Customer Reviews

Anxious Pleasures: A Novel after Kafka

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Anxious Pleasures is a novel Roland Barthes might have tried to write if he was obsessed with the Germans and if he had a more prominent sense of humor. It's a multi-faceted jewel that is much larger than its setting makes it appear to be; and which, when looked through, causes its characters to refract each other (and Kafka himself) with their own interior processes. It's much more than a remaking of "Die Verwandlung." Olsen has somehow meta-morphed Kafka into a darkling rainbow that arches playfully over the gap between literature and criticism.

Paying close attention to Kafkaesque style Olsen brings his own distinctive narrative prose and finds a balance between retelling and reinventing. For me the most satisfying aspect was the genuineness of the story. It didn't feel like Kafka but yet it was close enough to induce similar emotions. Grete dominates this story. We get to know her in other context beside the Accident, with her suitor, Herrmann: "I listen to the rhythm of our heels clicking below us, the distant clock cawing the hour, the tenor of his bassoon voice. Shutting my eyes, I slant into the presence of his arm, the pinprick flakes of cold tapping my face and vanishing, and begin to imagine myself suspended in the center of the gigantic piece of marzipan. It is white and soft and grainy with almond paste and sugar. Behind the immediate scents lingers an understated vanilla that makes me forget all the French verbs I have been trying to learn."

Olsen organizes these voices in small chapters without delineating too much. Once in a while he experiments with forms and punctuations but limits it so it does not get flashy or pretentious. He borrowed ideas and theme from other works, as mentioned in the Acknowledgment at the end. His academic background and literary knowledge shine through the pages. The title probably comes from some aesthetic, psychoanalytic aspect of literary studies but again he finds the balance and does not make this work too pedantic and experimental.