56 Friday, October 28, 1983 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Kafka's Stories Re-Issued for His Centennial . (Continued from Page 80) The first said: You have won.' The second said: `But unfortunately only in para- ble.' The first said: 'No, in reality: In parable you have lost.' " Kafka's fanatical artistic scrupulosity has been com- pared to Flaubert's in its vigor. Ben Ray Redman stated very well the effect of reading Kafka: "As al- ways, Kafka is a fascinat- ing, tantalizing writer. His approach to his readers appears at first to be as direct as Chekov's; he seems to es- tablish contact with us immediately, and quickly BEST NEW AUTO LOAN RATE IN TOWN 11.00% APR-36 Mo.112.00%APR-48 Mo./15% Down Serving B'nai B'rith Members and Their Families wins our confidence. Here is an author, we think, who knows exactly what he wishes to say, and how to get on with the business of saying it, in a style of classic clar- ity. But then, abruptly, we realize that we are not in close contact with him at all, that he has slipped away from us and is dancing on ahead of us, and around us, always just beyond our reach. "His manner is as matter-of-fact as ever, but the facts behind the manner — whatever those facts may COVENANT CREDIT UNION 25835 Southfield Road Phone 552-8111 BI-FOLD SUPER SPECIAL Existing Doors 4 ft. openings 5 ft. openings 6 ft. openings $113.99 Installed $118.99 Installed $135.99 Installed NEW MIRRORED BI-FOLD DOORS—FINEST QUALITY Slim Fold ® $180.00 Installed 4 ft. openings $190.00 Installed 5 ft. openings $240.00 Installed 6 ft. openings Lowest Prices On All Types of Mirrored Walls, Furniture, Bars, Cubes, Etc. - Heavy Glass Table Tops, shelving, Beveled O.G. Edges, Shower and Tub Enclosures, Replacement Windows. MIRRORED WALL SPECIAL — 12'x8' High $425.00 Call today for free estimates: 552-0088 Atlas Glass & Mirror PERFECTION IS OUR REFLECTION Where quality work, discount prices and you the customer make us, #1 552-0088 be — continually elude us and tease us with their elu- siveness. "Kafka's tone remains that of a candid storyteller; he leads us on and on, through incident, descrip- tion and dialogue, in which every detail exhibits a crys- talline clarity; it is impossi- ble not to understand his every word, paragraph and page — but then, sooner or later, unless we are utterly bemused by his mesmeric gifts, we find ourselves pull- ing up short with a sharp question: 'What the devil is the fellow really saying after all?' What, indeed?" Kafka's novel, ":The Cas- tle," has been likened to Bunyan's "Pilgrims Pro- gress," symbolizing the search of man for divine grace. Max Brod's theologi- cal interpretation is that the book is concerned with the fate of the Jew in a Gen- ,- tile society. Nobel Laureate Thomas Mann, also opting for a theological interpreta- tion, states that "The Cas- tle" symbolizes "the powers above" and the book's cen- tral theme is "the grotesque unconnection between the human being and the tran- scendental; the incommen- surability of the divine." W. H. Auden com- mented, "Had one to name the author who comes nearest to bearing the same kind of relation to our age as Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe bore to theirs, Kafka is the first one would think of." In Kafka's letters to Milena (hers were Tapper's rire b A , a b Imaleimmw lamosimas L■to EIKO _SPORT-TECH _ Drawing to be held at this location on December 23, 1983. One prize at each location. Participant need not be present to win. • No purchase necessary to enter. Void where prohibited by law. Come in for a demonstration and ENTER The FREE Seiko TV Watch Sweepstakes. You can win the World's first TV Watch with adapter (Sugg. Ret. $510.) — the smallest portable going — right at our location. Come in and see this amazing marvel and all the Seiko high technology watches in a special display. Seiko leaps into the future with the Sport .Tech collection. A touch of the future is yours today. Don't miss it! SEIKO AUTHORIZED DEALER 26400 West Twelve Mile Road in Southfield's Racquetime Mall Northeast corner of 12 Mile & Northwestern Hwy 357-5578 Tapper's JeAAJtbut-' MON.