[techostritch]

I don’t know if I’m taking Kafka too literally here, but the books that I read that bite and sting probably fall into two categories. Things that are cynically written in bad faith and things that are hopeless and callous. Torture porn bites and stings, reading hacky partisan politics bites and stings. Anything that makes me feel stupider after reading it bites and stings.

The things that I think that he wants to say, the inconvenient truths, the things that make me see the world in a whole new way, that challenge everything I believe in. Those things fill me with joy and wonder they are just so few and far between.

Maybe the thing he’s getting at is the existential dread? The truth that nothing you do is meaningful? The staring into the abyss? In which case maybe in moderation, but I fundamentally disagree.

in a sense I wonder, if this is what he means, what a weird way to view life, that those things that challenge you are negative.

[sweeter]

I think he is ultimately saying that you should be emotionally vulnerable, and you should read things that break through that inner barrier that we all put up. Reading a good book is like making a connection, and becoming emotionally invested in that world and the ideas within it. Turning that last page and knowing that its all over can be a heart-wrenching experience as well. I know I've experienced this indescribable feeling of loss or even grief almost after reading a good book.

That could also mean reading biographies of others lives, love stories, things that challenge your world view and things that are a little above our skill level. There is value in being willing to challenge your own beliefs (if they can't be challenged with a new understanding or new knowledge, then they aren't so much beliefs as they are a doctrine to be followed) and being willing to be emotionally vulnerable.

[TrapLord_Rhodo]

For as long as i can remember ideas have "Struck Me", and the more i read the more "Intellectually Uneasy" i become. I realise faulty assumptions about "What a thing represents" can lead me down a dead "Branch"; Whether in formal systems like math, tech architecture or social matters.

Sometimes as you say, "cynically written" books like 1984 can be have that bite, and thats true, but some books that have "Bite" because makes me go "Whoa!" or a slight panic when my world-view gets changed.

Godel, escher, bach was one of the first books that did that for me. It struck me on the head and i could not put the book down. Concepts of infinity and strange loops dominated my underlying intellectual uneasyness for some time afterwards.

Blood Meridian was also a book that shook my understanding of pre-1800 life. How close to savagery humanity still was only 200 years ago fundamentally shook my understanding of where i stand in relation to my ancestors.

"The Quants" showed me how shaky our financial infrastructure really is.

The Rose Of Paracelsus: On Secrets & Sacraments blew my mind. Spending 20 years to create a masterpeice that would certainly fall into both of your categories at once... a brilliant, cynical book, hopeless and callous in the eyes of a population with the attention span of a tik tok.

[dudinax]

Kafka'd want you to get tougher so some hack can't hurt you.

"Those things fill me with joy and wonder they are just so few and far between."

Yes, but that's what you should be looking for.

[willturman]

“Yes, but that’s what you should be looking for.”

… and you aren’t going to find them in Silicon Valley.

[suoduandao3]

The one book I recall that 'bit and stung' as I think Kafka meant to say was 1984. How would you categorize that work? Torture porn?

[techostritch]

Oh god no, that’s definitely in the cynically written in bad faith hacky partisan politics category. Maybe it just hasn’t aged well, but I couldn’t get through it.

[0xBDB]

This is (to me) a strange comment. I assume it refers to the fact that some right-wingers have latched onto Orwell. But that happened long after his death.

Orwell was a British Socialist, and the people he's attacking in the books are totalitarians, whether fascist or Stalinist. So it's neither bad faith nor partisan unless you count anti-totalitarian as a party, though I guess hacky is in the eye of the beholder.

[ErigmolCt]

"1984" is a quintessential example of literature that challenges and provokes, embodying Kafka’s idea of a book that serves as "the axe for the frozen sea inside us."

[DaoVeles]

A lot of positive change can from works of philosophy.

Thats things that just knock your world view around for a brief moment in a almost confused-joyous-understanding. Make question your intuitions for a little bit.

[ErigmolCt]

I think he's referring to works that provoke profound thought and emotional engagement