A Hunger Artist
by Franz Kafka · first published 2016
6mentions
3recommended by
6HN commenters
2009–2024first – last mentioned
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…confused/mixed with Orwellian) but more because it pushes away his short stories and aphorisms, which I think are much, much better than his longer works – and more mystical and mysterious in nature. I'd take A Hunger Artist, In the Penal Colony, or some of the aphorisms from the Zürau book over his more famous works any day. It's unfortunate that writers tend to be known for a single "brand" which causes off-brand works…
on “Franz Kafka Was a Health Insurance Administrator” ↗My favorites: A Hunger Artist [https://records.viu.ca/~Johnstoi/kafka/hungerartist.htm] A Country Doctor [https://records.viu.ca/~Johnstoi/kafka/countrydoctor.htm] The Metamorphosis [https://records.viu.ca/~Johnstoi/stories/kafka-E.htm]
on “Franz Kafka Selected Shorter Writings” ↗Anything by Franz Kafka. Reading him when I was 12 years old was a bad, bad, bad, life-changing decision. I find his short stories " Josephine the singer or the Mouse Folk", "Before the Law" and " The Hunger Artist" to be unbearably painful. He is still one of my favorite authors.
on “Ask HN: Which are the most damaging books you've read?” ↗…is essentially about loneliness, but I'd love to hear more. Because I think the story is about other things as well - about ambition, about art, about being misunderstood, and about greatness. Kafka's hunger artist is a man who feels like he has never reached his potential. He's always convinced that he can accomplish more than is allowed, and has a troubled spirit because of it and because he perceives that his…
on “A Hunger Artist, by Franz Kafka (brought to mind by "How to be a loser")” ↗Indeed. I've wondered whether it could have influenced Kafka in writing "A Hunger Artist".
on “Bartleby, the Safe-Spacer” ↗…masterful in his judgment, that he absorbs all that even the greatest book has to offer with a single reading — is unpleasant to contemplate. Or maybe there’s one more possibility: that — like Kafka’s hunger artist, who never found a food he liked — Schwartz has never been sufficiently interested in a book to return to it. But surely he makes one important point: the problem with our culture today is definitely…
on “Against Rereading” ↗