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Matkapäiväkirjat
Franz Kafkan Matkapäiväkirjat kertovat kahdesta ulkomaanmatkasta, joiden kohteina olivat Sveitsi, Italia, Ranska ja Saksa, sekä kahdesta kotimaanmatkasta Pohjois-Böömiin ja Wieniin vuosina 1911–1913. Valtaosa tämän kirjan teksteistä syntyi ulkomaanmatkoilla, joilla Kafkan matkakumppanina oli ystävä ja elämänkerturi Max Brod. Niillä kotimaanmatkoilla, joista matkapäiväkirjoissa kerrotaan, Kafka matkusti yksin. Kesken Italian matkan saapui tieto, että loppukesällä 1911 Venetsiassa ja Milanossa ihmisiä oli kuollut koleraan, mikä pakotti Kafkan muuttamaan matkasuunnitelmaansa ja kiiruhtamaan Pariisiin. Lukija saa nauttia matkakohteiden ja matkalla tavattujen ihmisten tarkkanäköisistä kuvauksista. Erityisesti päiväkirjoista erottuvat tarinat luontaisparantoloista, joissa Kafka hoidatti terveyttään kaupunkilomien jälkeen. Brod kirjoitti myöhemmin: ”Sen koommin en ole ollut niin tasapainoisen hyväntuulinen kuin Kafkan kanssa vietettyjen matkaviikkojen aikana. Minulla oli suuri onni elää lähellä Kafkaa.”
Teos sisältää myös suomennoksen Kafkan Bohemia-lehdessä vuonna 1909 ilmestyneestä artikkelista ”Lentokoneet Bresciassa”. Eloisa raportti lentonäytöksestä on kiinnostava sekä ilmailun historian että Kafkan kirjailijaprofiilin kannalta.
Tekstit on saksasta suomentanut Panu Turunen. Hän on aiemmin suomentanut muun muassa Kafkan Päiväkirjat 1909–1923 (Sammakko).
Teos sisältää myös suomennoksen Kafkan Bohemia-lehdessä vuonna 1909 ilmestyneestä artikkelista ”Lentokoneet Bresciassa”. Eloisa raportti lentonäytöksestä on kiinnostava sekä ilmailun historian että Kafkan kirjailijaprofiilin kannalta.
Tekstit on saksasta suomentanut Panu Turunen. Hän on aiemmin suomentanut muun muassa Kafkan Päiväkirjat 1909–1923 (Sammakko).
151 pages, Hardcover
Published November 3, 2025
About the author
Franz Kafka
3,619 books40k followersFranz Kafka was a German-speaking writer from Prague whose work became one of the foundations of modern literature, even though he published only a small part of his writing during his lifetime. Born into a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kafka grew up amid German, Czech, and Jewish cultural influences that shaped his sense of displacement and linguistic precision. His difficult relationship with his authoritarian father left a lasting mark, fostering feelings of guilt, anxiety, and inadequacy that became central themes in his fiction and personal writings.
Kafka studied law at the German University in Prague, earning a doctorate in 1906. He chose law for practical reasons rather than personal inclination, a compromise that troubled him throughout his life. After university, he worked for several insurance institutions, most notably the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. His duties included assessing industrial accidents and drafting legal reports, work he carried out competently and responsibly. Nevertheless, Kafka regarded his professional life as an obstacle to his true vocation, and most of his writing was done at night or during periods of illness and leave. Kafka began publishing short prose pieces in his early adulthood, later collected in volumes such as Contemplation and A Country Doctor. These works attracted little attention at the time but already displayed the hallmarks of his mature style, including precise language, emotional restraint, and the application of calm logic to deeply unsettling situations. His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. They depict protagonists trapped within opaque systems of authority, facing accusations, rules, or hierarchies that remain unexplained and unreachable. Themes of alienation, guilt, bureaucracy, law, and punishment run throughout Kafka’s work. His characters often respond to absurd or terrifying circumstances with obedience or resignation, reflecting his own conflicted relationship with authority and obligation. Kafka’s prose avoids overt symbolism, yet his narratives function as powerful metaphors through structure, repetition, and tone. Ordinary environments gradually become nightmarish without losing their internal coherence. Kafka’s personal life was marked by emotional conflict, chronic self-doubt, and recurring illness. He formed intense but troubled romantic relationships, including engagements that he repeatedly broke off, fearing that marriage would interfere with his writing. His extensive correspondence and diaries reveal a relentless self-critic, deeply concerned with morality, spirituality, and the demands of artistic integrity. In his later years, Kafka’s health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, forcing him to withdraw from work and spend long periods in sanatoriums. Despite his illness, he continued writing when possible. He died young, leaving behind a large body of unpublished manuscripts. Before his death, he instructed his close friend Max Brod to destroy all of his remaining work. Brod ignored this request and instead edited and published Kafka’s novels, stories, and diaries, ensuring his posthumous reputation.
The publication of Kafka’s work after his death established him as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. The term Kafkaesque entered common usage to describe situations marked by oppressive bureaucracy, absurd logic, and existential anxiety. His writing has been interpreted through existential, religious, psychological, and political perspectives, though Kafka himself resisted definitive meanings. His enduring power lies in his ability to articulate modern anxiety with clarity and restraint.
