessed.

jenny4ever · 12-06-2002, 11:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Smiley33

*moves to iceland with you* woohoo!

we can ruin their reputation of being little peaceful fishermen!

Smiley33 · 12-06-2002, 11:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jenny4ever

we can ruin their reputation of being little peaceful fishermen!

*strokes invisibile beard* hmmm, that might just work

jenny4ever · 12-06-2002, 11:58 PM

actually, come to think of it, ive heard something like that before cause my spanish teacher is also fluent in russian and she was telling us about how much people in russia read and stuff. but still. you wouldnt assume that with all the problems theyve had.

Crippler · 12-07-2002, 12:01 AM

NP: Space Ghost C2C - Knifin' Around (with Thom Yorke and Bjork)

Shall I sing for you in Icelandic?

Samsa · 12-07-2002, 12:04 AM

russians are wonderful. i love them so much. i don't even know why. how can you not read if you're russian. seriously. how could you pass up that opportunity. i'd kill to be fluent in russian.

Smiley33 · 12-07-2002, 12:05 AM

man, I tried taking russian last year. I came in 2 weeks late and I had no fucking idea how to pronounce shit or read anything. And man. the alphabet isn't even the same and they were already reading things and doing the "watch the movie and fill in the blank" stuff.

I was like *twiddles thumbs* UH BABY = BABUSHKA LOL COOL OK BYE NOW

jenny4ever · 12-07-2002, 12:06 AM

i like all europeans. even the french. but i hate parisians. they eat frog legs. yuck.

Samsa · 12-07-2002, 12:07 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Smiley33
man, I tried taking russian last year. I came in 2 weeks late and I had no fucking idea how to pronounce shit or read anything. And man. the alphabet isn't even the same and they were already reading things and doing the "watch the movie and fill in the blank" stuff.

I was like *twiddles thumbs* UH BABY = BABUSHKA LOL COOL OK BYE NOW

yeah i wanna take russia one day. it's so fucking trendy right now i don't even know why. everyone i know is all 'OOH I WANT TO MAJOR IN RUSSIAN STUDIES. I AM TAKING RUSSIAN. I WANT TO TAKE A RUSSIAN POLITICS CLASS' and it's like russia is the 9th circle of hell right now why is it so trendy?

jenny4ever · 12-07-2002, 12:09 AM

me + languages outside of english = distaster

my spanish teacher has read "War and Peace" in english, spanish, and russian. shes is real smart, but she makes me feel awful about myself. she has this way of looking at you and you feel like youve done something wrong. what a meaniebutt.

Smiley33 · 12-07-2002, 12:17 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jenny4ever
i like all europeans. even the french. but i hate parisians. they eat frog legs. yuck.

they're greasy, but delicious!

no the worst part about the whole thing is what's left over after you've eaten them. the legs. you can make them hop just like a froggie's

i wanted to puke up my frog legs after i made the bones hop

jenny4ever · 12-07-2002, 12:17 AM

im watching American Experience on PBS.

its on "War Letters". . . there was one and it was this letter from this guy in Vietnam to his mom. the end said "Ma, I'm sick of this shit." and he was all talking about how all his buddies were dead and stuff. its awful. this is so sad. i want to cry

jenny4ever · 12-07-2002, 12:20 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Smiley33

they're greasy, but delicious!

no the worst part about the whole thing is what's left over after you've eaten them. the legs. you can make them hop just like a froggie's i wanted to puke up my frog legs after i made the bones hop

im sorry. but that made me laugh.

but eating frog leggies is mean. i like frogs. of course, i like pigs too but

i dont want to eat bacon but it just calls me. its soooo good. oh gosh i feel so guilty. ive eaten so much bacon lately and whats awful is that there are cows all over our kitchen. my mom loves cows. so when im like cooking hamburgers or steak or somethin i look anywhere around me and theres a cute cow staring back

its awful. my mom should put them away.

bonsor · 12-07-2002, 01:27 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jenny4ever

usually pisces, but i dunno. whenever im reading my horoscope or whatever, i read both. i hate it though. someone told me once that if you're born inbetween like that, it means youre more unstable. i guess that could be true, but she was kind of a crazy girl . . . so i dunno. but yeah. normally i say pisces. you?

I say Pisces on the Aquarian cusp.

Smiley33 · 12-07-2002, 01:31 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ******
I say Pisces on the Aquarian cusp.

ITZ BECAUSE B0LLY IS PISCES

bonsor · 12-07-2002, 01:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Smiley33

ITZ BECAUSE B0LLY IS PISCES

Well, billy is a pisces on the....other...cusp...whatever it is.

yellowsubmarine · 12-07-2002, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jenny4ever

on a related note, iceland in the only country in the world that has no recorded human rights violations.
[/b]

also, iceland has no army

yellowsubmarine · 12-07-2002, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Samsa
CZECHOSLOVAKIA

D'OH

newsflash: czech repuplic and slovakia are two seperate countries now.

