Franz Kafka discussion

Hey this book looks like a lot of fun. Any one read it?

Which leads me to a broader question: do you have favorite books written about Kafka? As in a biography or some kind of criticism? I enjoyed a lot of Roberto Calasso's book, K. Also R. Crumb's illustrated bio was pretty entertaining.

I've heard, from Calasso and other sources, that Walter Benjamin is the guy to read for insight into Kafka. I should hurry up and read that, I guess.

Oh, and duh, I almost forgot to mention my favorite piece on Kafka, which Camus sticks in the appendix of The Myth of Sisyphus. So rich, so articulate, and so short. In fact if this discussion group ever wakes from its coma that would be a fun reading to discuss.

The nightmare of reason is definitely the book to read.

OK. Great. I'm reading the Louis Begley bio right now, and noticed that he recommended that one in his selected bibliography as the "best general biography." I find it funny when you get to the end of a book and the author says, in affect, And if you want to read an actual good book on the subject . . .

Anything you particularly liked about The Nightmare of Reason, or was it just roundly good?

I often find it hard to articulate what I like about a book. This one: mostly the well-documented research and how intelligently well-written it was. It made me feel a kinship with Kafka. Now I understand Kafka's writings better. I read lots of biographies and this is one of the best. I couldn't put it down.

For some fascinating insight into Kafka's later years, Dora Dyamanti's Book: Kafka's Last Love - is quite a good read in my opinion. It brings you closer to the reality in which Kafka lived and is well researched.

Super. I love "The Burrow" which I think is from that period, too.

I think I'll give Kafka's Last Love a try. (just what I need, another book) I haven't heard of "The Burrow". What is it about/

"The Burrow" is one of Kafka's greatest stories though it doesn't receive the same attention as "The Penal Colony," "Metamorphosis," etc. It concerns the growing paranoia and obsessiveness of a rodent who imagines his burrow being invaded by unseen "small fry" (what they are called in my translation). It's very funny--but you have to appreciate the kind of absurdity that results from the deadpan playing out, at great length, of an increasingly ridiculous premise. The narrator is so obsessed with security that he begins to behave in the most "insecure" ways possible; leaving his burrow, for instance, in order to admire at a distance how perfect it is.

It's been a while since I read it, but what I remember liking a lot about "The Burrow" was Kafka's ambiguity over what kind of creature the burrower was. So, like all his work, it can be read many ways. On one level it's a story about an incredibly fussy little animal living underground. On another it's a drawn-out analogy told by a man who's gone to great pains to shore up his dark, insulated world. The picture I have in my head from when I read it is a hybrid of the two: a smudged little man reveling in his underground kingdom of dirt and rocks. Hey, that reminds me of Notes from Underground. Companion pieces?

Michael: "Small fry" - I love it. I find that so much of my enjoyment of Kafka relies on appreciating "the kind of absurdity that results from the deadpan playing out, at great length, of an increasingly ridiculous premise." Nicely put.

The story seems like a perfect portrait of Kafka later in life. After so much fretting and angst he's finally found a little black hole to settle into. I think I remember reading that he and Dora would sit up nights and read it aloud. What fun.

Oh, and Sheila, though it's kinda long (my only real beef with the piece) it's considered one of his short stories, so you can find it in the Complete Stories or probably even a Selected Stories edition.

I'll Look for the Complete Stories. I have one collection, but it's not in there.

Thanks,Nate. I like the image of Kafka reading his stories out loud and laughing....I think he does demonsrate a great deal of sympathy for the absurd creature in "The Burrow."

I know the story is in the great collection The Great Wall of China . Of course, the complete collection is excellent,too, but this shorter collection has a better thematic unity which makes it more pleasurable to read as a whole.The Great Wall of China and Other Stories

The "absurd creature" in the burrow is not in the least bit absurd (unless modern man is absurd - it's us guys!) and the dog in Investigations is equally interesting! - Both stories (and other pivotal ones) can be found in my translation - Essential Kafka > which can be had from authorhouse.com >> a very modern translation... Incidentally, the author of K.'s Last Love is Kathy Diamant (not Dora!) - my typo...

Phillip wrote: "The "absurd creature" in the burrow is not in the least bit absurd (unless modern man is absurd - it's us guys!)

