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Why I Don't Write Like Franz Kafka
In a 1978 New York Times book review, Kenneth Baker described Why I Don't Write Like Franz Kafka "...the most powerful New American fiction I have encountered in years. A demanding, exhilarating work." Nearly 25 years later, FC2 is proud to reissue this classic collection of short fiction by William S. Wilson that seems even more relevant today. It touches on controversies over the role of science in our lives and deals with cosmetic surgery and the medical uses of human embryos, heart transplants, and regenerated genitalia. And that's only the beginning. The story " Why I Don't Write Like Franz Kafka," implies that Kafka responded in his fiction to questions that no longer need to be asked in fiction. The epistolary story, " The Story I Wouldn't Want Bill Wilson to Read," is an intimate letter from a woman who had wanted to write fiction and who now challenges Wilson's reaction to her report of a tragedy. "Interim" chronicles the imaginary reforestation of Scotland and "Anthropology" turns on the actual moment in Structuralism when Claude Levi-Strauss relocates the ear to the back of the head in order to interpret a myth. Written with cool precision and a subtle touch, these meditations and metafictions will continue to reverberate for decades to come.
144 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 19, 2012
Well, this was an oddity that showed up on my reading list so Inter-Library Loan, here I come and here it comes....
Aggressively experimental, post-modern lit writing in the short fiction form from the mid 70's, with some mild crossover with science fiction. Obviously, not going to be to everyone's tastes. If you inherently hate all post-modern stuff, probably you should just stay away (you'll miss some aggravating pieces, no doubt, but you'll also never read a few really wonderful pieces here - your loss) - if, for example, you need "characters" (as they are understood in a mainstream sense) to be sketched in the traditional forms, stay far away. I have no idea how these stories stack up against other post-modern writing, as I only dabble as a reader myself - for someone like me, this was a pretty nice little read.
Sure, some of the stuff is too cerebral or self-reflexively po-mo for my tastes, but that's only the extremes - I have no problem with po-mo in theory as it's just another way of approaching writing, that's all, no better or worse than others, with the same likelihood of failure and problems that accepted storytelling fiction has. Put another way - I live a life where I try to use the word pretentious as little as possible, because it defines my own limitations as much as it tries to define something I'm applying it to (plus, it's critically lazy).
The tone of the stories, even when dealing with highly emotional issues, is dry, clinical, very J.G. Ballard in a way. In line with that, there's also a focus on certain forms of the sciences - mathematics, evolution, biology, medical. "Stories" in a non-narrative sense: dialogues, stream of consciousness, essays, letters, lectures & conferences.
"Love" reminded me of an OULIPO exercise presented in a dialogue form (a standard form for Wilson, alternating lines of dialogue with nothing else - this approach shows up a few times) - the statement of love examined and deconstructed as if it were a logical equation. Not my kind of thing but if you know any mathematicians with romantic problems...they might get a giggle.
these next few stories were interesting, in that kid of dry way post modern writing can achieve quite well, but also a bit too distant and unengaging.
"Marriage" - at first, it seems like a deathbed scene, then becomes something more surgical in nature.
"Men: The Man Who Ends His Story" - suicide as a scientific process of slow, thorough and methodical disassembling of the body - or is it all just a metaphor?
"Women" - the emotional connections to be dealt with in heart transplants, or something like that (another metaphor).
"Metier: Why I Don't Write Like Franz Kafka" - presented as dialogue of an interview with a famous, somewhat pompous intellectual who interrogates his interviewer even while answering questions. In truth, I had trouble following the "argument" (involving James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Sigmund Freud and Michelangelo's statue of Moses) which eventually culminates in the titular statement of this collection.
"History: A Story Has Only A Few Good Years" - a very weird piece involving a man flash frozen in a glacial accident moments after masturbating, a woman who discovers his body and masturbates with the residue of his semen, and her child who grows bio-luminescent fungus on his body on purpose. Almost kinda made it for me... but not quite.
"Anthropology: What is Lost In Rotation" is more satisfying, even while being elliptical and strange, a jagged line traced between Paris and distant "savage lands", history and anthropology, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jorge Luis Borges, family and class. A tribal mystery, a mythological/symbolic mystery, a biological mystery, a murder mystery, a seduction and some class/race friction. Interesting.
"Interim" - told in a rolling, stream of consciousness, near confessional history, this is a powerful, surreal (in the true sense of the word) and mythic story, as a man sets about reforesting Scotland after the accidental death of his child (I found the writing on this part, an event that starts the story, very well done), intending to return it to its primeval condition.
"Conveyance: The Story I Would Not Want Bill Wilson To Read" - another very interesting yet also emotionally powerful story, part memoir, part writing exercise as the narrator's mentor/lover? was her writing teacher who criticized her work, and how she's applied those lessons. Another moment with the random, accidental death of children is here, and again, powerfully done. I like some of the observations on writing, approaches to fiction writing and exercises presented here (the title is related to an exercise discussed herein, to "write a story you wouldn't want X to read" - X being whoever, mother, father, lover - so as to access more honest parts of yourself.
