Kaj Bernhard Genell Author Site

Kaj BG

Kaj Bernh. Genell is a Swedish Author
of Facts and Fiction.
Born in Sweden
in 1944, he lives there.

Welcome to a presentation of his works!!

You´ll find links to his books,
as well as several essays
formatted as pdf:s as well as txt online,
all for free.
Kaj Bernh. Genell perhaps is best known for
his book on F. Kafka , but he has published
fourteen books, and counting.

a.) MY NOVELS:

Darkness

a novel ( Amazon )

CHAPTER ONE

Jews, von Neumann and darkness

My girlfriend, Eunice, got killed and that was only the start of a whole series of disastrous events. It had never crossed my mind that I, who am such a peaceful and harmless man, could get entangled in a situation like that. But I did, - I certainly did - and will tell you about that, too, but first; here are some lines to give you a rough idea of who I am.
I am Ruben. Ruben Rosenstein. Way back in History, my kin were Orthodox Jews. Nowadays nobody in my family cares anything about religion or ethnicity. And I am not calling myself a Jew. I simply was born into a family that other people think of as Jewish. Many Jews, also famous ones, like for instance Sigmund Freud, left the Jewish faith. Albert Einstein is another and Oppenheimer as well as his co-worker on the Manhattan Project, John von Neumann.
I am a fan of von Neumann, so I know. It has been said about John von Neumann that there has never been such an intelligent man ever walking on the face of Earth as he. He was a living, walking encyclopedia, and he participated substantially in the development of computer science, which in turn could ensure that there would never be another von Neumann. Nobody can have an encyclopedic knowledge in the time of artificial intelligence. He said, and we will indulge a bit into this later, that “there is no use being precise, if you don´t know what you are talking about.” Probably, he said many wiser things, too. However, we will still grossly consider this small epigram, and the secularized “universal genius” John von Neumann will play a specific strange part in the story you are about to read...

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I live in Florida, in Tampa, which is the town where I was born and always have been living. In Greater Tampa, there live about four million people. It is a flat town, and it is packed with houses and cars. There are roads and parking lots almost everywhere. You will probably never see as many cars as in Tampa. In the harbor, thousands of tourists mingle on ferries and electric boats every season, and the weather is superb from July to November. There is a small zoo with lion cubs and orangutans or an Adventure Park almost every hundred yards. We have thousands of places where they are selling unhealthy hamburgers, advertising their existence along the five file roads. The entire city area is tourist-oriented, and people mostly are friendly and helpful. Twice yearly, at least, a typhoon also comes along. I like calling them typhoons. Often when people leave their houses to put themselves into safety, their homes get ransacked by burglars. It is as if Mother Nature had an alliance with the burglars. I still to this day, think that this is the truth about the Florida hurricanes. My apartment on the fifth floor at a Student´s Resort center in Tampa, Florida, was minuscule - 25 m2-, but had recently been refurbished. I had even got my own small washing machine with centrifuge function. My dwelling in South Tampa would host my thoughts about darkness this summer. Why darkness? I have to talk a little about darkness. Well, these are the facts:

The Lion´s Disease

a novel ( Amazon )

All this took place only years after the horrendous pandemic, the Covid19, had paralyzed the entire world. Economy had been slowing down, and the disease - which we still do not understand completely - made a lot of people face death, sorrow, hunger, as well as homelessness.

In November of this year, Rattner & Rattner, the renowned and prosperous London Shipping Agency, had hired me as an officer onboard the Punjab, a Handysize Geared Bulk Carrier. Minutes after being appointed an officer at a visit to the Staff Employment Office, I set out to find my ship from Emmet Street, where the office building was situated. I was on foot, in light rain and some wind in the dusky remains of the Tuesday afternoon, out for the vessel, which was an immense one, lying at anchor outside the Northwest Pier of London Outer Harbor. I had been hired in an extreme hurry due to a mishap on a red London bus on the morning of the ship´s departure; the ordinary 3rd Mate – a man whose name I forgot - unprovoked got busted up by a drunkard, and, because of a broken arm, was brought to the hospital for surgery. The Company was in dire need of a replacement, and with a terse notice, I, who was then 1st Mate on another Carrier - the Swanee - of the same size, but an oil carrier, decided to jump in.

