a Friday, October 28, 1983

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Franz Kafka's Stories Re-Issued for His Centennial

By ARTHUR SLOAN

(Editor's note: Sloan,
the reviewer and author
of thiS highly-scholarly
essay on Kafka, is a na-
tive Detroiter. A Univer-
sity of Michigan
graduate, he first studied
geology and later ac-
quired authoritative
status in patent law. He
is presently practicing
law in Dallas and is a
member of the law fa-
culty of the University of
Texas. He is the son of
Mrs. Alan (Bertha) Sloan
of Southfield).
_
Before I opened "Franz
Kafka, the complete
stories" (Schocken), edited
by Nahum N: Glatzer, I
looked forward to some-
thing new, but although I
was happy to find some old
friends such as "The Judg-
ment," "The Metamor-
phosis," "In the Penal Col-
ony," "A Cotintry Doctor,"
"The Hunter Gracchus," "A
Report to an Academy," "A
Hunger Artist," "The Bur-
row," "Blumfeld, an Elderly
Bachelor," "Jackals and
Arabs," "Before the Law,"
"Josephine the Singer, or
the Mouse Folk," and "On
Parables," all of which are
among my favorites, upon
opening this handsomely
bound and printed volume, I
found a collection of prev-
iously published pieces.
There is a new foreword-
by John Updike, the illus-
trious novelist, who is mak-
ing a remarkable entry into
the field of literary criticism
this year. Updike's fore-
ward is interesting and well
written, but it failed to give
me any new insights into
the meaning of Kafka's
works which we students of
Kafka are perpetually seek-
ing.
There is also a succinct
postscript by editor Glatzer
in which Albert Camus, the
Jewish pied noir and Nobel
Laureate, is quoted- as say-
ing, "The whole of Kafka's
art consists in compelling
the reader to re-read him."
Schocken Books, the
publisher, should be
commended for this
--------

NAHUM GLATZER

ARTHUR SLOAN

"centennial edition"
commemorating the
100th anniversary of
Kafka's birth because
they have given us an-
other opportunity to read
and re-read a large seg-
ment of Kafka's extant
works.

An interesting sidelight
is that this book also marks
the 50th anniversary of the
acquisition of Kafka's com-
plete works by Salman
Schocken, a publisher in
Berlin in 1933, who was
chosen by Max Brod, Kaf-
ka's literary executor, and
Julie Lowy Kafka, Kafka's
mother, because among
other possible _ reasons, no
non-Jewish German pub-
lisher could print the works
of a Jew.

The book concludes with a
bibliography, a list of
editors and translators,
notes on the materials in-
cluded in this volume, a
chronology and a compila-
tion of references to selected
writings on Kafka, all of
which will be helpful to the
Kafka scholar.
This book purports to con-
tain all of Kafka's narrative
work with the exception of
"Amerika," "The Castle"
(Das Schloss) and "The
Trial" (Der Prozess), Kaf-
ka's unfinished novels. Also
omitted are the two
dialogues, "Gesprach Mit
Dem Betrunkenen" and
"Gesprach Mit Dem Beter,"
several pieces included in
"The Penal Colony" (pub-
ilished by Schocken in 1948),
"The First Long Train
Journey" (written with Max
Brod), "The Aeroplanes at
Brescia" and "Three Criti-
cal Pieces," as well as
"Paradise," "The Tower of
Babel," "Abraham," "The
Building of the Temple,"
"The Coming of the Mes-
siah," "The Sirens," "Ale-
xander the Great," "The
New Attorney," "The In-
vention of the Devil,"
"Couriers" and "Robinson
Crusoe" which were pub-
lished by Schocken in the
1947 bilingual edition of
"Parables," mistakenly

omitted from the bibliog-
raphy.
Perhaps the word
"complete" should have
been omitted from the
title of this book. My 1952
Modern Library edition
of Kafka's "Selected
Short Stories," with an
excellent introduction by
Philip Rahv, is also omit-
ted from the bibliog-
raphy. "The Bucket
Rider" is noted as pub-
lished only after Kafka's
lifetime in the table of
contents, but this is in-
correct because the
story, which has its
background in the
Prague coal famine of the
winter of 1916-1917, was
. published in the Prager
Pre,sse in December 1921,
and Kafka did not die
until 1924.
There has been an effu-
sion of articles about Kafka
in recent years including
the interesting article by
Dr. Joseph Cohen in The
Jewish News March 4,
1983, but in honor of the
centennial it seems in order,
even if a little redundant, to
repeat some of Kafka's his-
tory and comments that
have been made about his
works.
Kafka was born in Prague
of a Gerhian - Jewish -
Bohemian family. His
father, Hermann, son of a
butcher, was a successful
fancy goods wholesaler who
prided himself on his as-
similation. Hermann, who
was physically big, domi-
nated the family. The Kafka
family lived between the
ghetto and the Altstadt or
Old City at the time Franz
was born. Although I al-
ways surmised from the
bust photographs of Kafka
that he was short, taking
after his father he grew to
almost six feet tall.

Kafka's mother, Julie
Lowy, came from an Or-
thodox Jewish family. Her
three daughterq, Elli, Valli
and Ottla, all perhished in
Nazi concentration camps
in 1942. In addition to Franz
she had two younger sons
who died in infancy.
From 1901-1906 Kafka
studied German litera-
ture and then law at
German University in
Prague where he earned
a Juris Doctor degree.
His early writings (1899-
1903), including a novel,
"The Child and the City,"
were destroyed. During
1905-1906 Kafka met Max
Brod and had a love af-
fair with an unnamed
woman. In 1906 he
worked in the law office
of Richard Lowy in
Prague and pursued a
one-year internship in
the law courts.

