He’s, hands down, my favorite author, and I have the privilege to be able to read his wonderful prose in the native language. I just happened to think about the fact that most of my favorite artists are deeply spiritual and/or religious, though I myself am a die-hard materialist. So I asked myself “What about Kafka?”. I’ve read much of his works, all his novels and most novellas and short stories, some letters too. I’ve only missed his diaries and other more obscure publications. It’s been a while since I’ve read Kafka, but I can’t remember any allusions or motives of a spiritual or religious sort. Maybe I’m wrong, but at least religion seems not to be an important interest in his oeuvre, though he’s otherwise deeply concerned with human struggles and psychology. I’m planning to read the three-volume biography by Reiner Stach, but right now I don’t know much about Kafka’s attitude towards religion. I’m hoping that Kafka’s popular enough on this board to get an opinion, so please help me out.
I’m giving this one bump, though I don’t have much hope for an answer since Kafka seems not to be as popular in the anglosphere as I was hoping. Anyway, since starting the thread, I’ve started to read the first volume of the above mentioned biography by Reiner Stach about Kafka’s childhood and adolescence. I’m only about 20 % in, but it turns out to be a fascinating read which also paints a very lively and interesting picture of the multi-national/cultural society that was Prague at the turn from the 19th to the 20th century. I’ve already learned a lot about his parents’ families, but nothing so far was said about their or Kafka’s own stand on religious matters. Given the fact that this biography contains over 2000 pages in three volumes, I expect to learn about that later, but it’ll take some time. So if anybody has any insights, please share them.
Section here: Franz Kafka - Wikipedia
It addresses the conspicuous dearth of references in his work to religion.
He’s pretty popular in English, though most people just know the Metamorphosis I think.
Thanks. I’m always embarrassed when I have a question here and some of it could have been answered by going to wiki, but I tend to forget how detailed some entries are. Well anyway, this gives some hints to his religiosity and his stance on zionism, but not much about spiritual matters. At least it reveals that he self-identified as an atheist in his adolescence (which doesn’t surprise me), though it’s not stated if that prevailed for all his life.
That’s a real pity, all of his three novels (every one of them fragmentary, but nonetheless satisfying reads) are monumental, as well as many of his other shorter pieces. Though it’s his least famous novel, “Amerika” should be of special interest here: though he never traveled far before relatively late in his life, and only in the nearer West European neighborhood, he paints a very interesting (and often very funny) picture of the struggles of a young European immigrant to the US in the early 20th century. I don’t know yet (I hope to learn about it in the bio I’m reading) what he really knew about America, but I’d love to hear from an American how authentic his view was. As little as I know about that time and place, I found it quite coherent.
And one more important point: I like Kafka for his themes, motives and his striking modernness, but most of all I love him for his beautiful, economic and effective use of language. Since I haven’t read translations, I don’t know how this is transferred to English translations. I remember having read two different translations of the famous first sentence of his “Die Verwandlung” (“The metamorphosis”) who were quoted here at this board, and one was rather atrocious and the other very good, so I guess it varies.
I should say, lots of people know the Trial/der Process and such, and I’ve read a few of his things, but in layman’s terms he’s “the cockroach guy,” though IIRC he never specifies what Samsa turns into.
Do you remember the distinction?
Ok, I see, but that could be said about German layman’s terms as well. Kafka has never really been in the mainstream here as well.
I’ve found my post in that old thread I was thinking about with both translations and the German original. I stand by my old impression that the second captures the original much better than the other. The first one is clumsy and simply false, because it is never stated in the original story that Gregor Samsa transforms into a cockroach, but just into an ambiguous “ungeheueren Ungeziefer” or a “monstrous vermin”, as I would put it, or “gigantic insect”, as in the second translation.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11744772&postcount=48
ETA: I’ll quote both translations here again:
[Quote=bad translation]
Gregor Samsa slept fitfully, and when he awoke, he found that he had transformed into a gigantic cockroach.
[/Quote]
[Quote= better translation]
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
[/Quote]
I remember one of my professors talking about the inversion of Christian symbolism in Metamorphosis, with Gregor taking on insect form being the inverse of Christ taking on human form, and Gregor “sacrificing” himself for love of his family, thinking of them as he dies, dying at 3 AM while Christ died at 3 PM.
Also you must have read Kafka’s Letter to My Father / Brief An Den Vater which explores his conflicted religious upbringing?