It was a commotion to try to reach the area. My beloved Swanee lay by an anchor in a whole different part of the port. I went by subway and by bus and on my way happened to end up on a small bridge, about a hundred yards tall, in one of the harbor areas, viewing a large portion of the London port from a distance. The harbor rested with thousands and thousands of ships, cranes, sheds, and piers in front of me. Stairs and viaducts, trains and carriages were seen everywhere, and miles of rails in grey and blue nuances, covered by smoky fog, were spotted in all directions. How strange are the cities, man built out in the plane and by the outpour of rivers! But they were part of work, of human endeavor.

A Case For Armamente

a novel ( Amazon )

Chapter One

It all happened in Baltimore. David West, a lonely, white boy of twenty-five, shared an apartment with nurse student Elsa in the center of the town at Upper Fell's Point.

In Baltimore, the global competition in trade had since long closed down its steel plants and shipyards. The COVID-19 epidemic had done away with a hell of a lot of other jobs. People were, of course, still thriving with their lives, inventing new jobs and careers. Despite climate change, summer had arrived, birds had started singing, and coyotes were hunting rats and weasels as usual. And then autumn came, surprised at the trees dropping their leaves. Baltimore, a predominantly black city, has a recent, troubling history of crime. Nowadays, the city is in much better shape, and some say it is even growing slightly popular among young folks as a cultural hub. David himself, who had vivid cultural interests, was currently on social security and did not know what to do with his life. David was an outsider, a goof, and a real sissy. He was, not surprisingly to anyone, thus full of despair. And he had, unfortunately, no real family to turn to either. Despite all his oddities, many regarded him as a decent fellow who was not unpleasant to converse with. Allt hände i Baltimore.

Young West was blond and had smooth North European features, and his pale face was broad with marked eyebrows and his eyes deeply set and dark blue.

There ran a peculiar furrow between the small eyebrows. Most of the time, he, therefore, unfortunately, had an angry or dissatisfied look. The tiny, red mouth was also open all the time. Maybe there was something wrong with the ventilator function of his small nose. He wore what once had been a postmodern, neat, worn jeans dress but now looked like rags. Mahogany-colored boots with high heels made him look slightly taller, just like middle height. David´s movements were quite irregular and insecure and had no musicality in them or any timing at all. As a whole, his walk was just some sort of combined jerking and swaying. Some people seemed to think that David was soulless. However, David was no junkie. Last summer, he had been using cocaine for a short period. That was it. David promised himself not to use any stimulants, ever. He had begun experiencing abnormal things and having visual hallucinations. These were unpleasant experiences, and David had interpreted it as a result of drug use. Because of this, he had decided that – at least – he intended not to perish because of drugs. In August last year, he made that decision on the 23rd, and he was determined never to go back to cocaine or any other medication, come what may! This decision was so damned steadfast for an apparent and distinct reason. The hallucinations hadn't ceased to haunt him. He knew of those few people who had learned to live a whole and social life, hallucinating. Within the cultural realm, there were many examples.

Four Gruesome Stories

short stories ( Amazon )

REVENGE

I

I have always desired to lead a peaceful and organized life just like everyone else. However, the gods can sometimes be unpredictable, leading to unexpected developments, as some of you may have experienced. During the time of the story, I leased a two-bedroom flat in a typical three-floor building on a small street named Trädgårdsgatan in Mölndal - not out of preference, but due to its very affordable rent and the calm, peaceful environment, which was ideal for my nerves. In general, Mölndal was seen as a smaller area to the north of Gothenburg, which is much larger. The primary source of pride and vitality in Mölndal was primarily the broad road leading to the city. Many people believe that Gothenburg is a bustling city with a strong trading presence and is often referred to as "the world's biggest small city." In contrast, Mölndal is seen as simple, rural, old-fashioned, and unhurried. The houses in this area typically do not exceed three stories in size. A river, Mölndalsån - not navigable but drowning depth - splits the small town in half. It was mid-November but still very mild and reminiscent of summer. Because of unusual weather and sky conditions, thick vegetation of ash and linden trees remained present.

Both my residence and the weather were suitable. However, I was still tense as my job, career, and finances unexpectedly became an issue. And not a minor issue. However, it was an immense and terrifying circumstance. It wasn't until September that I found out that Paul, who I now see as a deceitful imposter, had swindled me out of my business using straightforward legal loopholes, making it difficult to recover. Naturally, that is the reason he employed them.

