America - F Kafka
Statue of Liberty: did it have a sword before the torch?
"But morals change every time you come to a new port. "
"...but that needs a lot if perseverance, doesn't it? I'm afraid I haven't got that.
Men in single file, as was NEUTRAL..."
(?)[ natural, methinks the translator means]
Pediment. Caryatids.
"Yes, in this room one realised where one was.
...began actually to take a SON of comfort in the thought that in case of need the stoker...
Ambiguous questions, and this the most unsuitable moment to ask them!"
[Thoughts and (such questions) come to the fore of their own volition, they cannot choose that moment. ]
"Now then, Karl, quick, make the best if every minute you have, before the witnesses..."
[He thought to himself, since the narrator is omniscient, even though K. remains the focus of his narrative/story. ]
Extenuating.
"...a term by no means too emphatic, although it might be exaggerated."
[oxymoronic]
"The desk was certainly not made merely to remind him...in Karl's memory. "
[The mind forms unpredictable connections.]
Oh yes, said mr pollunder, drawling the words, and thus proving that he could not tell a lie.
[how?]
... Peacefully spanned by a gold chain.
[ unusual choice of words]
"The clear night with its benevolent full moon was free to everyone and to be afraid if anything out there, in the open, seemed senseless to Karl."
ju-jutsu
"A breath of dark emptiness..."
"How could a photograph convey with such complete certainty the secret feelings of the person shown in it?"
[Opposite of picture=1000 words]
Impute
[idle/wishful thinking:]
"He would certainly work and push his fortune all the better here, if he were not hindered by idle thoughts if home. "
...a wealth of detail unusual for her...
[but not for Kafka, especially drawing out misery of existing in less than encouraging conditions.
...would always go on changing.
[Truism, but 100% true.]
...in America; the verdict was determined by the first words that happened to fall from the judge's lips in an impulse of fury.
"It's impossible to defend oneself where there is no goodwill," Karl told himself...
...examine for weeks any half-doubtful word of the Manageress.
[over-thinking is rarely beneficial and, counter to prominent beliefs, is gender-neutral.]
He gazed down sadly at the street, as if the cause if his sadness lay there.
...Brunelda's insupportable whims were now being wreaked on him.
["Life" with its surprising twists and turns. Perhaps the end of chapter 7 as K. falls asleep and the beginning of chapter 8 with the theatre announcement is deliberately unconnected.]
There were so many placards; nobody believed in them any longer.
[advertising continues to be important even today]
"...why, it's the greatest theatre in the world. What a piece of luck..."
[...and all the world's a stage - WS]
[I missed the event of him being "engaged as an actor. ]
Always, even in the most unambiguous circumstances, someone could be found to take pleasure in suggesting trouble to his fellow-men.
[Slight variant of schadenfreude? :)]
[But where's the rest of it? - Paprika]
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