Kafka's Pendulum

Author: Ge Fei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-11-01
Features: In the long river of history and culture, numerous great works have accumulated, nourishing future generations. What do successful writers and novelists read? Ge Fei, with the sensitivity of a novelist and the rationality of a professor, guides us closer to the masters. The dialogue between Ge Fei and classic writers forms the motion of a pendulum. Tolstoy, Flaubert, Kafka, and García Márquez are at one end of the pendulum, while Ge Fei is at the other, where the pendulum begins to swing. The pendulum's movement in the dark reveals the worldly context of a novelist's existence, the difficulties of writing, and the arduous exploration between various paths. The dialogue between Ge Fei and classic writers is also a game of go, a meticulous and profound review with layers of mysteries. Outsiders see the spectacle, while insiders see the subtleties. When the subtleties lead to the bedroom, we face the soul-searching interrogation of a sudden silence, much like the pendulum's abrupt stillness. — Li Hui
It must be a kind of idol worship that caused the avant-garde novelists to stop writing and switch careers: they consciously lowered their own altitude to pave the way for the masters. Their respect for the masters is consumed in titles: enlarging the font size of quoted sentences from classic works, thereby obscuring the author's more important duties. Let me explain what "paving the way" means: First, when indoor furniture attempts to imitate mammals in its movements butly mimics crippled, awkward, or what is called "hopping" mammals, we must help it maintain a relatively stable and dignified state on the ground. This is when objects with thickness come into play, such as small wooden blocks, coins, folded paper, and books. "Paving the way" can also refer to a situation where books do not stand upright like they do on a bookshelf but are stacked high and low, pressed vertically against each other, like a stack of homework submitted in an elementary school classroom. In that case, the book at the bottom is, of course, the one that has to "pave the way." The Pendulum of Kafka is certainly of the latter kind. The books pressed upon it are the classic works of the masters mentioned in the book: Anna Karenina.
In the long river of, numerous great works have accumulated, nourishing future generations of. Among the stars of the Chinese contemporary cultural scene, who have been influenced by the thoughts of the? What do they see in the? This collection of reading notes by the renowned writer Ge Fei reviews the books and writers that have left the deepest impression on him, with flashes of the rational reflections of a professor of fiction. His critiques of Chinese and foreign classics reflect his reading interests and preferences, allowing readers to understand how to choose the right books to change their destinies within the limits of life. He also shares his experiences and insights on reading in the book, showing us how reading has influenced his own creativity. His works demonstrate his status in the Chinese and international literary arenas.