I chastised him, telling him what an a** he was. Certainly, it wasn't beneficial. I then consulted colleagues. I also looked into law books. I wrote letter after letter to Paul asking him to change his mind. I contacted a lawyer and fought like an animal to get back the up-and-coming firm, essentially my proud creation, but all this without a shred of results. That fuck had fooled me out of everything! Through a legal loophole! In October, I was paused in my state of anger for a few days by the unfortunate death of my friend Ismail, a long-ago partner in my first company, in the business of web design and server technology. Ismail had died from liver cancer. It came as a shock to everyone, and I mourned him deeply. It was luck in bad luck because I had other things to do and, simultaneously, a chance to more effectively ponder what I should do about Paul. Ismail, who also worked with Paul, had warned me about him, but I laughed and said, "Oh, I know Paul. A modest guy." But it turned out to be completely wrong. It was not in Molndal but in Gothenburg that my and Paul's firm was located, occupying an entire floor in a skyscraper, where subsequently now this Paul resided, utilizing all my patents, all contacts, contracts, options, and octroys that we had created together. And all the capital that this represented.

In All Book Stores:

HÖSTDRAMA

KAPITEL ETT

”Sånt oväsen!”, tänkte Edward, när han lyssnat i några minuter. Raskt tog han sedan de fyra stegen till ytterdör- ren och öppnade den halvt och kikade ut. Människor röda i ansiktena sprang upp och ner för trapporna. Vissa grät, andra skrek.
”Vad är det frågan om?!” ropade Edward.
”Någon har blivit MÖRDAD. I tvättstugan!” skrek en för Edward Tegelkrona okänd flicka, som hade lila hår som sträckte sig i en liten kvast uppåt himlen, och som med båda händerna höll hårt i slagen på sin nymodiga mörkblå duffel.

”Mördad?? Någon…”
”Ja.” sa hon. ”Det är nog bäst du håller dig inne.” sa hon sen, förvånansvärt samlat och elakt, och Edward tänkte att han måtte se höstlik ut, och att hon behand- lade honom som en nolla. Kanske just därför hämtade Edward snabbt sina nycklar inifrån lägenheten och steg med spänst ut i farstun, låste sin dörr och gick över och ringde på hos grannen Castor, mitt under det den vilda framfarten av framför allt ungdomar iklädda egendom- liga märkeskläder, som gastandes ilande upp och ner för trappan. Hissen stod och ryckte mellan två våningar med en ensam polis, som bankade på grind och väggar, inuti. Castor öppnade sin dörr med enbart en liten springa på glänt. Han såg rädd ut. Den elaka flickan försvann neri- genom, där det snart smällde i en dörr, vilket förkunnade att hon alltså bodde i de lägre regionerna av fastigheten, som inalles hade sju våningar och var byggd 1940.

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Hösten kommer, grå och kall. Det gör den alltid. Den oerhörda hösten. Uppsummeringens tid, räkenskapens rum, då mången skrider fram på stadens gator om kväl- len omgiven av ett mörklila sken. Hösten är en undran men den är samtidigt en störning i denna undran, ty hösten är själv det mystiska, som så bjärt avlöser den underfulla sommarens gåva, och den är det som samti- digt är på väg till något annat. Alltså är hösten en plan. En plan, byggd på en studie av en erfarenhet. Hösten är sitt eget ressentiment, sitt vemod, sin sorg, sin smärta, men även sitt simultana, sinnrika spel med sig själv, inför den annalkande vintern. Hösten är inte dum. Livet är det, som går igenom sig självt. Hösten är den plats, där människan på nytt – på något egendomligt sätt - måste uppfinna sig själv, inför det som kommer efter vintern, nämligen våren.

b.) Kafka, Irony and Myth:

Kafka- a Freudo-Structuralist Analysis

The "Kafkaesque" is not just an ordinary concept of style.

Kafka used high-Romantic Ästhetik des Schwebens and without this half ironic reference of his to the Romantic Tradition, there would have been no Kafkaesque. The Kafkawsque - of course - is what most of all interests us, when it comes to Kafka. But what - then - is meant by the term "Kafkaesque"? We are - as our prime object of study - looking into this Concept. THUS Kafka - a Freudo-Structuralist Analysis is an analysis of Kafka's novels and short stories, with special regard to the concept of the Kafkaesque. This book concentrates on understanding what contributed to the famous Kafka effect. The author explains the structural triplicity of a discourse seen as consciousness. He also asserts how Freud, Romantic irony, and Symbolistic literature simultaneously co-work as the mythical subtext of Kafka's work.

