The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head: Franz Kafka: A Biographical Essay

The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head: Franz Kafka: A Biographical Essay | Louis Begley | The Frozen Sea

books:

The Tremendous Wor...

	The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head: Franz Kafka: A Biographical Essay Louis Begley Atlas & Co., 2008 - 208 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

A new biography of Western literature's most iconic writer, from the acclaimed novelist and author of About Schmidt.

Kafkaesque: the very word evokes tortuous bureaucracy, crushing self-doubt, and an almost unbearable inadequacy in the face of higher powers. After Kafka, it can be said, literature was not the same. In the few novels and short stories he left behind, he distilled the horrors of the new age. Kafka's is the voice of the outsider?that is, the voice of each one of us?at once defined by its affiliations and completely, utterly alone.

The product of both a transitional age (the beginning of the 20th century) and a territory in flux (Czechoslovakia), Kafka spoke and wrote German in Czech territory. He was a Jew among Christians, a non-observant Jew among believers. Louis Begley, himself a multilingual exile and, like Kafka, a lawyer and writer, renders Kafka's life with sensitivity and insight. Begley's discussion of Kafka's masterpiece The Trial, along with shorter works such as "The Metamorphosis," opens a window on a tormented soul, one of the most intriguing figures of the modern period.

for more information click here

The bearable lightness of being (and reading) Kafka

Thanks largely to Max Brod and scores of subsequent literary commentators who read Franz Kafka through Beckettesque lenses, the image of Kafka most of us grew up with is of a tortured, self-loathing, desperately unhappy and hopelessly ill prophet who'd looked into the abyss, recognized the futility of existence and the absence of God, and tried to write about it in allegorical tales in which he's usually the thinly disguised protagonist. Given this settled picture of who Kafka is and what he's all about, plowing through one of his books can be a pretty grim task, unbearably heavy, dark, gloomy.

The virtue of Louis Begley's The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head is that he helps us take a fresh look at the author whom the "Kafkaesque" school of interpreters has almost ruined for many of us. Relying heavily on Kafka's own words in his journals and letters, Begley invites us to re-think Kafka. In the first place, he allows us to see that Kafka's personal life wasn't the ubiquitously dark and tragic closet thing it's commonly thought to be. Kafka was as capable of laughter, frivolity, calm, and immersion in the quotidian as the rest of us. He was well-known rather than reclusive during his lifetime, and entered with gusto into the wrangles and feuds typical of the literati. (Kafka tells us, for example, that he hates fellow author Franz Werfel because of his wealth, health, and youth.)

Second, Begley argues that there's an "intrinsic and unshakable humanism" in Kafka's work that is frequently overlooked by commentators and readers who've been trained to see his work as exclusively allegorical, darkly religious (or perhaps anti-religious), and politically prophetic. This doesn't mean that the dark side isn't in Kafka. It obviously is. It's just to say that it ought not be the one standard by which we read and judge his work.

Finally, Begley worries that these ideological readings of Kafka disregard in an almost total way the very thing that Kafka most wanted to be known for: the aesthetic value of his work. Kafka was a craftsman of the highest order who would labor mightily--some might say obsessively--over single sentences and paragraphs. He had a message he wanted to convey, naturally. But he also wanted to chisel beautiful word sculptures.

After reading Begley's book, I had two responses. First, I realized, with a great sense of relief and liberation, just how Brodbeaten I've been for years, and how Brod's gloomy interpretations of Kafka have diminished rather than enhanced my ability to appreciate Kafka--so much so, to be honest, that it's been years since I've even tried to read him. Second, Begley's book prompted me walk over to my bookshelf, take down The Trial, blow the dust off it, and begin anew.

What more could one ask from a book about Kafka?

for more information click here

The Frozen Sea

An extended essay that will be enjoyed by all who may be interested in the great writer Franz Kafka. Louis Begley, an intelligent and wise author, has produced a clear, concise review of the life and literary works of the man whose books provide an axe "for the frozen sea inside us."

Pleasing Kafka Biography

"All I possess are certain powers which, at a depth almost inaccessible under normal conditions, shape themselves into Literature." I think this Kafka quote tells much about where his work comes from. I can understand how Mr. Begley, who worked as an attorney in NYC while also being a writer, would be fascinated by Franz Kafka, who worked as an attorney in Prague while also being a writer. I also believe both had Eastern European Jewish roots. I think when one writer can closely identify with another writer enough to write a biography, it is a start for a good one. I enjoyed this book, but perhaps that's because Kafka's life is one with which I can also identify. If Kafka's life is something that is of interest to you, but I don't know why it would be unless you are a writer, realized or not, who can identify with him, or if you're the kind of person who lives inside your head.
http://gaylealstrom.com

for more information click here

KAFKA: HIS WORKS, HIS LIFE, HIS TIME

FOR THOSE IN NEED OF A SHORT BUT EXPERT REVIEW OF KAFKA, HIS WORKS, HIS LIFE AND HIS TIMES, THIS BOOK FILLS THE BILL NICELY. EACH OF HIS WRITINGS ARE SUMMARIZED AND THEN RELATED TO HIS LIFE. THOSE THAT WERE NOT COMPLETED, OR POLISHED TO AN END BY OTHERS, ARE IDENTIFIED. A CHRONOLOGICAL EXPLORATION OF HIS LIFE IS PRESENTED IN DETAIL. HIS FANTASY AND EMOTIONAL LIFE IS WELL PRESENTED, INCLUDING HIS DESCRIPTION OF HIS WRITING AS AN OVERFLOW OF FANTASY PUSHING HIIS CREATIVITY. HIS MEDICAL AND PSYCHIATRIC HISTORY [TUBERCULOSIS: FROM WHICH HE DIED AND MENTAL ILLNESS: WHICH SURFACED AS NERVOUS BREAKDOWNS ON 1/27/1922 AND END OF AUGUST 1922] ARE WELL DESCRIBED FROM A LAY ORIENTATION.

for more information click here

products you might be interested in