Heh. Well, yeah. As Camus would point out, we are absurd (or perhaps Absurd) and Kafka portrays that better than anyone. Though, I like Kafka's specificity. One hears his own personal crisis ringing through everything he wrote. So on one level his stories are about him and his predicament. But on a broader level his predicament can be read as the predicament of all the Jews of his day. And on an even broader level that predicament, of himself and of the Jews of his day, can be read as the predicament of everyone in a modern, inimical, unknowable world. As you say, Phillip: It's us.

Kafka is so nebulous. I love that about him.

Camus says: "It is the fate and perhaps the greatness of [Kafka's] work that it offers everything and confirms nothing."

And Walter Benjamin says: "Kafka had a rare capacity for creating parables for himself. Yet his parables are never exhausted by what is explainable; on the contrary, he took all conceivable precautions against the interpretation of his writings. One has to find one's way in them circumspectly, cautiously, and warily."

My only disagreement with Benjamin's quote is that he makes it sound scary and no fun. It is fun. Just as Kafka's work repels interpretation, it also invites interpretation (and re-interpretation). That inexhaustible depth gives his stories a kind of glow that brings me back to them again and again.

Never thought I'd get such a kick out of secondary literature (lit about lit). There's something very, ahem, Kafkaesque about the hermeneutics that surrounds Kafka's work. Reminds me of (what little I know about) the Torah: the "hedge" around the Law.

I just finished THE BURROW. It was delightful. Fussy little creature always worrying about this and that: Did he dig this tunnel correctly, maybe it should have gone this way instead of that, should he go back in his burrow or will an enemy see him? Anguish, anguish, sounds a bit like myself. I put the story away and picked up A WORD CHILD by Iris Murdock that I was halfway through. It suddenly hit me, both books were about the same thing, anguish, the protagonist in CHILD worries on a little deeper scale but it is driving him nuts just like the little burrower,

What an interesting discovery, Sheila.

And I identify with the burrower, too. I bet there are a lot of us Burrowers who are subterranean neighbors and don't even know it.

I'm currently reading Gustav Janouch's Conversations with Kafka. It's written by a budding poet who had befriended Kafka and is a record of the conversations they had. There's a lot of controversy as to whether or not these are based on real conversations, or if Janouch made most of these up. But even if it's all fiction, it is an interesting read. Has anybody else read this book before?

I've been interested in it, but I haven't read it yet. Part of what interested me was, like you say, that it's considered apocryphal. I kind of hope it IS apocryphal, because again it fits the kind of hermeneutical (rabbinical), Torah-like aura around Kafka to have people writing works of pseudepigrapha, appealing to his authority in order to find an audience.

Did you think the book sounds like Kafka? Most of all, are you digging it?

I'm really digging it.

I'm not sure I know Kafka (the person) enough to really know if it sounds like him or not. I've read The Trial, Amerika, and Metamorphosis (a long time ago). But I really don't have a sense of what Kafka would say in real life. Maybe if I read his diaries, I would have a better sense, but I haven't read his diaries yet.

Cool. My birthday is coming up and it's at the top of my birthday wishlist. (Personal note: right under Satantango.)

I've read some excerpts from letters and journals but I doubt I could pick out his voice either, especially if it's Kafka speaking instead of writing.

Yeah. That said, I do feel like the Kafka that comes across in these conversations seems surprising to me at times... he seems maybe too wise and articulate, or too metaphysical or something. Sometimes the things he says reminds me of Rilke in Letters to a Young Poet.

Sheila wrote: "I just finished THE BURROW. It was delightful. Fussy little creature always worrying about this and that: Did he dig this tunnel correctly, maybe it should have gone this way instead of that, sh..."

I love that story; I don't know what it's not considered one of the major works, along with "The Metamorphosis" or "In the Penal Colony." My favorite moment is when he leaves the burrow so he can watch and see if it's secure.

In sooth, our furry not so little creature is the naked ego in a world that's insecure----and he seems to be well on the way toward insanity, not that this disturbs the lucidity of his train of thought which loves to swirl and race about through all labyrinths toward THE PEACE that one experiences in the stillness of the Morn.
Incidentally my favorite sentence is the massive intake of air being the cause of "the noise."