Franz Kafka's Letter to His Father





Working late one evening on some writings, I opened old stuff and found this book on Franz Kafka again. It features a number of his letters, compiled into a sort of personal testimony to form this "biography from within". I remember telling somebody the first time I leafed through some pages years ago, that reading this, particularly the first part - Kafka's letter to his abusive father, was so shattering. Never did I find words concerning paternal authority such as "fear" (Furcht) and 'gratitude" (Dankbarkeit) so eloquently yet harrowingly used in German prose as in this letter. The first few lines go:

"You asked me lately why I claim that I am afraid of you. As usual, I was unable to think of any answer to your question, partly for the very reason that I am afraid of you, and partly because an explanation of the grounds for this fear would mean going into far more details than I could even nearly keep in mind while talking. And if I now try to give you an answer in writing, it will still be so incomplete, because, even in writing, this fear and its consequences hamper me about you and because the magnitude of the subject goes far beyond the scope of my memory and power of reasoning."

Franz Kafka had a difficult relationship with his father.  His biographers often describe the elder Kafka as despotic, abusive, narcissistic and domineering. Descriptions that perhaps would not suffice when comparing it to what the son wrote. 

In Kafka's famous novella "Die Verwandlung" (The Metamorphosis), Gregor Samsa, the central character, talks about a father that is very difficult to like, a person whose only concern is money, a mirror of the wearied relation between Franz Kafka and his father? 

Behind these themes of silent suffering and agony rose the Kafkaesque writings -- Of humans telling about their torments from within, of this thing they could not understand yet would want to get to terms with.

A troubled yet beautiful soul, this Kafka...

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