In spite of this literary output, Kafka maintained his position in Prague until the end of 1917, when he found that he had tuberculosis. One of Kafka's most frightening stories is the novella In der Strafkolonie (In the Penal Colony), written in 1914. By means of an unerhörte Begebenheit (outrageous event), Kafka creates for his reader a world of psychotic delusion which his narrative art preserves as a reality in its own right. The year 1913 saw the publication of Kafka's best-known story about the man degraded to an animal, Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis).
Kafka's next work, completed in May 1913, was the story Der Heizer (The Stoker), later incorporated in his fragmentary novel Amerika and awarded in 1915 the Fontane Prize, his first public recognition. In this story Kafka successfully blends the disparate aspects of his writing - fantasy, realism, speculation, and psychological insight - into a new unity. The judgment is passed by a bedridden, authoritarian father on his conscientious but guilt-haunted son, who obediently commits suicide. The story contains all the elements normally associated with Kafka's world, the most disorderly universe ever presented by a major artist. In September 1912 Kafka composed in a single sitting, on the night of September 22/23, the story Das Urteil (The Verdict), dedicated to his future fiancée, Felice, and published the following year in Brod's annual, Arcadia. B.," that is, Max Brod, who had been his closest friend since their first meeting as university students in 1902. Preoccupied with problems of reality and appearance, they reveal his objective realism based on urban middle-class life. These sketches are polished, light impressions based on observation of life in and around Prague. Kafka's first collection of stories was published in 1913 under the title Betrachtung (Contemplation). In 1909 these two pieces were published by Franz Blei in his journal, Hyperion. Here he came to know the suffering of the underprivileged workmen and wrote his first published work, "Conversation with a Beggar" and "Conversation with a Drunkard," two sections from Die Beschreibung eines Kampfes (Description of a Struggle). In early 1908 he joined the staff of the Workmen's Compensation Division of the Austrian government, in a semi-governmental post which he held until his retirement for reasons of ill health in July 1922.
I write differently from what I speak, I speak differently from what I think, I think differently from the way I ought to think, and so it all proceeds into deepest darkness.In October 1906 Kafka started to practice at the criminal court and later at the civil court in Prague, while serving as an interne in the office of an attorney in order to gain some practical experience. I’m tired, can’t think of anything and want only to lay my face in your lap, feel your hand on my head and remain like that through all eternity. It’s only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves. They’re talking about things of which they don’t have the slightest understanding, anyway. Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable. There is an infinite amount of hope in the universe … but not for us.īetter to have, and not need, than to need, and not have. There are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: impatience and laziness.ĭo not waste your time looking for an obstacle – maybe there is none. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. I can love only what I can place so high above me that I cannot reach it. I usually solve problems by letting them devour me.Īssociation with human beings lures one into self-observation. He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.īy believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. Don’t bend don’t water it down don’t try to make it logical don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion.
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