The Hunger Artist

I was watching Julie and Julia last night and Meryl Streep, in character said something that peaked my interest. "... we almost had our own Kafka experience..." (it may not be exactly that). I know the comic Automatic Kafka, illustrated by Ashley Wood, but I never knew what it meant. So, hearing that in the film I had to go look it up, as the comic wasn't around in the period the scene was set.

In doing this, I mean, googling, I came across Franz Kafka, the German writer. I found a website* that has been put together for the purpose of translating his work, uploading it, discussing etc... I read one, a short piece titled The Hunger Artist. And drew a picture.

The picture represents a part in the story, I found some ink I owned had spilt in the box and gone thick. I used the ink to make this pic with a Quill and a dry, fine tip Sharpie. It's a bit scratchy and messy, all in all, it turned out OK.

The story is a great allegoric tale of what it's like to be an artist sometimes. Also, it could be seen, the problems associated with mental illnesses such as anorexia and other eating disorders. I also found the tale fascinating as it scraped the surface of the mind of it's character. As the story develops it's interesting see what he thinks of the people around him, concerning his own performance and how the various reactions and opinions to and of his art, as the hunger artist, precipitate different feelings from him.

I haven't had a chance to read through any others, if I do I might mention them here... I did read the start of one, A Report to an Academy, A man reporting to "The Academy" about his life as an ape, that he recollects from five years previous... very interesting so far.

* www.kafka.org