"Motherhood" and "Fatherhood" are two science-fictionally framed tales, near future essays about a breakthrough in science (Rupert Sheldrake's theory of morphogenetic fields) that allow amazing, troubling advances in medicine and culture. "Motherhood", rather presciently, deals with ways of retarding aging that are remarkably similar to current stem-cell research, while "Fatherhood" posits a process wherein missing penises (due to deformed birth, war or accident) can be replaced by transplant from the father, who then uses the new technology to grow an exact replacement. While the stories are told in a clinical, optimistic way, the obvious psychological and emotional problems with these scenarios (in which parents are basically scientifically capable of impressing their own persona onto their children, or gain something at their children's expense) are alluded to obliquely, perhaps almost in a dry, comic manner (that was my reading). Two very solid stories.
"Motherhood" and "Fatherhood", with their Cronenbergian body morphing, set the stage for "America: Three Audiences", which is one of the two truly excellent and amazing reads to be found here. Told as a lecture (with Q&A), a seminar and, finally, as a transcript of a ROMPER ROOM-like TV show, this gives us a world where evolution has kicked into the world increasing manifestations of two new mutations on the theme of neoteny (look it up). The Neonate children grow quickly, are bright and observant, only live until about age 13 and are hyper-sexual almost from birth - like living, experimental evolutionary petri dishes, to be tended by their alternates, Neuters, who are intellectually focused but must spend their time tending their wayward siblings. It's like the philosophical underpinnings of David Cronenberg's SHIVERS crossed with his creations from THE BROOD!
As I said, the approach taken to the material really makes it work, as the neutrality obviously masks distress and conflict such a situation would cause in mainstream culture (this is especially well-played in the lecture portion, an amazing controlled dance of fascinating ideas, humorous and awkward questions and queasy, unstated implications - the Romper Room sequence also achieves this, ending on a portentous last line). That line, in fact, makes it clear that this story can also be read as a metaphor for American mainstream culture and the situation it faced with the counter culture (hence the title). Really well done.
For those who find post-modernism tiring, you may enjoy "Desire" - a beautiful and poetic narrative about reaching and surpassing the generally unperceived evolutionary drive towards replacing mere biological "eating" with the consumption of light, and how mankind achieves it, and how it changes us.
So, a lot of uninvolving, if clever, stuff and a few that really hit it out of the park.
Aggressively experimental, post-modern lit writing in the short fiction form from the mid 70's, with some mild crossover with science fiction. Obviously, not going to be to everyone's tastes. If you inherently hate all post-modern stuff, probably you should just stay away (you'll miss some aggravating pieces, no doubt, but you'll also never read a few really wonderful pieces here - your loss) - if, for example, you need "characters" (as they are understood in a mainstream sense) to be sketched in the traditional forms, stay far away. I have no idea how these stories stack up against other post-modern writing, as I only dabble as a reader myself - for someone like me, this was a pretty nice little read.
Sure, some of the stuff is too cerebral or self-reflexively po-mo for my tastes, but that's only the extremes - I have no problem with po-mo in theory as it's just another way of approaching writing, that's all, no better or worse than others, with the same likelihood of failure and problems that accepted storytelling fiction has. Put another way - I live a life where I try to use the word pretentious as little as possible, because it defines my own limitations as much as it tries to define something I'm applying it to (plus, it's critically lazy).
The tone of the stories, even when dealing with highly emotional issues, is dry, clinical, very J.G. Ballard in a way. In line with that, there's also a focus on certain forms of the sciences - mathematics, evolution, biology, medical. "Stories" in a non-narrative sense: dialogues, stream of consciousness, essays, letters, lectures & conferences.
"Love" reminded me of an OULIPO exercise presented in a dialogue form (a standard form for Wilson, alternating lines of dialogue with nothing else - this approach shows up a few times) - the statement of love examined and deconstructed as if it were a logical equation. Not my kind of thing but if you know any mathematicians with romantic problems...they might get a giggle.
these next few stories were interesting, in that kid of dry way post modern writing can achieve quite well, but also a bit too distant and unengaging.
"Marriage" - at first, it seems like a deathbed scene, then becomes something more surgical in nature.
"Men: The Man Who Ends His Story" - suicide as a scientific process of slow, thorough and methodical disassembling of the body - or is it all just a metaphor?
"Women" - the emotional connections to be dealt with in heart transplants, or something like that (another metaphor).
"Metier: Why I Don't Write Like Franz Kafka" - presented as dialogue of an interview with a famous, somewhat pompous intellectual who interrogates his interviewer even while answering questions. In truth, I had trouble following the "argument" (involving James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Sigmund Freud and Michelangelo's statue of Moses) which eventually culminates in the titular statement of this collection.
"History: A Story Has Only A Few Good Years" - a very weird piece involving a man flash frozen in a glacial accident moments after masturbating, a woman who discovers his body and masturbates with the residue of his semen, and her child who grows bio-luminescent fungus on his body on purpose. Almost kinda made it for me... but not quite.
"Anthropology: What is Lost In Rotation" is more satisfying, even while being elliptical and strange, a jagged line traced between Paris and distant "savage lands", history and anthropology, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jorge Luis Borges, family and class. A tribal mystery, a mythological/symbolic mystery, a biological mystery, a murder mystery, a seduction and some class/race friction. Interesting.
