/ssrg/ Short Story Reading Group: A Hunger Artist

I am now just picking whatever stories I want instead of following the book. I must warn you that I am a fan of speculative fiction so my choices may reflect that.

Suggestions are welcome.

Future stories I thought of:
>The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe (7,204 words)
>The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
>The Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury (4,426 words)
>Golden Apples of the Sun by Ray Bradbury (2,436 words)
>The Looking Glass by Anton Chekhov (1,605 words)
>The Bet by Anton Chekhov (2,706 words)
>The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol (12,196 words)
>The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin (9,946 words)
>A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf (692 words)
>Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell (3,283 words)
>Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood (7,128 words)
>The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway (9,165 words)
>A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (2,848 words)
>Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut

Authors I need to pick stories from:
>Vladimir Nabokov
>Stephen King
>Lovecraft
>Asimov

>>8998932
>Vladimir Nabokov
Pnin
>Stephen King
Reddit
>Lovecraft
Reddit
>Asimov
Reddit

>>8998943
Pnin is a novel, so probably going to have to pass on it. Any short story of his to recommend?

>>8998946
He doesn't really shine for his short stories, is there anyone else you can pick?

>>8998963
You can suggest any short story from any author.

>>8998923
Didn't get it on my first reading. I suggest anyone not familiar with Kafka to check the context and background of this before reading it.

>>8998932
I like the idea of reading A Haunted House, although it is absurdly short so maybe a shorted discussion period would work

Here is a plot summary and some literary criticism of the story.

>A Hunger Artist from Bloom's Major Short Story Writers: Franz Kafka
http://docdro.id/fLghn5z

>>8998932
>Authors I need to pick stories from:
>Stephen King
>Lovecraft
>Asimov
Are you fucking serious now?
What about Borges, O Henry or Cortázar instead?

>>9000627
>What about Borges, O Henry or Cortázar instead?
Any specific short stories you can recommend from those authors?

>>9000641
Not him but

Borges
>The Circular Ruins
>Herbert Quaint
>Pierre Menard
>Lottery in Babylon

Cortazar
>House Taken Over
>Letter to a Young Lady in Paris
>Omnibus

>>9000649
Seconding Letter to a Young Lady in Paris, Pierre Menard and The Lottery of Babylon

New to this group, seems a bit tumbleweedy but I like the concept so will try to join in the discussion.

I liked this story (previous Kafka experience limited to The Metamorphosis, which I also enjoyed). Definitely compelling, and made me want to check out more Kafka in the future. The prose flows well and the descriptions are sparse, but make me feel like I'm there in spite of that. Funnily enough, this was what I liked about The Metamorphosis, but unlike The Metamorphosis, I found it much easier to understand. The main character felt strangely real to me, and I didn't guess the ending which is sometimes a problem with these more philosophical stories. The paragraph about the panther stumped me though, anyone got any ideas?

Overall: cool. Worth a read, not too challenging but very enjoyable.

>>9000967
*I was there

>>8998932
Chekhov is great. Pls him.

>>8998932
sounds like this group in going in a bright direction

Any list of previous short stories?
I want to catch up.

>>9000967
>The paragraph about the panther stumped me though, anyone got any ideas?
>Overall: cool. Worth a read, not too challenging but very enjoyable.

In one of the essays an anon above linked to the artist is interpreted as the enduring jew and the panther, dangerous and caged involuntarily, yet appealing and "free" represented jesus.

>>8998932
Gogol would be nice.

>>9001410
https://warosu.org/lit/?task=search2&search_subject=%2Fssrg%2F&search_op=op

>>8998932
>Vladimir Nabokov
The Word

>>8998923
I read it once but didn't get it, really missing some context

>The hunger artist was not only too old to take up a different profession, but was fanatically devoted to fasting more than anything else.

This seems to me the self-insert of the artist, the meta moment, if you will. Ahab is likewise monomaniacal, an artist of life. But his disappointment with life is not with the fading adulation, but with his audience's construal of him. Nobody gets him the way he wants to be got.

>with his lips pursed as if for a kiss
>wetting his lips with water to prevent chafing

Pretty well crafted stuff, mang.

The Point of no Return, for the career. Vocation as identity, the passing away of interest, and the dying body. The hunger artist is killing himself which is the irony of his situation because it is the only thing he can do. The only conclusion of life is to control its respirations.

His artistry is, however, a ruse he uses to explain to others his simple distaste for food and the following of his natural inclinations.

The panther is the passing fashion, the trend elusively disappearing in the flux of history, while at the same time, the raw meat diet, the similar case of the few onlookers who had to look away because it was unpleasant for them to see a withered man; and the panther, whose animal enjoyment of the meat thrown to it is diametrically opposed to the hunger artist's ascesis. The difference: the awareness of the nature and purpose of the exhibit between the panther and the hunger artist.

People desert him close to death because they fear death, they want to be reminded of life overflowing, all the time. Their mortality is superstitiously avoided, which the hunger artist confronts them with.

The story tells a story about aesthetic development (reactions against previous innovations) as well as a change of regime in carny culture.

>>9001738
>People desert him close to death because they fear death, they want to be reminded of life overflowing, all the time. Their mortality is superstitiously avoided, which the hunger artist confronts them with.

That's a very nice interpretation.

I know this work is an allegory, but what is it trying to convey?

Is he supposed to represent Christ?

>>9001750
No. He is supposed to represent artists.

>>9001639
see >>9000391

>>9001639
I hate to be mean, but really? Nigga, are you retarded?
I mean the story has layers, but it's really not that complex.
Maybe you're looking too deep. Sometimes that happens. Try backing up and examining the emotions and thoughts of the characters.

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What the hell? i started reading a short story a day a week ago. hunger artist was today's and walter mitty was yesterday's. this is my first time on 4chan in months. weird coincidence

i read to silence my miserable thoughts so I don't get all analytical. i found it relatable as a miserable lonely person, not so much the artist part but the wanting to put myself through suffering. i guess it was a good story, i'm more into non-fiction

>>9001535
Thank (you) very much for the enlightenment anon, will have to read that essay at some point today. I thought it was about how artists continue to explore a medium long after it has gone out of vogue because they feel compelled to do so.

>>8998932
I agree it would be good to get a lovecraft story in there. I don't have a pick though.

have a bump

First time seeing this thread, I like it, will be following this.
I don't really have anything to comment on this story though.

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A few things i noticed in this:
1) The hunger artist craves interaction with others (he would be happy when talking with the guards watching him and showing spectators his ribs) but achieves this interaction through self harm.
2) At the end he says he wasn't doing the act for the enjoyment of it, instead simply because he didnt find a food he liked. I interpreted this as people who ignore their passion and instead capitalize on skills they happen to have are slowly harming themselves and leading to their death where they will be forgotten by history and replaced by the next attraction.
3) The kafkaesque theme i picked up was that people who saw him started assuming he was sneaking food even though the guards watching him knew he didnt. No matter how long he starves himself no one will believe him and the false guilt crushes him.

>>9006961

NEW STORY

>>9006961