Personal Demons

Looking at my bookshelf it's easy to recognise some obscure prerequisite I have in reading. And so there should be. Books are a most intimate of mediums, something we hold in our very hands. Reading alone or transporting us from the over crowded commute, where helvetica contours spiral off the page and imagination intertwined, making our senses deaf to the immediate environment. Creative non fiction, unknown poets, dated manuals, children's classics, art, textbook literature, environmental awareness and critical essays, all have their place. Simply put, anything that tackles our conscience and our actions, what we are and where we are going to. Design and rhythm, weather it be in imagery, text or engineering, all have a history and a future to behold.



Franz Kafka was no stranger to these struggles of self and circumstance. Writing three books based on such experiences, all of which he never completed, The Castle ending in mid sentence. A some what biographical novel, if only in tricks of the mind, we follow K. a land surveyor new to a village controlled by a castle. His every thought and action are contradicted with the next interaction. This kaleidoscopic labyrinth of here say and assumptions make each sentence a rebuttal to the previous. I'll admit the first few chapters were a challenge, but once I had accepted patina as true, the pages turned with some velocity. Divided by love, governmental procedures and the desire to survive, K. is suspended in limbo, although he can never openly say such. Kowtowing to everyone he attempts diplomacy, whilst in the same instant brandishing a horse crop at the very people sent to assist him. An acutely intelligible web of deceit and intrigue keep both the reader and K. transfixed on a solution which will never appear. A fantastic introduction to Kafka and the games our hearts play with our minds.