Kafka: A Very Short Introduction Very Short Introductions are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in more than 25 languages worldwide. The series began in 1995, and now represents a wide variety of topics in history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. Over the next few years it will grow to a library of around 200 volumes – a Very Short Introduction to everything from ancient Egypt and Indian philosophy to conceptual art and cosmology. Very Short Introductions available now: ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw Continental Philosophy ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Simon Critchley Julia Annas COSMOLOGY Peter Coles THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE CRYPTOGRAPHY John Blair Fred Piper and Sean Murphy ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia DADA AND SURREALISM ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn David Hopkins ARCHITECTURE Darwin Jonathan Howard Andrew Ballantyne Democracy Bernard Crick ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes DESCARTES Tom Sorell ART HISTORY Dana Arnold DRUGS Leslie Iversen ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland THE EARTH Martin Redfern THE HISTORY OF EGYPTIAN MYTH Geraldine Pinch ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY Atheism Julian Baggini BRITAIN Paul Langford Augustine Henry Chadwick THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball BARTHES Jonathan Culler EMOTION Dylan Evans THE BIBLE John Riches EMPIRE Stephen Howe BRITISH POLITICS ENGELS Terrell Carver Anthony Wright Ethics Simon Blackburn Buddha Michael Carrithers The European Union BUDDHISM Damien Keown John Pinder CAPITALISM James Fulcher EVOLUTION THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe Brian and Deborah Charlesworth CHOICE THEORY FASCISM Kevin Passmore Michael Allingham THE FRENCH REVOLUTION CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson William Doyle CLASSICS Mary Beard and FREE WILL Thomas Pink John Henderson Freud Anthony Storr CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard Galileo Stillman Drake THE COLD WAR Robert McMahon Gandhi Bhikhu Parekh GLOBALIZATION Manfred Steger PLATO Julia Annas HEGEL Peter Singer POLITICS Kenneth Minogue HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson David Miller HINDUISM Kim Knott POSTCOLONIALISM HISTORY John H. Arnold Robert Young HOBBES Richard Tuck POSTMODERNISM HUME A. J. Ayer Christopher Butler IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden POSTSTRUCTURALISM Indian Philosophy Catherine Belsey Sue Hamilton PREHISTORY Chris Gosden Intelligence Ian J. Deary PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY ISLAM Malise Ruthven Catherine Osborne JUDAISM Norman Solomon Psychology Gillian Butler and Jung Anthony Stevens Freda McManus KAFKA Ritchie Robertson QUANTUM THEORY KANT Roger Scruton John Polkinghorne KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner ROMAN BRITAIN THE KORAN Michael Cook Peter Salway LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler LITERARY THEORY RUSSELL A. C. Grayling Jonathan Culler RUSSIAN LITERATURE LOCKE John Dunn Catriona Kelly LOGIC Graham Priest THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner S. A. Smith MARX Peter Singer SCHIZOPHRENIA MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone MEDIEVAL BRITAIN SCHOPENHAUER John Gillingham and Christopher Janaway Ralph A. Griffiths SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer MODERN IRELAND Senia Pasˇeta SOCIAL AND CULTURAL MOLECULES Philip Ball ANTHROPOLOGY MUSIC Nicholas Cook John Monaghan and Peter Just Myth Robert A. Segal SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner Socrates C. C. W. Taylor NINETEENTH-CENTURY SPINOZA Roger Scruton BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and STUART BRITAIN John Morrill H. C. G. Matthew TERRORISM Charles Townshend NORTHERN IRELAND THEOLOGY David F. Ford Marc Mulholland THE TUDORS John Guy PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close TWENTIETH-CENTURY paul E. P. Sanders BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan Philosophy Edward Craig Wittgenstein PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE A. C. Grayling Samir Okasha WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman Available soon: AFRICAN HISTORY HIROSHIMA B. R. Tomlinson John Parker and Richard Rathbone HUMAN EVOLUTION THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea Bernard Wood BUDDHIST ETHICS INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Damien Keown Paul Wilkinson CHAOS Leonard Smith JAZZ Brian Morton CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead MANDELA Tom Lodge CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy MEDICAL ETHICS CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE Tony Hope Robert Tavernor THE MIND Martin Davies CLONING Arlene Judith Klotzko NATIONALISM CONTEMPORARY ART Steven Grosby Julian Stallabrass PERCEPTION Richard Gregory THE CRUSADES PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Christopher Tyerman Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot Derrida Simon Glendinning PHOTOGRAPHY DESIGN John Heskett Steve Edwards Dinosaurs David Norman THE RAJ Denis Judd DREAMING J. Allan Hobson THE RENAISSANCE ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta Jerry Brotton THE END OF THE WORLD RENAISSANCE ART Bill McGuire Geraldine Johnson EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn SARTRE Christina Howells THE FIRST WORLD WAR THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR Michael Howard Helen Graham FUNDAMENTALISM TRAGEDY Adrian Poole Malise Ruthven THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Habermas Gordon Finlayson Martin Conway For more information visit our web site www.oup.co.uk/vsi Ritchie Robertson KAFKA A Very Short Introduction 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York AucklandBangkokBuenos Aires Cape TownChennai Dar es SalaamDelhiHong KongIstanbulKarachi Kolkata Kuala LumpurMadrid MelbourneMexico CityMumbaiNairobi São PauloShanghaiTaipeiTokyoToronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Ritchie Robertson 2004 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published as a Very Short Introduction 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 0–19–280455–3 1357910864 2 Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall Contents Acknowledgements viii List of illustrations ix 1 Life and myth 1 2 Reading Kafka 26 3 Bodies 46 4 Institutions 67 5 The last things 104 References 126 Further reading 127 Index 132 Acknowledgements I am very grateful to Nicholas Murray, for letting me read his new biography on Kafka in manuscript while working on this book, and to Tony Phelan (Keble College, Oxford) for reading my own manuscript and making generous and incisive comments. Some passages are adapted from ‘Kafka as anti-Christian: ‘‘Das Urteil’’, ‘‘Die Verwandlung’’ and the aphorisms’, in James Rolleston (ed.), A Companion to the Works of Franz Kafka (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2002), pp. 101–22, and from ‘Scandinavian modernism and the battle of the sexes: Strindberg, Kafka and The Castle’, the Spring 2003 Rodig Maxwell Lecture, published by the Department of German Studies, Rutgers University. I am grateful to Camden House and Rutgers University for permission to reuse them. List of illustrations 1 Kafka at the age 6 Kafka and Felice of four 3 Bauer, 1917 19 © Archiv Klaus Wagenbach, © Archiv Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin Berlin 2 Kafka’s father, 7 The Old Town Square Hermann Kafka 7 in Prague 22 © Archiv Klaus Wagenbach, © Corbis Berlin 8 Kafka and Ernst Weiss 3 Kafka as a university on the beach, 1914 50 student, c. 1906–8 10 © Archiv Klaus Wagenbach, © Archiv Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin Berlin 9 Kafka, 1923 or 1924 79 4 Kafka’s mother, © Archiv Klaus Wagenbach, Julie Kafka 12 Berlin © Archiv Klaus Wagenbach, 10 Dora Diamant 98 Berlin © Archiv Klaus Wagenbach, 5 Milena Jesenská 15 Berlin © Archiv Klaus Wagenbach, 11 Kafka and his sister Berlin Ottla, 1914 100 © Archiv Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin The publisher and the author apologize for any errors or omissions in the above list. If contacted they will be pleased to rectify these at the earliest opportunity.