“There is too much noise in your poems,” said Franz Kafka

I have to turn in something for my writing group tomorrow, and I’ve been poring over Gustav Janouch’s Conversations with Kafka for inspiration; three possible stories have arisen. Whether Janouch’s memoir is true or not doesn’t matter to me at this point; in fact, the debate is part of the fun. I am certainly not reading it [...]

A reading room

Read Flaubert aloud with satisfaction.
—Franz Kafka, March 16, 1912, from Diaries: 1910–1923
Been wondering lately what a whole separate reading room in abode might look like. It would have bookshelves, of course, and sofa, as well as large window and rocking chair (or two or three). Plus turntable and crate of Bessie Smiths. Blank notebooks for jotting down inanities. And no laptop or phone, [...]

Catching up with Kafka

January 19, 1914: Anxiety alternating with self-assurance at the office. Otherwise more confident. Great antipathy to “Metamorphosis.” Unreadable ending. Imperfect almost to its very marrow. It would have turned out much better if I had not been interrupted at the time by the business trip.
—Franz Kafka, from Diaries: 1910–1923
“Interruption”
If only I could be left alone [...]

“Self-perception”

I haven’t written down a great deal about myself during these days, partly because of laziness (I now sleep so much and so soundly during the day, I have greater weight while I sleep) but also partly because of the fear of betraying my self-perception. This fear is justified, for one should permit a self-perception [...]

“Useless”

In the large room there was the clamour of card playing and later the usual conversation which Father carries on when he is well, as he is today, loudly if not coherently. The words represented only small shapes in a formless clamour. Little Felix slept in the girls’ room, the door of which was wide [...]

“Happiness”

A promise of some kind of happiness resembles the hope of an eternal life. Seen from a certain distance it holds its ground, and one doesn’t venture nearer.
—Franz Kafka, January 6, 1915, from Diaries: 1910–1923

“Autobiography”

In an autobiography one cannot avoid writing “often” where truth would require that “once” be written. For one always remains conscious that the word “once” explodes that darkness on which the memory draws; and though it is not altogether spared by the word “often,” either, it is at least preserved in the opinion of the [...]