Kafka created something that would become part of defining Modern Man. Understanding Kafka is the road to understanding Modernity. Many a Dissertation and many an Essay on Kafka have dealt with the strange "dreamlike character" or effect of Kafka´s novels and short stories. This has always been dealt with as if the "kafkaesque" was brought into the game by someone adding "Freudian symbols" to something. Nothing could be further from the truth! This is what Genell´s book Kafka - a Freudo-Structuralist Analysis (2021) shows. Rather, the case is this: Kafka's structural, literary form is based upon a refined mega-structural narrative split. It is the split between subject-"voice" and object-"voice" on the one hand, and human conscious and unconscious mind, on the other. This is not easy either to describe or to understand! The uniqueness of the works of Franz Kafka and the perplexing historical accuracy of the concept of Kafkaesque are both phenomena that many readers and scholars have noticed over the years. Through the years, a fruitful explanation of the uniqueness and accuracy of these works has been missing. Scholars have ever from the 1930ies been noticing the extraordinary qualities of Kafka text.

Strange - Kafkaesque - features have been attributed to the short stories and the novels of Kafka. The Kafka hero has - rightly - been seen as a mere figure, and the alleged dream-like landscape universe has been seen as a characteristic, and one has frequently been looking upon these entities, together with a few stylistic features, as technical dominants in the shaping of the concept of the Kafkaesque. Genell´s Kafka - a Freudo-Structuralist Analysis displays a model, together with a biographical survey and a historical perspective on possible influences, that, reversely, forms a hermeneutic, actual explanation of these features, as well as to what is denoted by the concept, from the perspective of a dynamic contextual center, explained in a model containing three levels, levels forming the discourse, typical of Kafka.

This book tries to unravel the enigma of the concept by reference to the process of creation and by Kafka´s implicit use of TWO unconscious levels within the universe of his most important works. The veil of mystery may never be lifted regarding Kafka´s eerie classics of Modernity like it will never be lifted when it comes to literature as a whole. Still, it might be essential - in order not to fall into any metaphysical trap - to know about the technique behind the Kafkaesque to be able to reflect upon the Self-Consciousness of Modern Man of the 20ieth century, a century so intensely marked by a dialogue between society and the works and ideas of Sigmund Freud. Self-consciousness of Man, as it appeared with St. Augustine, the great Italian Renaissance writers, Erasmus, Shakespeare, Montaigne, the German secular Romantics, and Hegel, swiftly developed into something even much more complex with the appearance of Freud and the groundbreaking publication of his Traumdeutung in the year of 1900, and, more so, with the creation of the Kafkaesque, with the works of Kafka, around the year of 1912. The birth of the Kafkaesque can be dated to the night in the autumn of 1912 when Kafka wrote Das Urteil.

The book, Kafka - a Freudo-Structuralist Analysis revolves solely around this strange split of consciousness and the consequences of this split. The Kafkaesque is brought about by two phenomena, and Genell is in his book discussing only the first one. 1.) A literary trick, built upon a split Unconscious ( strange as it of course may sound, and difficult -) and 2.) a unique mental sensibility. WHAT IF one had a Dream of a Dream and the two of them could communicate?? That is what happens in a Franz Kafka story! The book Kafka - a Freudo-Structuralist Analysis deals with Kafka´s novels and short stories from the aspect of the Kafkaesque, and it does so by looking for the means that create this effect. These means turn out to be largely technical. Thus, this book, Kafka - a Freudo-Structuralist Analysis, shows how Kafka uses a narratological split, split consciousness, and SPLIT Unconscious of the hero to create the Kafkaesque by a rare trick. This new book shows how Kafka became one of the most prominent artists to create and define Modernity. Kafka took part in the thrilling creation of Self-conscience of the 20ieth century, marked by a constant dialogue with Freud and his works. Self-Conscience as Man knew it since St. Augustine, the Italian renaissance writers Erasmus, Shakespeare, and Montaigne, and later with the secular Romantics and Hegel swiftly developed within Modernism into something much more complex, primarily with the appearance of Freud's "Traumdeutung" in the year of 1900. And Kafka - rebutting Schnitzler - then set out to complete it all.