-SAT. 10:00-5:45 CASH REFUNDS THURSDAYS 10:00-8:45 FREE GIFT WRAPPING self with it and 'live in the right.' Kakfa took this for the theme of his works, works that in every sen- tence bear witness to a humorously, fantasti- cally despairing good- will. They express the sol- itude, the aloneness of the artist — and of the Jew . . ." THOMAS MANN - presumably destroyed) we get another insight into his enigmatic personality. Kafka's earlier works were translated into Czech by Milena. Kafka was 14 years her senior. He had a fiance; she was married. Their pas- sion flamed high in the be- ginning. Charles Neider notes how Kafka, lived in constant fear, writing to Milena, "My nature is: fear." The word "fear" in the original is "angst," which was widely used by Freud and his fol- lowers. Neider concludes that Kafka defended his fear, although it constituted his agony; it was his badge of courage to live with it and despite it, as he lived with his tuberculosis. Kafka's novel, "The Trial," was dramatized by Andre Gide and Jean-Louis Barrault as "Le Proces" produced by Anta. Barrault is indicated as portraying Joseph K as if he were Ham- let, a man who spends his evening trying to find outof what he is guilty (original sin?) and by whom he is ac- cused (God?). - Despite all his inquiry, he ends up being done away with "comme un chien" with no further understanding of the na- ture of the identity or the motives of his executioners. He demon- strates the absurdity of modern society where, as he puts it, "My passport is right, but there's always something about it that's not correct." He places himself in 'the center of a crowd of "dybbuk"-like characters. Kafka described his work as "a new secret doctrine, a Kabala." Thomas Mann characterizes Kafka as a religious humorist. He notes that Kafka's favorite quotation from Flaubert was "Ils sont dans le vrai," and that "D'etre dans le vrai" — to live in the true and the right — meant to Kafka to be near to God, to live in God, to live aright and after God's will, and he felt very remote from this security in God and the will of God. Mann concludes that Kafka's works, born of his dreams "prove that he was no unbeliever, but in some involved fashion of his own had faith in the good and the right, and the discrepancy between God and man, the incapacity of man to recog- nize the good, to unite him- Dr. Joseph Cohen notes, regarding Kafka's relation- ship with his father Her- mann, "The contempt of father for son was an albat- ross from which Kafka could never disengage him---- self. The father's word was absolute law, and any transgression was severely punished . . . though he (Kafka's father) was a German-Jewish Czech, he sneered openly at Jews, Germans and Czechs, hold: ing Eastern European Jews in particular scorn. "His persistent bullying of Kafka precluded the pos- sibility of a normal child- hood or adult life, negating the prospect of marriage- and family since the writer would always be locked into JOHN UPDIKE a child's servitude. Kafka thus grew up in agonzing fear of his father and while he, too, was a German Jewish Czech, Bar Mitzvaed at 13, he could claim no allegiance with Jews, Ger-, mans or Czechs. . . . Kafka may never have mentioned Jews (in his works) . . . but his works could hardly have been more Jewish than if he had written them in He- brew." Philip Rahv proclaims that today Kafka's name is firmly linked in the literary mind to such names as Joyce, Proust, Yeats, Rilke and Elliot, "the sacred untoucha- bles." Rahv states that= Kafka's concern was with the ultimate - structure of human resis- tance and that he asked the supreme question: was war wirklich im all (what was real in the world)? Rahv continues, "Kafka is the easiest writer in the world to read so long as one is content to understand his words and sentences and paragraphs without under- standing his meaning:" Kafka is to be reread through a period of years. Gourmant said that every great writer is always in the process of becoming, even after his death. We are never done with him; his fate develops through gen- erations."