Kafka's Prague by Klaus Wagenbach

 Kafka's Prague by Klaus Wagenbach

published by Haus Publishing is more than what you can expect. 

The character, personality of Franz Kafka, one of the most beloved modern writers is manifested thanks to letters, correspondence, writings of people who knew him very well, and the imagine that at the end we have of this writer, is the one of a melancholic, solitary person.

One of the students and classmates with which Franz studied with, added later that Franz was a person that maintained always a certain distance from the other ones so you couldn't never tell that he was involved in the sociality of the classroom and the other children were under many ways intimidated if they had to approach him, because they "read" him as someone who wanted to stay per se.

Little Franz was born in Prague, close to the Old Town, so absolutely in the intellectual fertile Prague, although the family of Franz, it is a pretty articulated family, as you will see, wasn't at first too wealthy. They made a lot of sacrifices, also for giving to little Franz a good scholastic education.

Passionate of greek, latin, Franz once adult became a clerk at the court for some months, and later, spasmodically, searched for a work in grade of giving him that independance searched so much. At first he found a work with the Assicurazioni Generali, while he was writing his masterpieces, or part of them, so The Metamorphosis, The Trial, the Castle, but that work didn't leave him a minute of peace and breath and so Franz interrupted his writings. At the end of the year searched for a new work and, at long he worked for another company,The Workers' Accident Insurance Institute. This new work meant a new re-birth for Kafka's writings because he had more time.

Franz Kafka didn't become famous immediately; various decades passed, before he could reach, and only once dead, notoriety in the rest of the world. 

He would have wanted to go away from Prague, but that city captured him, and, apart for little trips, he stayed in the city the entire existence.

He was a solitary man, a man at the perennial research of solitude and once Franz made a comparison with Kierkegaard. He didn't know him personally but found that they were living the same demons.

Franz Kafka enjoyed the humus of a city, Prague that it is immensely beauty and sophisticated, but hasn't never met the most important writers of his times because he stayed confined in Prague for his entire existence.

He developed a fascination for everything strange; a strange reality, strange perceptions. This side of the human being interested him more than the normality and all the time he read reality under original, scaring lenses.

The famous term kafkaesque was firstly "born" and used, in the New Yorker, for remarking an absurd situation, a paradoxical event.

Kafka remains the writer of the paradox, of all that situations that can't be explained...rationally.

Speaking of love, he was again a solitary man. He had a first girlfriend, but they broke up and a friend of him said that he reached them all at work, he sat close to them and, just... he started to crying, as a kid. He was affected by tubercolosis, a dangerous and fatal illness for that times. For recovering he spent some time at the house of a sister with which he was in contact and that adored him as he adored her. 

He had a second important girlfriend but the marriage could not be celebrated again. Then he fell seriously sick with other additional symptoms of tubercolosis and died in Prague.

An intense, dense biography this one. More than Prague, the protagonist remains Franz Kafka, with his demons, his joys, his sufferances. Great readings also for students!

Highly recommended.

I thank Haus Publishing for the physical copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori