AFTER SPLITTING UP WITH DIANE KEATON in the film Annie Hall, Woody Allen's lugubrious Alvy hooks up with a hippy-dippy music journalist for a one-night stand that does neither of them any favours. "Sex with you is really a kafkaesque experience," says Pam, over a postcoital cigarette. "I mean that as a compliment." Given that Pam (a fabulously drifty Shelley Duvall) is a self-confessed Rosicrucian, with a chat-up style that leans heavily on the word "transplendent", it's clear that finding a philosophical vocabulary for life's highs and lows is not her strongest suit.
Annie Hall was released in 1977 - 30 years after the first usage of the adjective "kafkaesque" was recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary. One might have thought that such a resounding satirical takedown in an Oscar-winning film would make the word an embarrassment. But no. Fastforward to 2010 and it was back in the satirical crosshairs, as the title of an episode in the third series of Breaking Bad, in which bags of blue meth from Walt and Jesse's superlab are distributed in tubs of batter to fried chicken restaurants across the American south-west. The pair's lawyer, Saul, tries to persuade a bemused Jesse to launder his ill-gotten gains by becoming the tax-paying proprietor of a nail salon. When the leader of Jesse's support group says his working conditions sound kafkaesque, he has no idea how right he is.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June 07, 2024 من The Guardian Weekly.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة June 07, 2024 من The Guardian Weekly.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
If kids get protected from online harm, how about the rest of us?
The Australian government has proposed a ban on social media for all citizens under 16.
'It's not drought - it's looting'
Spain is increasingly either parched or flooded - and one group is profiting from these extremes: the thirsty multinational companies forcing angry citizens to pay for water in bottles.
Life in the grey Zone
Neonatal care has advanced so far that babies born as early as 21 weeks have survived. But is this type of care always the right thing to do?
Out of tune? Band Aid under fire for Africa tropes as it turns 40
Forty years ago this month, a group of pop stars gathered at a west London studio to record a single that would raise millions, inspire further starry projects, and ultimately change charity fundraising in the UK.
Deaths shine spotlight on risks of drinking on party trail
Vang Vieng is an unlikely party hub. Surrounded by striking limestone mountains and caves in central Laos, it morphed from a small farming town to a hedonistic tourist destination in the early 2000s.
Different strokes My strange and emotional week with an AI pet
Moflin can develop a personality and build a rapport with its owner - and doesn't need food or exercise. But is it comforting or alienating?
Strike zone Waking up to the rising threat of lightning
When the Barbados National Archives, home to one of the world's most significant collections of documents from the transatlantic slave trade, reported in June that it had been struck by lightning, it received sympathy and offers of support locally and internationally.
Cheap pints and sticky carpets: the old-school pub is back
In the Palm Tree pub, east London, barman Alf is taking only cash at the rattling 1960s till.
Brain gain Can a radical tax scheme convince the country's brightest to stay?
In the autumn of 2018, I moved to Lisbon for a month-long course at the Universidade .de Lisboa.
Fear and sympathy in small town divided over asylum camp
A year after anti-immigration riots, a site for asylum seekers faces hostility while some locals try to help new arrivals