Lie · 12-07-2002, 12:50 PM

I'm Taurus/Gemini. I don't know if it's that that makes me crazy, or if it's everything else in my life that runs on that same half and half system.

bonsor · 12-07-2002, 01:01 PM

hey bitch, are you going to write anything for my site?

Lie · 12-07-2002, 01:08 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ******
hey bitch, are you going to write anything for my site?

Sorry, I had completely forgotten about it until recently. I'll see what I can do. Um...could you maybe change my name to my real name? I picked the one I did in a moment of bad taste. I'll write something, I promise.

Lie · 12-07-2002, 01:34 PM

PLEEEEZ? I want to write for your site, I really do. I'll tell your readers about the experience I'm about to have trying red tea for the first time.

12-06-2002, 11:42 PM	#31
Samsa Banned Location: A theater near you Posts: 7,929	i wanna post this here cuz it looks cool :X Franz Kafka, b. Prague, Bohemia (then belonging to Austria), July 3, 1883, d. June 3, 1924, has come to be one of the most influential writers of this century. Virtually unknown during his lifetime, the works of Kafka have since been recognized as symbolizing modern man's anxiety-ridden and grotesque alienation in an unintelligible, hostile, or indifferent world. Kafka came from a middle-class Jewish family and grew up in the shadow of his domineering shopkeeper father, who impressed Kafka as an awesome patriarch. The feeling of impotence, even in his rebellion, was a syndrome that became a pervasive theme in his fiction. Kafka did well in the prestigious German high school in Prague and went on to receive a law degree in 1906. This allowed him to secure a livelihood that gave him time for writing, which he regarded as the essence--both blessing and curse--of his life. He soon found a position in the semipublic Workers' Accident Insurance institution, where he remained a loyal and successful employee until--beginning in 1917-- tuberculosis forced him to take repeated sick leaves and finally, in 1922, to retire. Kafka spent half his time after 1917 in sanatoriums and health resorts, his tuberculosis of the lungs finally spreading to the larynx. Kafka lived his life in emotional dependence on his parents, whom he both loved and resented. None of his largely unhappy love affairs could wean him from this inner dependence; though he longed to marry, he never did. Sexually, he apparently oscillated between an ascetic aversion to intercourse, which he called "the punishment for being together," and an attraction to prostitutes. Sex in Kafka's writings is frequently connected with dirt or guilt and treated as an attractive abomination. Nevertheless, Kafka led a fairly active social life, including acquaintance with many prominent literary and intellectual figures of his era, such as the writers Franz Werfel and Max Brod. He loved to hike, swim, and row, and during vacations he took carefully planned trips. He wrote primarily at night, the days being preempted by his job. None of Kafka's novels was printed during his lifetime, and it was only with reluctance that he published a fraction of his shorter fiction. This fiction *******d Meditation (1913; Eng. trans., 1949), a collection of short prose pieces; The Judgment (1913; Eng. trans., 1945), a long short story, written in 1912, which Kafka himself considered his decisive breakthrough (it tells of a rebellious son condemned to suicide by his father); and The Metamorphosis (1915; Eng. trans., 1961), dealing again with the outsider, a son who suffers the literal and symbolic transformation into a huge, repulsive, fatally wounded insect. In the Penal Colony (1919; Eng. trans., 1961) is a parable of a torture machine and its operators and victims--equally applicable to a person's inner sense of law, guilt, and retribution and to the age of World War I. The Country Doctor (1919; Eng. trans., 1946) was another collection of short prose. At the time of his death Kafka was also preparing A Hunger Artist (1924; Eng. trans., 1938), four stories centering on the artist's inability either to negate or come to terms with life in the human community. Contrary to Kafka's halfhearted instruction that his unprinted manuscripts be destroyed after his death, his friend Max Brod set about publishing them and thus became the architect of his belated fame. The best known of the posthumous works are three fragmentary novels. The Trial (1925; Eng. trans., 1937) deals with a man persecuted and put to death by the inscrutable agencies of an unfathomable court of law. The Castle (1926; Eng. trans., 1930) describes the relentless but futile efforts of the protagonist to gain recognition from the mysterious authorities ruling (from their castle) the village where he wants to establish himself. Amerika (1927; Eng. trans., 1938), written early in Kafka's career, portrays the inconclusive struggle of a young immigrant to gain a foothold in an alien, incomprehensible country. In all of these works, as indeed in most of Kafka's mature prose, the lucid, concise style forms a striking contrast to the labyrinthine complexities, the anxiety-laden absurdities, and the powerfully oppressive symbols of torment and anomie that are the substance of the writer's vision. Kafka's fiction, somewhat like ink-blot tests, elicits and defeats attempts at conclusive explanation. Practically every school of modern criticism has produced a corpus of interpretations. Kafka's own aphorisms, however, may come the closest to offering a key. Bibliography: Brod, Max, Franz Kafka, 2d ed. (1960); Citati, Pietro, Kafka (1990); Flores, Angel, ed., The Kafka Debate (1977); Glatzer, N. N., The Loves of Franz Kafka (1985); Gray, Ronald, ed., Kafka: A Collection of Critical Essays (1962); Hayman, Ronald, Kafka (1982); Heller, Erich, Franz Kafka (1975); Karl, Frederick R., Franz Kafka: Representative Man (1992); Lawson, R. H., Franz Kafka (1987); Pawel, E., The Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka (1984); Politzer, Heiny, Franz Kafka: Parable and Paradox (1962); Sokel, Walter H., Franz Kafka (1966); Udoff, Alan, ed., Kafka and the Contemporary Critical Performance (1987). Text Copyright © 1993 Grolier Incorporated

12-06-2002, 11:46 PM	#33
Samsa Banned Location: A theater near you Posts: 7,929	WHOA maybe it was russia of which i was thinking. i am so scatter-brained tonight :erm Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 98% male: 100% female: 97% (1989 est.)

12-06-2002, 11:47 PM	#34
jenny4ever Apocalyptic Poster Location: Boone, NC Posts: 1,026	ive never read any kafka im sure i will at some point but right now i need to do my africa reading. have you read anything by Steve Biko or Donald Woods by any chance? probably not. . . but yeah. im supposed to be writing a paper about them right now. Im taking a class on africa. . .well southern hemisphere actually but the whole first semester is about africa and its really interesting but we have to write SOOOOOOOOOOO many papers. like almost one every week and it wears me out we had to write a paper about rape too. that was weird. and sad.

12-06-2002, 11:52 PM	#39
jenny4ever Apocalyptic Poster Location: Boone, NC Posts: 1,026	that is crazy about russia's literacy rate. i would have NEVER guessed.

12-06-2002, 11:58 PM	#42
jenny4ever Apocalyptic Poster Location: Boone, NC Posts: 1,026	actually, come to think of it, ive heard something like that before cause my spanish teacher is also fluent in russian and she was telling us about how much people in russia read and stuff. but still. you wouldnt assume that with all the problems theyve had.

12-07-2002, 12:01 AM	#43
Crippler Apocalyptic Poster Location: Up in this bitch Posts: 4,446	NP: Space Ghost C2C - Knifin' Around (with Thom Yorke and Bjork) Shall I sing for you in Icelandic?

12-07-2002, 12:04 AM	#44
Samsa Banned Location: A theater near you Posts: 7,929	russians are wonderful. i love them so much. i don't even know why. how can you not read if you're russian. seriously. how could you pass up that opportunity. i'd kill to be fluent in russian.

12-07-2002, 12:05 AM	#45
Smiley33 Minion of Satan Posts: 6,542	man, I tried taking russian last year. I came in 2 weeks late and I had no fucking idea how to pronounce shit or read anything. And man. the alphabet isn't even the same and they were already reading things and doing the "watch the movie and fill in the blank" stuff. I was like twiddles thumbs UH BABY = BABUSHKA LOL COOL OK BYE NOW

12-07-2002, 12:06 AM	#46
jenny4ever Apocalyptic Poster Location: Boone, NC Posts: 1,026	i like all europeans. even the french. but i hate parisians. they eat frog legs. yuck.

12-07-2002, 12:09 AM	#48
jenny4ever Apocalyptic Poster Location: Boone, NC Posts: 1,026	me + languages outside of english = distaster my spanish teacher has read "War and Peace" in english, spanish, and russian. shes is real smart, but she makes me feel awful about myself. she has this way of looking at you and you feel like youve done something wrong. what a meaniebutt.

12-07-2002, 12:17 AM	#50
jenny4ever Apocalyptic Poster Location: Boone, NC Posts: 1,026	im watching American Experience on PBS. its on "War Letters". . . there was one and it was this letter from this guy in Vietnam to his mom. the end said "Ma, I'm sick of this shit." and he was all talking about how all his buddies were dead and stuff. its awful. this is so sad. i want to cry

12-07-2002, 12:50 PM	#57
Lie Socialphobic Location: Goin' out West where they'll appreciate me Posts: 10,001	I'm Taurus/Gemini. I don't know if it's that that makes me crazy, or if it's everything else in my life that runs on that same half and half system.

12-07-2002, 01:01 PM	#58
bonsor Minion of Satan Location: midwest Posts: 8,771	hey bitch, are you going to write anything for my site?

12-07-2002, 01:34 PM	#60
Lie Socialphobic Location: Goin' out West where they'll appreciate me Posts: 10,001	PLEEEEZ? I want to write for your site, I really do. I'll tell your readers about the experience I'm about to have trying red tea for the first time.