In 1907 he worked for an
Italian insurance company,
"Assicurazioni Generali."
In 1908 he assumed a posi-
tion at the semi-govern-
mental "Workmen's Acci-
dent Insurance Institute"
where he specialized in fac-
tory safety and was em-
ployed until retirement in
1922 as Obersekretar, or
head of department.
In 1911-1912 He 'de-
veloped a friendship with
Yiddish actor Isak Lowy
and studied Jewish folklore.
During 1911-1914 he
worked on the novel
"Amerika," a delightful
picaresque novel reminis-
cent of Fielding's "Joseph
Andrews" and "Tom Jones"
and Smollett's "Roderick
Random" and "Humphry
Clinker," a true comic epic
in prose.
He also made his first
studies of Judaism, reading
Graetz and Pines' "History
of the Jews," and gave a lec-
ture on the Yiddish lan-
guage. He met Felice Bauer
of Berlin, to whom he later
became engaged, but sub-
sequently broke the
engagement, became
engaged again, and then
broke the second engage-
ment.
At this time he also had
affairs with a Swiss girl and
Grete Bloch, a friend of
Felice Bauer, by whom he
had a son he never knew.
Kafka's son died in Munich
before reaching age seven.
In 1915, Kafka won the
Fontane Prize for "The
Stoker," the first chapter
of- the novel "Amerika,"
and he moved from his
parent's home into rent-

MAX BROD

ed rooms. In 1917 he
started studying Hebrew
and was diagnosed as
having tuberculosis.
In 1918, he read Kier-
kegaard, who strongly
influenced him and met
Julie Wohryzek, daughter
of a synagogue custodian, to
whom he became engaged,
subsequently breaking the
engagement. In 1920 he met
Gustav Janouch, a young
Czech considered by some to
be Kafka's Boswell, and
Milena Jesenska-Polla, a
Czech writer who taught
Kafka Czech. In 1921-1922
he lived with Milena, a
married gentile lady, and
gave her his diaries.
In 1923 he attended lec-
tures in Jewish studies at
the Berlin Academy and
met Dora Dymant with
whom he lived in 1923-
1924. He dreamed of mov-

FRANZ KAFKA

ing to Israel with Dora of social usage and religious
Dymant, a dream never to belief, must record every
be fulfilled since he died of touch as pain." Updike con-
tuberculosis in a cludes that "in Kafka's case
sanatorium in 1924 and was this dreadful quality is
buried in the Jewish cemet- mixed with immense ten-
ery in Prague-StrasChnitz.
derness, oddly good humor,
Today, young people are and a certain severe and
exposed to Kafka in high reassuring formality which
school and college literature makes him an artist." •
courses, and his works are
Gustav Janouch, on rais-
dissected and analyzed and ing the possibility that Kaf-
interpreted from a plethora ka's work was a mirror of
of viewpoints — theological, tomorrow, was answered by
psychological, philoshopi- Kafka, "You are right. You
cal, existential, futuristic, are certainly right. Prob-
philological and occasion- ably that's why I can't finish
ally literary. Experts dis- anything. I am afraid of the
agree. I wonder what Kafka truth."
would say if he were resur-
Janouch further relates
rected?
that as he and Kafka were
As Ernst J. Wallberg said passing the old synagogue
in his review of Kafka and in Prague, Kafka an-
his works in the July 2, 1983 nounced that men "will try
issue of General - Anzeiger to grind the synagogue to
Bonn: "He (Kafka) is dust by destroying the Jews
claimed by Germans, Aust- themselves."
rians and Czechs, by Chris-
Updike notes that Kaf-
tians, atheists and Jews, by ka's shorter stories bear
ideologists in east and west an affinity with the para-
and by all his countless in- bles of Hasidism, as Dr..–
terpreters (all of whom feel Joseph Cohen notes that
their views are strictly ob- Kafka drew closer to
jective)."
Buber's Hasidism as he
Perhaps a review of some drew closer to Judaism,
of the more thoughtful and studying Talmud and
erudite views is the best Kabala,_ espousing the
way to conclude this cele- Yiddish theater, adopt-
bration of Kafka's centen- ing Zionism after a long
nial.
and frustrating struggle
Nahum N. Glatzer and mastering Hebrew.
states, "Since the in-
Kafka's "On Parables"
terpretations of Kafka
are many and the search gives a clue to the enigma of
for the meaning of his Kafka's works when it
stories seemingly end- states, "Many complain
less, the reader will re- that the words of the wise
turn to the story itself in are always merely parables
the hope of finding guid- and of no use in daily life,
ance from within. Thus a which is the only life we
second reading will, have . . . All these parables
hopefully, become a really set out to say merely
commentary on the first, that the incomprehensible
and subsequent readings is incomprehensible, and we
will, again hopefully, know that already. But the
shed light on the preced- cares we have to struggle
with every day: that is a
ing ones."
In his foreword to this different matter.
"Concerning this a man
book, which was originally
published in The New once said: `Why such reluc-
Yorker, John Updike tance? If you only followed
speaks of Kafka as the parables you yourselves
"epitomizing one aspect of 'would become parables and
the modern mind-set in- ."- with that rid of all your
cluding a sensitivity beyond daily cares.' Another said: 'I
usefulness, as if the nervous bet that is also a parable.'
system, flayed of its old hide
(Continued on Page 56)