Writer’s block, depression and perfectionism stymied the completion of four novels. His blend of dry humour, classical prose and lacerating honesty is unique and adds layers of pleasure and meaning to the stories. He depicts places and people with hallucinatory clarity without ever dissolving their essential mystery. He gives us isolated people struggling to understand their situations and anxiously in search of truth and meaning, but who cannot rely on the security of tradition or religion.
Kafka’s writing presents us with startling and haunting images replete in emotional resonance. The contradictions, paradoxes and submission to obscure sources of authority that one finds in Kafka’s writings derive – in part – from the society he lived in. The provision of insurance by the Austro-Hungarian state was both a progressive and necessary measure taken by a rapidly industrialising economy and a bitterly contested field afflicted by political infighting, nationalist division and unclear legislative authority. He wrote reports that were clear and logical and described situations with unusual clarity. His work was often routine, dry and dull, and frequently required him to travel occasionally to inspect workplaces and interview people. His fluency in Czech as well as German proved essential. Kafka studied law, attained his doctorate and began work in the state insurance firm. Yet, despite the shortcomings of teaching and the young Kafka’s natural timidity, he received high grades and developed an appetite for learning. The Czech nationalist government of Prague was attempting to suffocate German-speaking schools, and classes in Kafka’s school were as large as 100 pupils per teacher due to teacher restrictions. Living under a capricious all-powerful authority, who meted out punishment unpredictably, provided a blueprint for the situation of Josef K in The Trial. Calm, resourceful and down-to-earth but intellectually incurious and firmly conventional, Julie Kafka – like her husband – had no real comprehension of her only son’s outlook and ambitions. Kafka’s mother was a peacemaker who attempted to bridge the gap between father and son. There could only have been a gulf of incomprehension between the introverted, intellectual, artistic son and the assertive, pragmatic, brusque father. Hermann showed considerable wiliness and self-reliance – as well as stamina and acumen, speaking fluent Czech and German – to establish his shop, manage staff and support his family. Stach points out that Hermann Kafka’s childhood was a tough one. To his son, Kafka senior seemed the epitome of a crass materialism and social obsequiousness. Kafka considered him something of a boastful tyrant who dominated the family with angry tirades and unreasoning selfishness. Hermann Kafka was a self-made proprietor of a fancy-goods store in Prague, selling fabrics, clothes, household goods and toys.
Stach attempts to be scrupulously fair to Kafka’s parents. Stach takes time to correct previous biographical misconceptions, and observes that while there are mountains of academic, theoretical and literary overviews of Kafka, there are few biographies. Kafka's posthumous publications led to widespread popularity and established his prominence as one of the most influential figures of twentieth-century literature.A recently completed three-volume biography by Reiner Stach, superbly translated from German by Shelley Frisch, uses newly discovered sources to capture Kafka’s life and reflect on the origins and meaning of many of his writings. Despite Kafka's request that Brod burn his letters, diaries, and unfinished manuscripts for novels including The Trial, Amerika, and The Man Who Disappeared, Brod compiled, edited, and published most of Kafka's writing in his possession.
Most of Kafka's works were published by his friend and literary executor Max Brod after Kafka's death from tuberculosis. Kafka was mostly unpublished and unrecognized during his lifetime. Because of his full-time work at the company, Kafka composed his oeuvre largely in his spare time. His most widely read books are The Trial, The Castle, and The Metamorphosis, the last of which depicts a man who wakes up one morning to discover that he has transformed into a giant insect.īorn to a middle-class family in the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia (known today as the Czech Republic), Kafka pursued a legal education before working at an insurance company. He is best known for his signature literary sensibility, which combines the styles of realism, absurdism, surrealism, and humor with thematic interests in alienation, guilt, existentialism, and oppressive bureaucracy. Franz Kafka was a Prague-born, German-Jewish novelist and short-story writer.
0 kommentar(er)