Kafka studied law at the German University in Prague, earning a doctorate in 1906. He chose law for practical reasons rather than personal inclination, a compromise that troubled him throughout his life. After university, he worked for several insurance institutions, most notably the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. His duties included assessing industrial accidents and drafting legal reports, work he carried out competently and responsibly. Nevertheless, Kafka regarded his professional life as an obstacle to his true vocation, and most of his writing was done at night or during periods of illness and leave. Kafka began publishing short prose pieces in his early adulthood, later collected in volumes such as Contemplation and A Country Doctor. These works attracted little attention at the time but already displayed the hallmarks of his mature style, including precise language, emotional restraint, and the application of calm logic to deeply unsettling situations. His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. They depict protagonists trapped within opaque systems of authority, facing accusations, rules, or hierarchies that remain unexplained and unreachable. Themes of alienation, guilt, bureaucracy, law, and punishment run throughout Kafka’s work. His characters often respond to absurd or terrifying circumstances with obedience or resignation, reflecting his own conflicted relationship with authority and obligation. Kafka’s prose avoids overt symbolism, yet his narratives function as powerful metaphors through structure, repetition, and tone. Ordinary environments gradually become nightmarish without losing their internal coherence. Kafka’s personal life was marked by emotional conflict, chronic self-doubt, and recurring illness. He formed intense but troubled romantic relationships, including engagements that he repeatedly broke off, fearing that marriage would interfere with his writing. His extensive correspondence and diaries reveal a relentless self-critic, deeply concerned with morality, spirituality, and the demands of artistic integrity. In his later years, Kafka’s health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, forcing him to withdraw from work and spend long periods in sanatoriums. Despite his illness, he continued writing when possible. He died young, leaving behind a large body of unpublished manuscripts. Before his death, he instructed his close friend Max Brod to destroy all of his remaining work. Brod ignored this request and instead edited and published Kafka’s novels, stories, and diaries, ensuring his posthumous reputation.
The publication of Kafka’s work after his death established him as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. The term Kafkaesque entered common usage to describe situations marked by oppressive bureaucracy, absurd logic, and existential anxiety. His writing has been interpreted through existential, religious, psychological, and political perspectives, though Kafka himself resisted definitive meanings. His enduring power lies in his ability to articulate modern anxiety with clarity and restraint.
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April 27, 2026Moni kirjailija on kirjoittanut muistiinpanoja tekemillään matkoilla eikä Franz Kafka ollut poikkeus. Hän toimi ennen ensimmäistä maailmansotaa työntekijöiden tapaturmavakuutuslaitoksen edustajana, mitä kafkamaisempaa ammattia ei voi keksiäkään. Työ kuitenkin antoi mahdollisuuden tutustua Itävalta-Unkarin eri paikkakuntiin aina velvollisuuksien jälkeen. Lisäksi Kafka kierteli Pohjois-Italiaa, Sveitsiä, Ranskaa ja keskistä Saksaa.
Hänen matkapäiväkirjansa ovat juuri mitä luvataankin. En usko, että Kafka ikinä luuli niiden tulevan julkaistuksi, ne ovat yksityishenkilön pienimuotoisia yksityisiä muistiinpanoja. Ihmisten tapaamisia, keskusteluita, illanviettoja, jopa liikenneonnettomuus. Ainoa julkaisutarkoituksessa kirjoitettu osio on kuvaus lentokonekilpailusta Pohjois-Italian Bresciassa ja se myöhemmin ilmestyikin eräässä sanomalehdessä.
Mikäli Kafkaa on lukenut ennestään, tämä saattaa hieman avata hänen kirjoituksiaan. Friedland-nimisen pikkupaikkakunnan luonnehdinnasta ja ennen kaikkea sen valokuvasta itselleni tuli mieleen Linna. Matkapäiväkirjat eivät kuitenkaan ole proosaa, joten kirjoittajansa ominaisimpia tunnusmerkkejä ei niistä juurikaan löydä. Sopii kuitenkin Kafkan tuotannon ystäville pikkuhiljaa naposteltavaksi.
Hänen matkapäiväkirjansa ovat juuri mitä luvataankin. En usko, että Kafka ikinä luuli niiden tulevan julkaistuksi, ne ovat yksityishenkilön pienimuotoisia yksityisiä muistiinpanoja. Ihmisten tapaamisia, keskusteluita, illanviettoja, jopa liikenneonnettomuus. Ainoa julkaisutarkoituksessa kirjoitettu osio on kuvaus lentokonekilpailusta Pohjois-Italian Bresciassa ja se myöhemmin ilmestyikin eräässä sanomalehdessä.
Mikäli Kafkaa on lukenut ennestään, tämä saattaa hieman avata hänen kirjoituksiaan. Friedland-nimisen pikkupaikkakunnan luonnehdinnasta ja ennen kaikkea sen valokuvasta itselleni tuli mieleen Linna. Matkapäiväkirjat eivät kuitenkaan ole proosaa, joten kirjoittajansa ominaisimpia tunnusmerkkejä ei niistä juurikaan löydä. Sopii kuitenkin Kafkan tuotannon ystäville pikkuhiljaa naposteltavaksi.
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January 17, 2026Arvio löytyy täältä!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews