THE DEBATE AND KAFKA

 The debate over modernism among German Marxists has many ramifications for

this discussion. While the discussion of Expressionism does not solve the problems at

hand, it does lead us to another way to approach the movement, a method discussed and

exemplified in Deleuze and Guattari's reading of Kafka in their book, Kafka: Toward a

Minor Literature. They do not argue for the "aesthetic" "value" of Kafka's work, but

rather that his work represents a different kind of move within literature, an attempt to

escape the machines of history. By placing their argument next to the conventional

arguments of the German Marxist school, it will become evident how Kafka can help us

see Expressionism and Primitivism in a new light.

 The opinions about Kafka's work are varied. Adorno and Benjamin read his lack

of resolution as an effective technique in battling the status quo. Lukacs and Brecht both

denounced him, saying that his work was not praxis-based, and could not be made

effective. Lukacs favored realism as the ideal way for art to speak to the masses. He

despised modernist art as pretentious and bourgeois; he included Kafka in the modernist

school. Brecht, on the other hand, took a different approach to Kafka's work, though he

still disliked it.

 Being a modernist himself, Brecht's criticisms stem more from the abstract nature

 of Kafka's work, the lack of efficacy, of applicability. Benjamin summarizes Brecht's

 position as follows,