Deleuze and Guattari's book Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature, was mostly there for visual effect during the time it was part of my library, which I'm pretty sure is no longer. I loved the color, a bright orange. It was part of the University of Minnesota series on literary theory which I certainly perceived as bad-assed, intellectual and prestigious. So I definitely felt good about having it on my shelf.
But I never could really get through much of it. It was filled with too much of their obscurantist hocus-pocus, writing in a language which was pretty much their own.
One thing I do remember and can recall pretty precisely, with a little assist from Gemini (thanks Google!), was the distinction they drew between the postures that characterized Kafka's characters. The Bent Head, signifying submission, guilt the weight of the law, and the Erect Head, signifying freedom and self respect and expression. Really this distinction is pretty elementary and quasi universal body language, I had just never really thought much about it. And the book's orange color looked so good and I had surely dropped $15 on it so I needed to get something out of it.
Playing tennis today against a new guy as we were warming up his strokes seemed pretty solid and he was a good deal younger than me, so I thought maybe he was gonna beat me. After a lost point I found myself slouching back to receive point and noticed that I was slouching with my head held low. "Enough of this," I thought. I need to walk back after all points with head held high.
We were forced to quit with me up 6-0, 3-2. Turns out he was rusty as hell and I just had to keep the ball in play for long enough for him to beat himself.
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