I did not realize until the end of my time with it that this work is a play; I thought of it as a sort of Platonic dialogue between Kafka and Gutav Janouch - the obscure (to me) word play and inculpable sexism certainly seemed to propel this theory.
Rather than being set within the erudite circles of Athens it is set in this pointedly in-between place, translating between the Judenstadt and the streets of old Prague, and between the destruction of the first World War and the unknowns of a known second. I wonder how much Janouch revised this before publishing it with Max Brod. It translates also between empty days and stark nights, "Kafka's twilight of shadows" with his "perfectly ordinary day-to-day experience". (21)
I did not know very much about Kafka before reading this; I knew he had some choleric to him and I knew he was Jewish but assumed, like most of the literary Maskilim of that time and this, he was apostate... I'm not really sure what that term even means for the Maskilim, though, as you can only really be so apostate as a Jew.
Janouch records his conversations with Kafka on the notion of the poet and his (yes, his) role in teaching truth, which is bringing spirituality to accidents -- accidents are, for Kafka it seems, never accidents but only unheeded signs (the black dog (70), and 63 - "Not only every sign, but even the merest gesture, is holy if it is filled with faith").
Kafka speaks extensively about his identity as a Jewish person and his views on Jewish Nationalism. He reveals himself as an ardent supporter of Zionism. A couple things I found extremely interesting here: he does not discuss Zionism as a direct response to antisemitism, but actually theorizes the opposite: that "Anti-semitism increases with Zionism ... the self-determination of the Jews is felt as a denial of their environment. As a result inferiority complexes are created which easily come to a head in outbursts of hatred." (65) I have not heard this theory before - that the aim of creating or discovering a Jewish state seems for some to be a rejection of non-Jewish identity or government, and that this could be seen to spurn non-Jews; there is a certain sense of superiority in that term of the "chosen". On antisemitism Kafka offered another extremely interesting point to me, that despite education on Jewish law and history people still are able to hold onto the old conceits because "the history of the Jews is given the appearance of a fairy tale, which men can dismiss, together with their childhood, into the pit of oblivion." (68) I find this so apt; even now in New York everyone thinks that they know Jewish people because they are so wrapped up with Jewish culture and comedy and community but at the same time all these influences create only a caricature, something which seems so fake, and even attempts to increase awareness facilitate the dismissal of Jewish identity. His meditations on nationalism as a whole also relate to his own identity as a Jew and Zionist: "Modern nationalism is a defensive movement against the crude encroachments of civilization." It seems to me that people with mixed identities try the hardest to relate to their culture or ethnicity, perhaps this is a way to understand it and in so doing, to understand themselves. He continues: "One sees this best in the case of the Jews. If they felt at home in their environment and could easily come to terms with it, there would be no Zionism. But the pressure of our environment makes us see our own features." (98) He picks up this sort of Kierkegaardian approach to identity elsewhere, as well, arguing that Jews in the diaspora perceive one another with the most sharpness because they find themselves different from their surroundings. Perhaps we can only see ourselves when put in some sort of chiaroscuro relief.
Another thing on Judaism, just because I suppose the whole point of this blog is to humor myself infinitely: "In any case we Jews are not painters. We cannot depict things statically. We see them always in transition, in movement, as change. We are story-tellers." (86-7) Perhaps this is why I've never felt at home in painting.