"Interim" - told in a rolling, stream of consciousness, near confessional history, this is a powerful, surreal (in the true sense of the word) and mythic story, as a man sets about reforesting Scotland after the accidental death of his child (I found the writing on this part, an event that starts the story, very well done), intending to return it to its primeval condition.
"Conveyance: The Story I Would Not Want Bill Wilson To Read" - another very interesting yet also emotionally powerful story, part memoir, part writing exercise as the narrator's mentor/lover? was her writing teacher who criticized her work, and how she's applied those lessons. Another moment with the random, accidental death of children is here, and again, powerfully done. I like some of the observations on writing, approaches to fiction writing and exercises presented here (the title is related to an exercise discussed herein, to "write a story you wouldn't want X to read" - X being whoever, mother, father, lover - so as to access more honest parts of yourself.
"Motherhood" and "Fatherhood" are two science-fictionally framed tales, near future essays about a breakthrough in science (Rupert Sheldrake's theory of morphogenetic fields) that allow amazing, troubling advances in medicine and culture. "Motherhood", rather presciently, deals with ways of retarding aging that are remarkably similar to current stem-cell research, while "Fatherhood" posits a process wherein missing penises (due to deformed birth, war or accident) can be replaced by transplant from the father, who then uses the new technology to grow an exact replacement. While the stories are told in a clinical, optimistic way, the obvious psychological and emotional problems with these scenarios (in which parents are basically scientifically capable of impressing their own persona onto their children, or gain something at their children's expense) are alluded to obliquely, perhaps almost in a dry, comic manner (that was my reading). Two very solid stories.
"Motherhood" and "Fatherhood", with their Cronenbergian body morphing, set the stage for "America: Three Audiences", which is one of the two truly excellent and amazing reads to be found here. Told as a lecture (with Q&A), a seminar and, finally, as a transcript of a ROMPER ROOM-like TV show, this gives us a world where evolution has kicked into the world increasing manifestations of two new mutations on the theme of neoteny (look it up). The Neonate children grow quickly, are bright and observant, only live until about age 13 and are hyper-sexual almost from birth - like living, experimental evolutionary petri dishes, to be tended by their alternates, Neuters, who are intellectually focused but must spend their time tending their wayward siblings. It's like the philosophical underpinnings of David Cronenberg's SHIVERS crossed with his creations from THE BROOD!
As I said, the approach taken to the material really makes it work, as the neutrality obviously masks distress and conflict such a situation would cause in mainstream culture (this is especially well-played in the lecture portion, an amazing controlled dance of fascinating ideas, humorous and awkward questions and queasy, unstated implications - the Romper Room sequence also achieves this, ending on a portentous last line). That line, in fact, makes it clear that this story can also be read as a metaphor for American mainstream culture and the situation it faced with the counter culture (hence the title). Really well done.
For those who find post-modernism tiring, you may enjoy "Desire" - a beautiful and poetic narrative about reaching and surpassing the generally unperceived evolutionary drive towards replacing mere biological "eating" with the consumption of light, and how mankind achieves it, and how it changes us.
So, a lot of uninvolving, if clever, stuff and a few that really hit it out of the park.
May 13, 2014
If you like terrible metaphors taken literally (marriage is like two people being grafted together! I will write a story about two people being grafted together and call it "Marriage"!) then this is for you. There is some ok stuff buried in here, but the vast majority was really bad.
September 22, 2008
I wanted to get in to this, I spent a lot of time with it, in case I was just being overly moody and critical.
The attempted scientific tone in the alternativefuture/scifi stories is just so....incorrect.
Maybe it would have been more convincing in 1978 when this collection was originally released.
But then, there are plenty of still interesting works about alternative futures that are older than that, actually, many of my favourites are.
Wilson is an NYC art critic, so says the back of the book.
-there's a definite sense that he's trying too hard, to fit in, with something apparently too hip to last.
The title story is alright, has a somewhat Debord-esque style but not french.
The story "Interim" is good, it's the only one I'd read again.
The attempted scientific tone in the alternativefuture/scifi stories is just so....incorrect.
Maybe it would have been more convincing in 1978 when this collection was originally released.
But then, there are plenty of still interesting works about alternative futures that are older than that, actually, many of my favourites are.
Wilson is an NYC art critic, so says the back of the book.
-there's a definite sense that he's trying too hard, to fit in, with something apparently too hip to last.
The title story is alright, has a somewhat Debord-esque style but not french.
The story "Interim" is good, it's the only one I'd read again.
January 20, 2022
cool stories about masturbation and tragic deaths
September 29, 2019
You'll feel fear and disgust, then gradually morbid curiosity. Because the abominations you're reading about are presented not just for shock value. The last story actually will shed a much nobler light upon the whole thing.
June 3, 2009
Some of these stories were pretty good, like "America," "Men" and "Conveyance," but all in all, I think this dude is just a bit too cerebral and artsy-fartsy for my tastes. What, you like artsy-fartsy? Well then, by all means...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews