Investigaciones de un perro

by Franz Kafka

Las Investigaciones de un perro carecen de esa tristeza y oscuridad tan distintivas de la obra de Kafka. La narración es, más bien, el documento de una crisis personal y artística. En la primavera de 1922, Kafka le cuenta a su amigo Robert Klopstock en una carta que para "salvarse de lo que se conoce como nervios" había vuelto a escribir. Unos meses después, tuvo que dejar de trabajar debido al estado de su salud. La actividad artística, uno de los temas de más peso en su obra, se instaló en su vida con una doble urgencia tenía el tiempo que siempre quiso para dedicarse a la escritura y, al mismo tiempo, la conciencia –y quizá la certeza– de que no viviría mucho tiempo más. En las Investigaciones, Kafka canaliza esa experiencia en una narración que explora la condición "burguesa" del trabajo y su antinomia, la artística.Múltiples son las lecturas que se han hecho de este relato en clave de parábola e, incluso, de fábula, entre otras. Pero una de ellas merece nuestra atención. La idea central que subyace a la construcción de la historia es en el texto, los perros y, sobre todo, el perro investigador-narrador no conocen la existencia de los humanos. Si uno corrige este punto ciego en su percepción e interpretación de la realidad, los "enigmas de la existencia" que tanto atormentan al narrador se podrían decodificar fá los misteriosos "perros músicos" no son más que animales entrenados de un circo; los inentendibles "perros del aire" son perros toy que sus dueños llevan en brazos; el perro "cazador" es simplemente un perro amaestrado para la caza; el alimento, cuya fuente el narrador investiga con tanto ahínco, es simplemente arrojado a los perros por los humanos.La obra podría resumirse con esta simple analogí perros-humanos = humanos-X. Sin embargo, en Kafka, X no puede ser simplemente equiparado con "Dios". Más bien, X sigue siendo una entidad desconocida que trasciende nuestro potencial cognitivo.

33 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 10, 2020

About the author

Franz 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.

Reviews

[Coleccionista de finales tristes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Incluido en “Cuentos muy perros” de ediciones Gandhi

[Héctor León · Rating 3 out of 5]

El verdadero "ah prro >:v"

[Agnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐

Kafka nos muestra que la búsqueda del significado puede ser inalcanzable y nos puede llega a aislar de la sociedad.

Siento que la historia es muy filosófica y abstracta para mi gusto. Y el final lo considero algo confuso y desesperante ☹️

[AMALIA ʚɞ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Se me hizo bastante largo, y estoy segura de que entendí la mitad de la historia.

[Juan Carlos López Domínguez · Rating 1 out of 5]

No me llamó la atención. Me costó trabajo terminarlo, me distraía mucho.

[gille · Rating 4 out of 5]

agarren antena, tremendo cuento.

[Iván · Rating 2 out of 5]

Especie de metáfora acerca de la vida de un perro que pretende investigar científicamente. El relato no sorprende.