Island of Rain, April 8, 2017

Many people often have this feeling: knowing that it should be very easy to do something, and others will not find it a problem ; However, when I was about to do it, an idea suddenly popped up in my mind, and I was vaguely worried that this simple thing might not go well. As a result, problems really occurred in the actual process, and it became more and more complicated and complicated. It doesn't go well until you exhaust all your energy and even lose everything to achieve the goal that is close at hand.

This is the meaning of the saying "I have passed through all the big rivers and seas, but the boat capsized in the small river ditch". In life, there are so many "inevitables" that are almost at your fingertips; but due to various accidents, all kinds of unexpected misfortunes occur, and as a result, we encounter "not inevitable" results and lead to complete failure. But when I look back and re-examine those accidents, I realize that these accidents are all destined and cannot be escaped.

This is my profound experience from reading Kafka's masterpiece "The Castle". On the surface, this work reflects the corruption and depravity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but this is just Kafka using real problems to profoundly reflect philosophical views: Life is actually a wall that can never be climbed; Although their efforts seem so laudable, in essence, they are often very ridiculous.

There was once an avant-garde theater master who choreographed and directed such a drama: He called the audience to a large warehouse, and then saw some people walking out of the audience and trying to climb over a not-too-high building in front of them. wall. However, there is no way to get over the wall without any tools. As a result, these circumventors kept falling. Try hard, fail, try again, fail again, never ending. Just as the audience was anxiously waiting for the play to begin, the dramatist came out and pointed at the people who climbed over the wall and said, "This is the drama that is going to be staged. You are watching."

If you think about it carefully, life is actually like this. Something happened. The end of everyone's life is full of regrets.

Kafka is a genius in the history of human literature and art; his achievements are unsurpassed by anyone. He only lived 41 years old and was just a clerk in an insurance company. He was almost unknown throughout his life. However, he loved literary creation so much that he was single for a long time. It was not until he was dying that he married the woman he loved. Two years later, He died in 2003 and devoted his life to his spare time literary creation. Moreover, his works were rarely published; the few published ones did not cause much sensation at the time. The literary awards that can reflect his life achievements are only a small Hindenburg Literature Prize, which few people can achieve. Know Him while He is alive. When he was dying, he told his only friend Borod to burn all his manuscripts. Fortunately, Borod did not do this, but carefully organized them and published them one after another. In this way, we can read many amazing works of this genius today.

Moreover, most of these stunning masterpieces are unfinished works. For example, the most famous "The Castle", "The Trial", and "The Cave" are all like this. These works that shine with the brilliance of genius are so unique and profound that they deeply influenced the subsequent world literary world. Writers who were directly influenced by his style and achieved great success include American playwright O'Neill (famous works include "The Emperor of Jones", Chinese playwright Cao Yu's "The Wilderness" is an adaptation of this play), Canetti ( The famous work "Confusion"), Marquez (the famous work "One Hundred Years of Solitude"), Mo Yan (the representative work "Red Sorghum" series), etc.; all won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The philosophical meaning displayed in Kafka's works was named "Expressionism". I believe friends who like art are familiar with this. Compared with the formal revolution of Impressionism, Expressionism focused more on conveying spiritual feelings, which greatly promoted the leap of art and triggered many subsequent schools to compete, bringing art into a new historical stage.

"The Castle" tells a fantastic story. Land surveyor K was hired by a castle in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He came to work eagerly, feeling very relaxed and happy. However, when he arrived at the edge of the castle, it was too late, and the relevant staff told him that he could not go in today and would wait until tomorrow. K looked at the castle right in front of him, feeling a little uneasy in his heart. However, he did not believe that he could not enter the castle.

After all, he was hired, officially invited, reasonable and legal. In such a situation, what other twists and turns could there be?

As a result, he just failed to enter the castle that was right in front of him. Judging from the content described in the novel, the owner of the castle did not persecute him, and even sent an assistant to serve him. It should be said that everything went smoothly. However, he just couldn't find the person in charge and the relevant regulations and rules that could definitely guarantee that he would be allowed to enter the castle; moreover, everyone was working responsibly around this castle, and everyone gave their consent for him not being able to enter the castle. He expressed great sympathy and even reached out to try to help him achieve his goal, but in the end, the problem was not solved.

He himself also tried his best, it can be said that he used all means, even unscrupulous means. For this reason, he even sold his body and soul to deliberately seduce the lover of a minor official to open up a relationship. In fact, he did meet the minor official, and it seemed that the other party was indeed trying to help him.

However, things are becoming more and more complicated and difficult, and entering the castle is even more elusive.

The novel is not finished. According to Borad's recollection, the ending that Kafka had conceived during his lifetime was: when the exhausted and seriously ill K was dying, he finally received a definite notice that he could enter the castle, entered, but also died. .

The absurdity displayed in the novel is not only the largest plot line, but also many details. For example, when walking in the dark in the heavy snow, I always get lost, even the messenger who delivers the letter loses his way; the clericalism of the castle bureaucracy is so serious that the official documents of a small village chief's house are filled with a whole big room, looking for them. For a document, one has to climb up and down and search hard for a long time.

Although the term expressionism first appeared in the art world, it was Kafka who pushed it to the highest point after all, and it indeed profoundly affected human artistic thinking. Simply put, the characteristic of expressionism is to use subconsciousness, intuition and even dreams to express the world, and to use an inner perspective to objectively and coldly describe the real world. Therefore, the real world shown is very absurd and false. . In this way, expressionism focuses more on the objective depiction of spiritual images. For example, the well-known Norwegian painter Munch (representative of "The Scream") is such a representative figure.

Island of Rain, April 8, 2017