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Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs's Reviews > In the Penal Colony

In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka
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it was amazing

I've revived my discarded review today. Because this book speaks a whole LIBRARY to those afflicted - like me - with Asperger's.

And to Christians as well.

If you're even slightly autistic, you value the way things Used to Be Done a lot more than the way they're done NOW.

That's why we don't like this postmodern world much. Similarly it doesn't like US. We are outcasts.

They have WAYS to make us agree with that.

When you're convicted nowadays, you're convicted. Never mind that your judges are a lot more morally odious than you.

They've learned The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.

Never mind, as John Cleese (and Philip Glass) would say, that "a nudge is as good as a wink" in their world, and amicable hypocrisy is, in the end, the name of their game.

So justice, then, becomes a game?

That, and ever more painful means of ensuring the convicted are kept at bay!

Justice, then, is blind to the truth?

Yes - if like Plato, you see the world as it is, sub specie eternitatus!

For our Eternal Judge nudges us, yes -

But He NEVER Winks. (At moral truth).

So now...

He is trampling out the vintage
Where the grapes of wrath are stored....

End Times on the Christian Calendar.

And He saves the Best Vintage for the LAST:

For the Last, at the End, shall be First!
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Reading Progress

March 13, 2019 – Started Reading
March 13, 2019 – Shelved
March 14, 2019 –
15.0% "A horrendous translation - so don’t buy it! I myself am pretty familiar with this dark favourite, and I just skim through it enough to savour K’s excruciating irony once again..."
March 15, 2019 –
15.0% "As soon as the condemned man is strapped in securely, the bed is set in motion. It quivers with tiny, very rapid oscillations back and forth, and up and down simultaneously. You could have similar devices in mental hospitals! ...but it’s the razor-sharp harrower which has the job of really executing the sentence.
- (My amendments to this awful translation are necessarily legion!)"
October 3, 2019 – Finished Reading

Comments Showing 1-5 of 5 (5 new)

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message 1: by Josephine (Jo) (new)

Josephine (Jo) This sounds as if it brings back great sadness to you, dear Fergus, you know what is between the covers, let it stay there and be kind to yourself.


Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs There HAS been sadness, and I DO let it rest now more and more now (thanks to folks like you) but this review was one of the old ones from darker days that I wanted to add a bit to, so I did that today. Alas -all such revisions are public🤨❗️


Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs Thought much tonight about your wise words, Jo. As I continued reading Admiral James Stockdale’s memoirs of his Vietnamese imprisonment, though, I could hear him saying to me: ‘Yes - shameful and unprovoked acts have been forced upon us. But THOSE were beyond our control. It’s our REACTION to those acts that we CAN NOW control.� And suddenly the Light was turned on!


Cecily It is indeed a horrific tale - and I think it's one of Kafka's best. Sorry you had a typo-laden version.

(PS I also adore Philip Glass - Akhnaten most of all. )


Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs Yes, and Glass is now prominently mentioned in my totally revised rating/review, too - his world-weariness, like Kafka's, is mine here!

I started afresh with a typo-free copy....


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