"when it seemed to you that I was taking more interest in Jewish matters. As you have in advance an aversion to every one of my activities and especially to the nature of my interest, so you have had it here too. But in spite of this, one could have expected that in this case you would make a little exception. It was, after all, Judaism of your Judaism that was coming to life here, and with it also the possibility of entering into a new relationship between us. I do not deny that, had you shown interest in them, these things might, for that very reason, have become suspect in my eyes. I do not even dream of asserting that I am in this respect any better than you are. But it never came to the test. Through my intervention Judaism became abhorrent to you, Jewish writings unreadable; they “nauseated” you.—This may have meant you insisted that only that Judaism which you had shown me in my childhood was the right one, and beyond it there was nothing. Yet that you should insist on it was really hardly thinkable. But then the “nausea” (apart from the fact that it was directed primarily not against Judaism but against me personally) could only mean that unconsciously you did acknowledge the weakness of your Judaism and of my Jewish upbringing, did not wish to be reminded of it in any way, and reacted to any reminder with frank hatred. Incidentally, your negative high esteem of my new Judaism was much exaggerated; first of all, it bore your curse within it, and secondly in its development the fundamental relationship to one’s fellow men was decisive, in my case that is to say fatal. "
Kafka was raised, as per his Letter to his Father and the post above, nominally Jewish, or at least aware of his Judaism, although in his youth he pretty much rejected that, and didn’t self identify as Jewish either religiously or culturally. This changed around 1910, when he was introduced to the Yiddish theater in Prague, and in 1911, he became a frequent visitor to a Yiddish theater group from Lwov that performed in the Cafe Savoy in Prague.
Over the next few years, he became involved in the Zionist movement and tried to teach himself Hebrew, something he failed utterly at. But, partly through Max Brod, although more from Ahron Gordon, as well as others, he got more and more involved with the Zionist movement, and talked a lot about being a farmer in Palestine, but ultimately decided against it.
Then in 1923, he was a spa in in Graal-Müritz run by the Berlin Jewish People’s Home Vacation Camp, where he met Dora Diamant, who was volunteering at the camp. Diamant was the daughter of Hasidic Jews from Poland, who had run away from home and went to Berlin, where she became a teacher and got involved in Berlin’s Jewish communities. She became his lover, they moved in together, and she taught him Hebrew. He kept talking about moving to Palestine and opening a restaurant, but of course, none of that happened, and he died a year later.
I think you definitely find Jewish themes in his work, and the Jewish European experience, especially dealing with questions of belonging and identity; am I a Jew? Am I a German? Am I an Austrian? Am I all of those things? And what do people see me as in comparison to the way I see myself. For instance, Kafka never finished “The Castle”, but in the ending he had planned, the protagonist, on his deathbed, would have gotten a letter from the castle saying that his application to be a citizen of the village was denied, but because of special circumstances, he would be given permission to live and work there. In some ways, this sort of reflects the historical Jewish experience in Europe, as not fully citizens, but residents who had special permission to live and work in a place at the whim of the government.
Or, if you look at The Metamorphosis, the main character sees himself as human, but to the outside world, he’s just a horrid piece of vermin, and that destroys him. If you look at anti-Semitic writings from the period, the idea of “the Jew as vermin” comes up again and again.
Thanks for the replies. Yes, of course I’ve read the letter to his father, but that was years ago and I didn’t remember his remarks concerning his and his family’s Judaism. Captain Amazing’s explanations about Kafka’s later interest for his cultural heritage and in zionism are also very enlightening; I’m sure the biography I’m reading will later cover this aspect. Incidentally, one chapter of the biography I just read yesterday deals with that; it describes that although Kafka was brought up aware of his Jewishness (how could it have been otherwise in a Jewish family in Prague at the time), the family was not very observant: they didn’t keep kosher, didn’t observe the Sabbath rest because of business obligations, only rarely visited the synagogue and so on. The public announcement of Franz’ bar mizwa by his father even used the word “confirmation” instead. He was taught in Bible studies throughout his time at grammar school (Gymnasium), but he is quoted about these studies:
[Quote=Franz Kafka]
Die Geschichte der Juden bekommt so das Gesicht des Märchens, das der Mensch später mit seiner Kindheit in den Schlund des Vergessens wirft.
[my translation]
The history of the Jews takes on the image of the fairy tale this way which one later throws into the gorge of oblivion together with one’s childhood.
[/Quote]
So all in all, the young Kafka’s religiosity doesn’t seem to be very pronounced. What I’m especially interested in is if he ever believed in a personal god and his stance on spiritual matters, and judging so far there doesn’t seem to much of that in his personality, if ever.