“If there has ever been a case to not judge a book by its cover, this is it. Read this book.”
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Webmaster's Update (2008):
Toilet: The Novel
marked the revivalism of existentialism in the early 21st
century. Apart from a few other existential novels and
Franz Kafka inspired works, it is generally considered by many
to be one of the most Kafkaesque books to have been released
since Kafka's actual novels. The literature surrounding
the book, and the author, suggest that the book may actually be
based on a fragments of an actual work by Kafka that was
discovered in an antique piano in Vienna in the 1990s by an art
collector, and which came into the possession of Szymczyk in
2003. That said work is said to have only been 33
extremely fragmented pages, the remainder having been burnt
during Kafka's lifetime. Unfortunately, the work is
believed to have perished with the author, who died in Rome,
Italy 2005 when he drove a motorcycle off a bridge into the
Tiber River. No traces of Kafka's lost work have been
found except for a few photographed pages of the work, which are
currently on display at one of the smaller Kunsthistorische
Museums in Vienna.
The finished manuscript of Toilet: The
Novel remains unpublished. The work currently under
publication is considered to be a rough draft, and assuming the
claim that the book is, in fact, based upon those lost thirty
three pages of Kafka's literature, this is all that remains of
Kafka's forgotten novel. Of this work, it is believed the
second act contains these lost writings of Kafka, which Szymczyk
filled in with his own bizarre twists and changed the main
subject from a mysterious substance which perturbs the
protagonist to feces, or for lack of a better term, shit.
Szymczyk also did more than just fill in pieces, but also added
an ending as dark as that of 'The Trial'. Like Kafka's other
works, this new novel of Kafka's is said to have been unfinished
or was burned to bits, along with the other two hundred pages.
In the end, the current work, for all its deficiencies, bad
grammar and rough draft form, is still one of the greatest works
of surreal literature since 'The Castle' (and one of the most
enjoyable surreal books to read since Kafka's Amerika).
The book contains many elements of Franz Kafka's 'The Castle"
and "The Trial" as well as many allusions to his short stories
such as 'The Metamorphosis' (the preface to the book contains
the wording 'Metamorphoses' which many believe to be a play on
Ovid, rather than Kafka). It is a bizarre book, which has
made some consider it to be a funny bathroom book, good toilet
literature, or shock lit in the fashion of Charles Bukowski and
Crispin Glover. However, despite its attempts at humor and
its shocking, no-nonsense imagery, it is without doubt a
literary work following in the tradition of many of the great
works of existentialism and postmodernism. This book has
achieved the status of a cult-classic, and many believe it will
be one of the major literary works of the 21st century. It
is already being included in many universities' curriculum on
postmodern literature.
It is one of those strange,
surreal novels, that speak to us in a manner similar to Kafka's
books and novels, and is one of the finest of the existential
and philosophy books to have appeared in recent memory,
certainly in the last decade. It is, in short, one of
those rare philosophical novels that knows how to remind us of
the little things that, at the end of the day, truly matter.
In addition, I've also posted Szymczyk's last film onto the
site. It's called "Vienna: Symphony of a Great City".
It was filmed and edited only weeks before his death a la
Rimbaud, and apart from his journal, is the last work of art
that this charismatic and mysterious figure left to us.
Sincerely,
Arthur K., La Webmaitre
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