Classics Considered

I have at this point read all of Kafka’s fiction, or at least all the novels, the Lost Writings, and everything that appears in the Complete Stories collection. It’s now that I turn to his nonfiction, which holds as much interest to me, though of a different flavor.

The Blue Octavo Notebooks contain a set of microfiction, random thoughts, and philosophical-spiritual musings that Kafka jotted down in eight notebooks. As with most of his work, they were published posthumously and we do not know for sure how eager he would have been to see them made public. (There is a fantastic essay written on the controversy of publishing Kafka; I believe it’s in Is That Kafka? 99 Finds, but I can’t remember for sure.)

While one ought to be prepared for anything with Kafka, imagine my shock when I found references to Confessions and Fear and Trembling. In all these years, I had no idea he was interested in Christianity, let alone had read Kierkegaard and had Augustine on his list. The notebooks suggest his interest did not extend beyond exploration—Kafka’s heritage was Jewish, and indeed, in his fourth notebook (1918) he expresses frustration with both religions:

I have not been guided into life by the hand of Christianity—admittedly now slack and failing—as Kierkegaard was, and have not caught the hem of the Jewish prayer shawl—now flying away from us—as the Zionists have. I am an end or a beginning.

In another place, he writes:

We too must suffer all the suffering around us. Christ suffered for mankind, but mankind must suffer for Christ. We all have not one body, but we have one way of growing, and this leads us through all anguish, whether in this or in that form. Just as the child develops through all the stages of life right into old age and to death . . . so also do we develop (no less deeply bound up with mankind than with ourselves) through all the sufferings of this world.

He goes on to disown fear of suffering, but also speaks against viewing suffering as “merit” (perhaps alluding to the Catholic belief of redemptive suffering).

As fascinating as I found these references, his thoughts on Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling were too esoteric for me to work out. In general, these notebooks, of all his writings, feel to me the least suitable for publication, simply because they are so deeply personal and cryptic. This is the first time I seriously questioned Max Brod’s decision to publish the manuscripts. However, it was comforting to return to old K, and since these writings are over 100 years old now, I feel no reservations in reading and appreciating them.

Some highlights, from various notebooks. I have decided not to separate them with dividers, so you can see how random it is (one could easily remix these fragments into different arrangements):

I should welcome eternity, and when I do find it I am sad. I should feel myself perfect by virtue of eternity—and feel myself depressed?

The moonlight dazzled us. Birds shrieked from tree to tree. There was a buzzing and whizzing in the fields.
We crawled through the dust, a pair of snakes.

The distance to my fellow man is for me a very long one.

Religions get lost as people do.

(from the notes—Kafka declining joining a cause, with his wry self-deprecation): The fact is, I am not capable of forming any clear idea of any kind of unified Greater Austria, and still less of associating myself with any such idea. I cannot face such a decision. Now fortunately this does not do any harm to your association; on the contrary, I am physically quite unfit, my circle of acquaintances is small, and I am not at all influential. And so you would soon be sorry if I did join in.

I enjoyed the random aspect of the notebooks, the fiction and the diary notes and the philosophical ramblings all jumbled together. There is whimsical allure in Kafka’s thoughts united only by their being contained in notebooks of the same size and color. I finished it feeling inspired to write again.