You know what nobody understands? Kafka.

Okay, maybe some people understand him, but I’m not one of them. Shockingly, I have maintained the habit I began in January where I stop at the end of everything I read to write about it. I am delighted by how enriching and rewarding this practice is! It has been an especially funny experience as I made my way through Franz Kafka’s Complete Stories. Our son took a Kafka class last semester and these stories were frequently what his mind was on, so when we visited, he and I went to the book store and I bought a copy so I could see what so captivated him. I stopped and wrote after each story. These are some of my notes from my journal:

“Before the Law” by Franz Kafka
What’s it about?
Fuck if I know.

“Description of a Struggle” by Franz Kafka
What’s it about?
I’ll share what happens because I don’t know what it’s about.

“In the Penal Colony” by Franz Kafka
What’s the author trying to do?
Goodness knows! 

“The Village Schoolmaster” [The Giant Mole] by Franz Kafka
What’s the author trying to do?
As usual, I do not know.

And so on. I struggled with every one of the stories except “The Metamorphosis” which is just spectacular. Really an amazing piece of fiction. Funny and sweet, grotesque and repulsive, heartbreakingly sad.

Other than “The Metamorphosis” I can’t say I liked many of the stories while I was reading them. Liking isn’t everything, though. I still think about some of the stories, weeks and months after reading them, and I appreciate them, deeply. Their chewiness and ambiguity and “what the hell is going on here?” nature leave them wide open for interpretation. You can make anything of them you want! Did Kafka intend what I took away from these stories? Probably not. But there are two players in the game of fiction — the writer and the reader. As with any interesting game, the outcome is completely unknown when the players engage, and both writer and reader are necessary for anything to happen.

All of this is to say: my gardening vacation turned into a reading vacation. This is the best type of vacation! I cannot wait to retire so my whole life can be like this. I read at the coffee shop, at the kitchen table, on the love seat, on the couch, in the chair by the window. I finished Kafka’s stories early in the week, and also Lauren Groff’s Florida, along with “My Balenciaga” by Han Ong and New Yorker articles about the war in Iran and Zac Posen, and I began Amor Towle’s The Lincoln Highway in breaks between mulching.

Once the mulch was done, I was going to go to the nursery to look for plants, but I confess, I did not do that. The pages of The Lincoln Highway, they turned themselves. Next thing I knew, instead of planting plants, I was on the couch reading, then napping, then picking my book right back up again when I woke. It’s okay, there wasn’t much inspiring at the first nursery I went to, and it’s really too early to plant anyway. Now, I have the latest issue of The New Yorker, which means a buffet of excellent writing, and I had a hankering for some good southern gothic fiction, so I’m going to reread Carson McCullers The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which I should be able to understand a little better than Kafka.