Kafka’s Beard
W., Lars’ friend-cum-nemesis, seems to be the fiercer of the two. It is he who swoops on his interlocutor every now and again, urging him to admit a number of things, particularly that both of them are failures, and reminding him of their many spiritual leaders. The latter form an orderly queue; among them are Kafka, B éla Tarr, Franz Rosenzweig (who was, it transpires, Kafka’s teacher), as well as some unnamed visionaries. But it is Kafka the pair always turn to, worshipping him and blaming him for everything. Their story goes like this: “… we opened The Castle. It was quite fatal –- there was literature itself! We were finished.
Anna Aslanyan reviews Lars Iyer‘s Spurious.