Comments on: The private lives of Franz K.

By: PD Smith

PD Smith — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:24:36 +0000

Thanks Matt - very nice website you've got there...

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:54:54 +0000

Thanks for this piece - and for your writing in general.

Matt

By: Making strange | Art & Perception

Making strange | Art & Perception — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:45:45 +0000

[...] I came across a nice formulation of a common theme: that we are blind to the usual. In an essay on Kafka, P. D. Smith quotes the Russian Victor Shklovsky (in “Art as Technique”, 1917) on the [...]

By: PD Smith

PD Smith — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 07:40:06 +0000

Thanks for commenting Mrinal - glad you enjoyed it.

By: Mrinal Bose

Mrinal Bose — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 01:55:52 +0000

An excellent piece on Kafka. It made my day. I really enjoyed it. Looking forward to your future writings.

By: PD Smith

PD Smith — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:54:49 +0000

Paul: yes that's a good point about Einstein. His work for peace has been rather obscured now. That's a pity. Kári: yes, "a dim hovering" - that's wonderful. Thank you for quoting that. It's a good point about the diaries. Although I suppose you could say that diaries are part of a private discussion with the self but a fiction is at least in part (the main part?) a public communication...

By: Kári

Kári — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:03:21 +0000

Yes thanks for that. What struck me most was the nut-cracking image (I must confess it had slipped my mind; I must re-read that story), because it seems to echo a passage from his diaries which I'm sure you're familiar with, where he describes his ideal of writerly production as an uneasy hovering between nothing and something.

"This is the problem: Many years ago I sat one day, in a sad enough mood, on the slopes of the Laurenziberg. I went over the wishes that I wanted to realize in life. I found that the most important or the most delightful was the wish to attain a view of life (and—this was necessarily bound up with it—to convince others of it in writing) in which life, while still retaining its natural full-bodied rise and fall, would simultaneously be recognized no less clearly as a nothing, a dream, a dim hovering. A beautiful wish, perhaps, if I had wished it rightly. Considered as a wish, somewhat as if one were to hammer together a table with painful and methodical technical efficiency, and simultaneously do nothing at all, and not in such a way that people could say: “Hammering a table together is nothing to him,” but rather: “Hammering a table together is really hammering a table together to him, but at the same time it is nothing,” whereby certainly the hammering would have become still bolder, still surer, still more real, and, if you will, still more senseless." —Trans. Martin Greenberg and Hannah Arendt. "I Am a Memory Come Alive". Ed. Nahum N. Glatzer. New York: Schocken, 1974. 182f.

All of which is to say that I agree that focusing too heavily on biographical details of Kafka's life is ultimately detrimental to an understanding or let us say an appreciation of his work; but I would add to that that his diaries and letters are often jut as "literary" as his literary works.

By: Paul Halpern

Paul Halpern — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:28:44 +0000

An exceptional analysis of Kafka--thanks for posting that. The literature class you've taught sounds fantastic.

It's always been hard for me to think of Kafka as a 20th century writer -- his writings are so timeless.

It will be interesting to see what emerges from the new Kafka material. I think the release of the Mileva letters had a profound effect on the public conception of Einstein. Not sure if it was all for the best--I think there is less public interest now in his later humanitarian endeavours (disarmament, etc).

By: PD Smith

PD Smith — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:44:54 +0000

AC Douglas: many thanks for that & thanks too for introducing me to your excellent site... I shall add it to my links.

Angela: so glad you enjoyed it! The Trial is remarkable isn't it? Amerika too...claustrophobic is certainly the right word. All haunting texts.

Your thesis sounds fascinating...hope you'll be sharing your findings online too?

By: LiteraryMinded

LiteraryMinded — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:06:41 +0000

Ah, this is wonderful! I just came over to my computer for the second time today as a break from my studies. Earlier, I encountered Zadie Smith's fresh essay, and now, as I take a break from reading Kafka's 'Amerika', I get to read your great piece which affirms everything his works are expressing to me.
I am going to be writing an essay, as part of my thesis, on Kafka as related to Camus' absurd and the emergence of art from the enlightened moment of becoming aware of an absurd contradiction (plus lots more of course). It was a self-directed study unit brought on by wanting to read everything of Kafka's after reading 'The Trial', and also after visiting the museum in Prague, where art installations deposit you into the claustrophobic, reflective and disturbing worlds of the novels, and as related to Kafka's inner world.
I have to say, that 'In the Penal Settlement' (or 'In the Penal Colony' as it is in my version) is competing for top place with 'The Metamorphosis' in terms of the stories that have had a profound effect on me. I was so haunted by the end of both of them - vivid images burned on my brain, and I felt compelled to write and wholly inadequate at the same time (so probably a little like Kafka felt at times).
Thanks so much for sharing this piece
Angela