"At first glance it looks like a flat star-shaped spool for thread,
and indeed it does seem to have thread wound upon it; to be sure, they are only old,
broken-off bits of thread, knotted and tangled together, of the most varied sorts and
colours. But it is not only a spool, for a small wooden crossbar sticks out of the middle
of the star, and another small rod is joined to that at a right angle. By means of this
latter rod on one side and one of the points of the star on the other, the whole thing
can stand upright as if on two legs. "
"One is tempted to believe that the creature once had some sort of intelligible
shape and is now only a broken-down remnant. Yet this does not seem to be the case;
at least there is no sign of it; nowhere is there an unfinished or unbroken surface to
suggest anything of the kind; the whole thing looks senseless enough, but in its own
way perfectly finished. In any case, closer scrutiny is impossible, since Odradek is
extraordinarily nimble and can never be laid hold of."
- Kafka, description of Odradek in 'The Cares of a Family Man'
I.
Many critics and philosophers rank Kafka alongside the greats of modernist literature. But, whilst I wouldn't wish to echo Joseph Epstein's dismissal of him as overrated [1], I have nevertheless often found some of Kafka's short stories a little ... not boring exactly - but disappointing.
That's not the case, however, with 'The Cares of a Family Man' [2], in which the world is introduced to the fantastically strange character called Odradek ...
II.
As the narrator of the tale confesses, Odradek is a name of uncertain origin; it might be Slavic; it could be German, but it's very possibly neither. Confusion over the etymology of Odradek's name, however, is really the least of it - for it's not even clear what Odradek is ...
For whilst they - and I think it probably best we use the gender-neutral pronoun here in its singular sense - can stand up and speak and even laugh, they're also a non-human object who looks rather like a star-shaped cotton reel with bits of old coloured thread wound round in a tangled manner (see Kafka's own description above).
Odradek, however, is nobody's spool and they have a vital presence in the family home; perhaps more vital even than the narrator's and the latter is concerned not only that Odradek undermines his position as husband and father - despite having no real purpose or role - but that Odradek will ultimately outlive him and thereby have the last laugh, extracting what Baudrillard terms the revenge of the object:
"He does no harm to anyone that
one can see; but the idea that he is likely to survive me I find almost painful." [3]
III.
'The Cares of a Family Man' has, as one might imagine, more interpretations than one can shake a stick at; certainly more than I can possibly discuss here - or would wish to, as all the usual readings - Marxist, Freudian, Existentialist - are predictable enough (often very clever and insightful, but unsurprising).
I think, if anything, I favour a more occult (and object-oriented) musing on the story over and above a political, psychological, or lazy metaphorical attempt at interpretation; a musing that doesn't seek to identify Odradek in the full-light of day (or by the natural light of reason) and which acknowledges that objects are ultimately mysterious (and alluring) because of their withdrawl from human perception.
As Anya Meksin notes, we are asking the wrong questions if we ask what Odradek symbolises or represents:
"The story
stubbornly resists an adequate correlation between Odradek and any
existing entities or concepts in our world. It is as if the little text
has somehow transcended the very system in which symbolism is possible,
just as Odradek has somehow transcended the logic of the physical
world. Odradek is a metaphysical rupture in the reality of the family
man, and the story is an epistemological rupture in the reality of the
reader." [4]
Ultimately, Odradek is a messenger from the secret realm of objects; not so much a realm humans deny the existence of, but casually dismiss as less interesting than their own. Such anthropocentric arrogance has no place here, however. I maintain that objects not only exist independently of us upon a democratically flat ontology, but, despite our conceited claims of human exceptionalism, we too ultimately have our being upon this plane.
That's what Odradek reminds us: material reality is essentially meaningless; consciousness is epiphenomenal; life is just a very rare and unusual way of being dead.
IV.
Readers of a certain age will doubtless recall the Unigate ads on TV in the 1970s which warned viewers to watch out in case there was a Humphrey about [5].
Well, an Odradek does more than steal your milk; they negate all the illusions, and lies, and convenient fictions upon which human life is built and once you discover, like Kafka's humble family man, that there's one living in your house there are, says Anya Meksin, only two options: "immediate suicide, or continuing
along as best we can, given the circumstances" [6].
Notes
[1] See Epstein's article 'Is Franz Kafka Overrated?' in The Atlantic (July/August 2013): click here.
For those who might be interested, the critic David L Ulin responds to this piece by Epstein in 'Why Kafka Matters', Los Angeles Times (24 June 2013): click here.
[2] Die Sorge des Hausvaters was written between 1914
and 1917 and published in a collection of Kafka's short stories published by Kurt Wolff entitled Ein Landarzt [A Country Doctor] (1919).
The English translation - 'The Cares of a Family Man' - can be found in Kafka's Collected Stories, trans. Willa and Edwin Muir, (Everyman, 1993), pp. 183-85. The story is also in The Complete Stories, (Schocken Books, 1971) - a book that can be found as a pdf online thanks to Vanderbilt University. The opening quotations at the top of this post are both taken from the latter edition, p. 468.
[3] Kafka, 'The Cares of a Family Man', The Complete Stories, p. 469.
[4] Anya Meksin, 'Ragged Bits of Meaning, Wound on a Star-Shaped Spool for Thread', essay on Mauro Nervi's Kafka Project website: click here. Meksin's excellent essay is worth reading in full.
[5] For those readers who are either too young or now too old and forgetful, the British milk company Unigate produced a series of TV ads in the 1970s featuring mysterious characters called Humphreys whose only visible presence was was a red-and-white striped straw.
The campaign, devised by John Webster, is best known for the slogan: "Watch out, watch out - there's a Humphrey about!" written and sung by musical genius and creator of the Wombles, Mike Batt.
[6] Anya Meksin, 'Ragged Bits of Meaning, Wound on a Star-Shaped Spool for Thread' ... click here.
I don't actually share Meksin's conclusion. Rather, like Camus, I don't see why suicide should be considered in the face of life's absurdity - for there is no more meaning in death than in life. And there's no reason either why a meaningless life should not be a happy and passionate one; the trick is to affirm the void and thereby consummate nihilism, as Nietzsche would say.
