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Kafka, the early years PDF

613 Pages·2017·24.815 MB·English
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KAFKA Kafka The Early Years Reiner Stach Translated by Shelley Frisch princeton university press Princeton and Oxford Originally published in Germany as Kafk a— Die frühen Jahre © S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main 2013 Translation copyright © 2017 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press.princeton.edu Jacket photograph courtesy of Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach Excerpt from “Going Under” reprinted by permission of Gerald Casale Excerpt from “Pieces and Parts” reprinted by permission of Laurie Anderson “Th e Sound of the Crowd” Words and Music by Phil Oakey and Ian Burden © 1981 BMG Dingsong Limited All Rights Administered by BMG Rights Management (US) LLC All Rights Reserved Used by Permission Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Stach, Reiner, author. | Frisch, Shelley Laura, translator. Title: Kafk a, the early years / Reiner Stach ; translated by Shelley Frisch. Other titles: Kafk a, die frühen Jahre. En glish Description: Prince ton : Prince ton University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifi ers: LCCN 2016021490 | ISBN 9780691151984 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Kafk a, Franz, 1883-1924— Childhood and youth. | Authors, Austrian—20th century— Biography. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary. | LITERARY CRITICISM / Eur o pean / Eastern (see also Rus sian & Former Soviet Union). | LITERARY CRITICISM / General. Classifi cation: LCC PT2621.A26 Z88413 2016 | DDC 833/.912— dc23 LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2016021490 British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available Th e translation of this work was funded by Geisteswissenschaft en International— Translation Funding for Humanities and Social Sciences from Germany, a joint initiative of the Fritz Th yssen Foundation, the German Federal Foreign Offi ce, the collecting society VG WORT and the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publishers & Booksellers Association) Th is book has been composed in Verdigris MVB Pro text with Mensch display Printed on acid- free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 CONTENTS Translator’s Preface ix chapter one Nothing Happening in Prague 1 chapter two Th e Curtain Rises 7 chapter three Giants: Th e Kafk as from Wosek 26 chapter four Julie Löwy 38 chapter five Losing Propositions 46 chapter six Th oughts about Freud 58 chapter seven Kafk a, Franz: Model Student 77 chapter eight A City Energized 90 chapter nine Elli, Valli, Ottla 113 chapter ten Latin, Bohemian, Mathematics, and Other Matters of the Heart 122 chapter eleven Jewish Lessons 150 chapter twelve Innocence and Impudence 171 vi chapter thirteen Th e Path to Freedom 184 chapter fourteen To Hell with German Studies 204 chapter fifteen Friend Max 222 chapter sixteen Enticements 236 chapter seventeen Informed Circles: Utitz, Weltsch, Fanta, Bergmann 248 chapter eighteen Autonomy and Recovery 268 chapter nineteen Th e Interior Landscape: “Description of a Struggle” 284 chapter twenty Doctor of Law Seeking Employment 302 chapter twenty- one Off to the Prostitutes 325 chapter twenty- two Cafés, Geishas, Art, and Cinema 335 chapter twenty- three Th e Formidable Assistant Offi cial 350 chapter twenty- four Th e Secret Writing School 370 chapter twenty- five Landing in Brescia 391 chapter twenty- six In the Heart of the West 407 chapter twenty- seven Ideas and Spirits: Buber, Steiner, Einstein 420 chapter twenty- eight vii Literature and Tourism 437 Acknowledgments 463 Key to Abbreviations 465 Notes 467 Bibliography 531 Photo Credits 549 Index 551 TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE It took reiner stach two decades of intense, wide- ranging research and writing to produce this monumental three- volume biog- raphy of Franz Kafk a. Readers in German- speaking countries were rewarded for their patience when this, the fi nal volume, Kafk a: Die frühen Jahre, was published by S. Fischer Verlag in 2014, as a capstone to a trilogy that fi rst saw publication with Kafk a: Die Jahre der Entsche- idungen (2002) and then Kafk a: Die Jahre der Erkenntnis (2008). Th e 2002 tome appeared in English as Kafk a: Th e Decisive Years in 2005 and was followed by the translation of the 2008 work as Kafk a: Th e Years of Insight in 2013. And now, with the publication of Kafk a: Th e Early Years, English- language readers have access to the full story of Kafk a’s life, a project driven by the author’s intention to invite readers to experience “what it was like to be Kafka.” As the titles reveal, the last volume to be written covers Kafk a’s early years, and the volume written fi rst covers Kafk a’s middle years. Th is order of publication, which may appear counterintuitive— even fi ttingly “Kafk aesque”— was dictated by years of high- profi le legal wrangling for control of the Max Brod literary estate in Israel, during which access to the materials it contained, many of which bore di- rectly on Kafk a’s formative years, was barred to scholars. Th e justice system there has now ruled against the family that had been claiming the right to keep these materials in private ownership and away from the public, a welcome ruling for researchers and the general reading public. Reiner Stach has been able to examine three volumes of Brod’s diaries in this collection, those from the years 1909 to 1911; these are referenced in the text simply as “Max Brod, diary,” followed by the date(s) in question. He has also been able to draw on a detailed (170- page) inventory of the literary estate as a whole. Reiner Stach’s Kafk a biography is the fi rst to mine and incorporate these hitherto unknown materials as well as much other information that has never found its way into a biography of Kafka, such as the unpublished memoirs of Kafka’s classmate Hugo Hecht. Th ese materials shed new and revelatory light on Kafk a’s early years and more than justify

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