The works of Kafka appeared as a reaction to 1.) Modern times, to 2.) his own personal alienation, and to 3.) Freud. Kafka's answer to Modernity - to the modern condition - was astonishingly complex, but it turned out to be very accurate and accomplished right from the beginning. When other reactions to the Modern Condition, like Hugo Ball, Appolinaire, and Dada, displayed a picture of a chaotic and rebellious attitude to reason and morals, Kafka, much like Rimbaud actually, showed a far more complex ability to make modern society's human-understandable itself, in a universal narrative. Kafka, in exploring the Unconscious, as by Freud, and in doing so using a Romantic "AEsthetik des Schwebens," is the unique discoverer of the marvels of mind, and is, in this, equal to Freud. Kafka - a Freudo-Structuralist Analysis sets out to explain how the Kafkaesque itself generates - even today, 100 years after its birth - an interrogation that scrutinizes the Freudian theory and our conception of the unique human consciousness. Kafka´s relation to Freud was somewhat like a son's relation to the father. Hence, Kafka did not acknowledge Freud's discoveries, methods, and notions as truths. But he saw them - ironically enough - as facts. And in a sense, they were. Freud's views were historical facts in their profound influence on the Mind and Society of the century. Kafka used Freud as part of the revealing of Modern Myth, and the myths used by Modernity. Kafka used Freud, but Kafka added on top of Freud´s model of the human psyche another split to human consciousness in his literary universe. Kafka thus did not "believe in" Freud, but he was fascinated by him. Freud suited Kafka well. Almost too well. He did not look at all to Freud to a great extent, ... did not own several books by Freud, but he had - like many others during those years - acquired a sort of immediate understanding of Freud's ideas through a kind of everyday osmosis. Kafka actually started as a writer of lyrical prose, short prose poems in the style of Goethe, Kleist, and Flaubert. But his dream was to write a novel, and it ought to be like the one Flaubert in his usual rage once claimed he wanted to write: a lovely book about nothing at all. So it happened that Kafka - not at all being highly intellectual or an eloquent philosopher - developed a technique for writing novels where he was extending a sole situation into a perfectly static ( i.e., nothingy ) drama displaying a struggle between conscious and unconscious. It also seems as he tried to develop the style of Tieck and the Romantics. Using his extraordinary ( perhaps autistic ) sensibility, Kafka's technique miraculously was born on one evening in 1912, writing the short story "The Verdict." The following day, he even asked his fiancee Felice for its meaning. Later, in 1912 with the writing of "The Metamorphosis" and, in 1913, the unfinished "The Trial," his technique of displaying the Kafkaesque was already full-fledged. Here he - almost FORCE by his own personal and social catastrophe - introduced a pseudo plot in a kind of pseudo novel displaying a story of a split, a struggle of a conscious instance of a person, shown as a hero-figure battling this person´s OWN Unconscious. As it turned out, this battle caused a second unconscious part to appear in the universe of this fiction. ( Examples can be found in Kafka - a Freudo-Structuralist Analysis .) It seems that the hero-figure, devoid of his Unconscious, HAD TO develop such an unconscious to be able to handle his surrounding world, which was his original Unconscious. Here we thus are having a triadic structure and a strange meeting of two unconscious instances. This fictional condition primarily results in a double exposure of the unconscious and a strange transcendence of the Ego, which cannot easily be reflected upon since it has no equivalent in reality. This is NOT EASY TO UNDERSTAND!

As a result of this Kafka-technique, which probably was unconscious (!) to Kafka himself, we are also - apart from the nausea of double Unconscious, a kind of self-consciousness of the Unconscious - experiencing a very intense poetry, depicting utter loneliness in a framework of a sad pseudo-protest, parallel to Weber´s, against the superpower of civil organization and law in general, as well as a hymn of the melancholy beauty of existence the like of which nobody else in the 20ieth Century has created: The concept of "Kafkaesque" has been created upon the experience of the works of Kafka by the Collective Mind, and in some yet not quite analyzed way, it also has extended our mode of perception. The concept of the Kafkaesque, and the Kafkaesque itself, AS IRONY, is vital for both the being and the understanding of our culture and being! The questions regarding this concept, raised in Kafka - a Freudo-Structuralist Analysis questions somewhat elusive, are mainly two: [ 1. ] what IS the kafkaesque? ( that is caused by this split ) And [ 2. ]: how did Kafka DO to create this, the" Kafkaesque"? These questions are highly original and deal with ideological, cultural, and psychological matters and tacit knowledge, and complicated issues concerning the ontology of fiction. Perhaps the concept of "Kafka" is an ongoing question in Modernity itself that will prevail?
Kaj Bernh. Genell 2023.