Across the Pond

Romantic getaway? Poster in a thrift store in Bakersfield. Want to spend a weekend for two in California? Your options are many. You probably know them: Yosemite, Napa, La Jolla, San Francisco, Big Sur, Mendocino... My husband and I, for a romantic getaway in July, picked - Bakersfield. What? my friends asked, Bakersfield? Did the hotel have a pool? (It did not.) For those of you who are not from California, Bakersfield is a hot place. In July which is the warmest month highs average 96.9 °F (36.06 °C). Then again, Bakersfield is not what you'd call a hot spot. The apparently once beautiful historical town center was almost entirely destroyed in an earthquake in 1952 (actually an aftershock to a shaker a month earlier); bland looking buildings replaced the ruined heritage (though some are rather colorful); malls and marts went up on the outskirts and drained the inner city of life (a fate Bakersfield shares with many cities in the U.S.). According to the...

Yesterday evening my book club discussed Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, in which a man wakes up one morning and finds he has turned into some kind of vermin. Opinions on the 50 page story were sharply divided. My Austrian friend and I talked about how we cracked up reading; our American friends shared their feelings of depression and disgust. Is it a coincidence that the difference in perception runs along lines of nationality or is it cultural? Put differently: do you have to be Austrian/Central European to feel comfortable with Kafka's humor?