CONVERSATIONS WITH KAFKA

by Gustav Janouch ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 10, 1971

These conversations between Janouch, then a youth, and Franz Kafka, then sad and sick, took place in Prague in the early '20's in Kafka's bare office at the Workmen's Accident Insurance Institution and sometimes in the streets and squares of the city itself where they walked endlessly. There is a slight plot too -- how the boy, found scribbling poetry by his father, a colleague of Kafka's, was introduced to the author and how a friendship developed. They talked largely about books (Kafka criticized Janouch's first pieces) and language, health and sickness, revolution, living in the machine age, Jewishness/Zionism, Charlie Chaplin and, near the end, apropos of Janouch's first romance, about love and women. Janouch prodded Kafka in Boswellian fashion to open his mind and went home at night to write it all down. For instance when Kafka was\failing and about to leave for the sanatorium, the boy said: ""Look, everything will be all right."" Kafka replied: ""It is already all right. I have said yes to everything. In that way suffering becomes an enchantment, and death -- it is only an ingredient in the sweetness of life."" This book has had its adventures too. By sad mishap, an edition published in 1953 was far from complete; now the missing portions have turned up and are included here. The translation by Goronwy Rees is fluent and the occasional stiffness in the text is probably due to Janouch's youthful attempt to be stylish. Revealing, sad, and engaging brief encounters.

Pub Date: Nov. 10, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: New Directions

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1971

Categories: NONFICTION