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Franz Kafka: Representative Man: Prague, Germans, Jews, and the Crisis of Modernism
Depicts the life of the distinguished Austrian author, Franz Kafka, examines his personality, and traces the development of his literary career
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
810 pages, Hardcover
First published November 12, 1991
About the author
Frederick R. Karl
59 books7 followersAlong with his biographies, Frederick Karl wrote several volumes of literary criticism, among them American Fictions: 1940-1980. He also was general editor and volume co-editor of the Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad, five volumes of which have appeared. He taught at City College of New York, Columbia, and NYU. Karl died in 2004.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 9, 2017
a trial of patience
In the real estate business, they say that everything is "location, location, location". For myself, when it comes to books, I would say everything is "editing, editing, editing". Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was certainly one of the most interesting writers of the 20th century. Born in Austria-Hungary, he died in Czechoslovakia without leaving Prague, his home city. Perhaps, as Dr. Karl suggests, his life and work sum up the modernist movement and all its influences on literature, philosophy, art, music, architecture, and life itself. Influenced by friends and by my own readings, I visited Kafka's grave when in Prague some years ago. I never idolized him , but I was interested. So, it was with considerable anticipation that I opened the present work to begin delving deeper into this iconic figure's life. I can't say that I was very satisfied.
This is a book of ideas. That is excellent, that is what you want when reading about literary figures. I learned a lot about Prague, the intellectual circles, the Jewish community, Modernist movement, and conditions in the city. I found many interesting connections between these things and Kafka. I have to say that Karl must have done an incredible amount of research---his knowledge of all the various figures, movements, and currents of thought is vast and thorough. BUT, this is also a book of words, words flowing non-stop like a great river. You can be swept away or even drowned. If I were an editor, I would have cut this book by several hundred pages and asked the author to focus more specifically on his main points. I would have asked him to arrange the ideas and points so that we read them once and not several times. I would have asked him not to repeat entire phrases over and over. And I would have asked him to consider whether every detail here presented was actually necessary. The prose is rather more turgid than light, you feel as though you are wading through sludge, rather than floating or swimming easily through the waters of exposition. It is a long slog, folks.
About psychoanalysis. I agree that the task of a biographer is to get inside the head of the subject. But how many leaps can we make ? Perhaps I am wrong, but analysis from letters and written material may be useful, but not conclusive. The author has to draw conclusions on his own, based on his knowledge of human nature or his ideas about it. I wondered if all the sexual and psychological conclusions about Kafka reached by the author really hold water or do they reflect his own take on life? It is hard to absorb the detail of the famous man's life--which I wanted---thanks to the huge amount of psychoanalysis. He concludes that "Kafka is a man of perpetual paradox", he points out that Kafka was alienated, anxious, uncertain. His writing fed on these things and justified his untenable position in society. The Kafka diaries were a kind of self-analysis, which can be in turn analyzed by biographers. My comment is that I think Karl went beyond what could reasonably be expected and reached conclusions that may be interesting, but not sustainable. Kafka, as Karl points out, "came very close to transforming the human unconscious into literature". Karl tried to transform Kafka's work, if you will, into a broader psychoanalysis, and I have my doubts. If Kafka saw himself as a victim on the altar of literature, I felt myself a victim of too long and ambitious an analysis.
Conclusion: for great fans of Kafka and those who want total immersion, this will be a five star book despite my caveats above. For the rest who are reading this, perhaps you should look elsewhere
In the real estate business, they say that everything is "location, location, location". For myself, when it comes to books, I would say everything is "editing, editing, editing". Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was certainly one of the most interesting writers of the 20th century. Born in Austria-Hungary, he died in Czechoslovakia without leaving Prague, his home city. Perhaps, as Dr. Karl suggests, his life and work sum up the modernist movement and all its influences on literature, philosophy, art, music, architecture, and life itself. Influenced by friends and by my own readings, I visited Kafka's grave when in Prague some years ago. I never idolized him , but I was interested. So, it was with considerable anticipation that I opened the present work to begin delving deeper into this iconic figure's life. I can't say that I was very satisfied.
This is a book of ideas. That is excellent, that is what you want when reading about literary figures. I learned a lot about Prague, the intellectual circles, the Jewish community, Modernist movement, and conditions in the city. I found many interesting connections between these things and Kafka. I have to say that Karl must have done an incredible amount of research---his knowledge of all the various figures, movements, and currents of thought is vast and thorough. BUT, this is also a book of words, words flowing non-stop like a great river. You can be swept away or even drowned. If I were an editor, I would have cut this book by several hundred pages and asked the author to focus more specifically on his main points. I would have asked him to arrange the ideas and points so that we read them once and not several times. I would have asked him not to repeat entire phrases over and over. And I would have asked him to consider whether every detail here presented was actually necessary. The prose is rather more turgid than light, you feel as though you are wading through sludge, rather than floating or swimming easily through the waters of exposition. It is a long slog, folks.
About psychoanalysis. I agree that the task of a biographer is to get inside the head of the subject. But how many leaps can we make ? Perhaps I am wrong, but analysis from letters and written material may be useful, but not conclusive. The author has to draw conclusions on his own, based on his knowledge of human nature or his ideas about it. I wondered if all the sexual and psychological conclusions about Kafka reached by the author really hold water or do they reflect his own take on life? It is hard to absorb the detail of the famous man's life--which I wanted---thanks to the huge amount of psychoanalysis. He concludes that "Kafka is a man of perpetual paradox", he points out that Kafka was alienated, anxious, uncertain. His writing fed on these things and justified his untenable position in society. The Kafka diaries were a kind of self-analysis, which can be in turn analyzed by biographers. My comment is that I think Karl went beyond what could reasonably be expected and reached conclusions that may be interesting, but not sustainable. Kafka, as Karl points out, "came very close to transforming the human unconscious into literature". Karl tried to transform Kafka's work, if you will, into a broader psychoanalysis, and I have my doubts. If Kafka saw himself as a victim on the altar of literature, I felt myself a victim of too long and ambitious an analysis.
Conclusion: for great fans of Kafka and those who want total immersion, this will be a five star book despite my caveats above. For the rest who are reading this, perhaps you should look elsewhere
April 21, 2008
One of Karl's habits that I dislike is his need to turn the subjects of his books into essences. Such as George Eliot: The voice of a Century. How can a century have a voice anyway? And if it could, there would certainly be more than one, if one considers Asians, indigenous persons, African-Americans of this or any other century. And again, Kafka represented no one but himself. This isn't to say that he wasn't influenced and didn't influence, etc., but it's entirely unnecessary and, in fact, quite distracting to plow through all the extraneous material that sets up nothing so much as a pointless argument. But if you can get past all that (just flip the pages), you'll find a wonderful biography of Kafka. I prefer Stach, I suppose, because he's just willing to let Kafka be Kafka, which is quite sufficient.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews