tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23471801.post1335963085076519439..comments2023-10-21T07:44:20.549-04:00Comments on The Existence Machine: Stendhal PostscriptRichardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014014605639738887noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23471801.post-405655274154652192007-03-10T05:32:00.000-05:002007-03-10T05:32:00.000-05:00Gogol did succeed in having his continuance of Dea...Gogol did succeed in having his continuance of Dead Souls destroyed, in which he'd imagined might be a clarion call for the salvation or regeneration of mankind. Though I think that was possibly just before he died, and in the grip of a strange priest. Thogh from a chapter or two that exists it is thought that Gogol's brilliance, much of which lay in his comic element, had been lost in an ill-judged and po-faced devotion to the serious.<BR/>In Gogol's case it's a more fascinating or melodramatic story though perhaps Kafka's more difficult to unravel. Something painfully self-conscious about this desire to have your works destroyed- I somehow find it plausible or suggestive the idea of Kafka ebing a literary creation of Dostoevsky's man from the underground. I am a sick-man and all that, and the sickness being the morbid self-consciousness afflicting deep souls in the modern world. Or something.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com