Ron Blurb #13 - Ron's Summer Reading, or; How I managed to do
something I actually set my mind to do instead of wasting all of
my time sitting on my fat ass watching baseball games and
drinking way too much beer.
Ah, summer. Seems like just yesterday I was enjoying long, hot days in my backyard, listening to the kids splash
about in the pool and occasionally yelling "Leave each other the fuck alone before I drain the goddamn pool with
you in it!" Wait, that was just yesterday. Very good. Let's continue.
This summer was to be different. Different how? Different in that I was actually going to do something other than
drink, work, drink, and go to the gym. In fact, I planned on going to the gym only rarely. My focus was to improve
mind, body, and spirit. Gay, you say? Maybe; I've been accused of worse. Nonetheless, I wanted to expand my
horizons beyond the mundane and see what the literary world had to offer. I also wanted to get the "hipster"
references I didn't understand.
My first selection in the "Improving Ron Reading Program" (hereinafter referred to as IRRP) was Amerika by Franz
Kafka. Kafka was a funny guy. Not "funny, ha, ha," but " funny" as in, "What the fuck did you just say?" By all
accounts, he was a brilliant writer with a gift for humor and the macabre. He also hated just about everything he
wrote. He hated Amerika and wished it was never published. Why? I have no idea. The novel is about a young
man sent by his parents to go live in America to escape the shame of having fathered a child by the cleaning lady.
Our protagonist's name is Karl Rossman. The retelling of how he came about being the father of the cleaning
lady's baby is funny (ha, ha; not the other one). Turns out she was a little crazy and starved for attention, so she
would often expose herself to Karl. Finally, she corners him and, for lack of a better term, rapes him. By the way,
the cleaning lady is about 20 years older than Karl (who is 16 at the beginning of the story). Nonetheless, Karl and
his trunk are shipped off to the U.S. (literally shipped, the first chapter was written in 1900 or so) for a better life.
Once in the U.S. and about to disembark the ship, Karl forgets something and goes to retrieve it. He gets
hopelessly lost within the ship and finds a "Stoker" who's about to be fired. (For those of you who don't know, and I
certainly didn't, a stoker was the guy who fed coal to the fires in the ship's boiler room. . .just knowing that helped
me and my friend Kurt - Tonya calls him "Chuck" - get a bonus question right in the weekly trivia contest at Mikey's
bar in Placentia, California. . . for winning the contest, I had first pick from a dazzling array of T-shirts. I chose the
shirt that said, "No Beer; No Fucking Work". . .really. I'm giving it away as a Christmas gift this year.) Anyway, the
Stoker leads Karl to the Captain who, as it turns out, was talking with Karl's uncle Jacob, a wealthy senator from
New York, who was there to find Karl. Bizarre? It gets better.
Uncle Jacob takes Karl to live with him in his New York mansion. There, Karl is taught English, taught to ride
horses, and given free rein to roam about the house, but not allowed to go outside. He is persuaded by one of his
uncle's friends to come and spend the night. His uncle is hesitant, but finally allows Karl to go. There, he
encounters more bizarre twists and turns, gets lost within the house, is almost seduced by the man's daughter, and
finally given a note from another friend of his uncle. The note, from his uncle, tells him that he is no longer
welcome to stay with him and must find his own way. The friend suggests hopping the first train to San Francisco
to find his fortune out west. Instead, Karl finds shelter in a roadhouse where he befriends two neer-to-do-wells;
one a Frenchman, the other an Irishman. Kafka, being the accepting, open-minded German that he was has no
love for the Irishman (named Robinson, a very un-Irish name). He makes him out to be a drunk, a cheat, a
malingerer. He needs only to have Robinson suck down a quart of Guinness and eat a bag of potatoes to
complete the stereotype perfecta. The Frenchman, named Delamarche, is shiftless and conniving. He finds a way
to get Karl fired from his successful job as a "lift boy" in the Hotel Occidental only to become the servant boy for
some washed up fat load of a singer named Brunelda.
Because Kafka wasn't the most motivated of authors, he left gaping holes in his plot and the next thing we know,
Karl has found a way out and is answering an ad to join the Nature Theater of Oklahoma. What this Nature
Theater does in Oklahoma is anyone's guess because Kafka stopped writing the novel abruptly. Karl is left on a
train traveling to Oklahoma, his future forever frozen in time.
Amerika is a fine novel, if not a little frustrating to read. You have to remember Kafka never visited the United
States. Rather, he read a lot of travel books and felt he had a good grasp of the landscape and the people. He
didn't. I liked the novel mainly because I could fantasize about a time in our nation's history when a quart of beer
cost a nickel and expectations were exceptionally low. Sigh.
Next on the list was a collection of short stories by Franz Kafka. Don't ask me why, but I was fascinated by this
bizarre little German. I read "In the Penal Colony" which was about a traveler who is allowed to witness an
execution of an idiot in a penal colony in the South Pacific (I think). Unlike most executions, this one is
accomplished by a machine that uses needles to embroider the accused man's crime into his flesh until he finally
succumbs. Usually in about eight hours. Through a series of challenges and some very stilted conversation, the
operator of the machine finally puts himself into the machine and allows it to kill him. . .quickly. The machine was
in need of some repairs; unfortunately, the manufacturer stopped making replacement parts. Bummer.
There were other short stories, but none as remarkable as "The Metamorphosis." The story is about Gregor
Samsa who wakes up one day to find out he's become a bug. Once his family finds this out, they go through
several stages of grief; denial, repulsion, confusion, acceptance, and finally "get the fuck out you freeloading
insect." All the while, we get to read Gregor's mind and sympathize with his inability to communicate with his inept
family. His mother and father are sickened by him; his sister seems sympathetic. After about a year, the family
gets tired of taking care of him and tries to get him out. When that doesn't work, they ignore him and stop feeding
him until he dies of starvation and infection (his dad threw an apple at him that lodged in his abdomen. . .thanks,
Dad!). Upon discovering his carcass, the family cleans up the room and goes for a walk, as any of us would do
once we killed a loved one.
Kafka's stories all share the same quality: you're never sure just what the hell he's getting at. He's a stickler for
detail to the point of distraction. He loves metaphors. He's an acquired taste.
From here, I went straight into Hell. I started reading, perhaps, the most difficult book I ever read: The Family by
Ed Sanders. But that will have to wait for the next installment of "Ron's Summer Reading," or the IRRP. Hopefully
that part of the IRRP will be more interesting to read.