Professor David Peimer
Kafka: A Prophet of his Time

Professor David Peimer - Kafka: A Prophet of his Time

- And hi to everybody and hope everyone’s well, everywhere. And today, as you know, I’m going to go into one of my great heroes, or one of the writers I admire for me, amongst the top five, without a doubt. Young Franz Kafka, I think is one of the most remarkable. I know it’s slightly out of sync because we are dealing with Bismark and German unification, around that period in the history spine. But we thought to include this because, Kafka is so central to 20th century, into our century for me and for many people. And to try and really get a sense of understanding, what did he actually really mean? What did he bring away from what I feel, is a lot of the stereotyped perceptions, and interpretations of him. And for that, I want to dive into a little bit of Max Brod, his closest friend who finally published Kafka, as we all know. And then look at some of the three main books, “Metamorphosis,” “The Castle,” and “The Trial,” and really get a sense of who Kafka was, and why he’s so iconic. And Max Brod was the one, to call him the prophet of the century. And I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. Orson Welles, W.H. Auden and many others, all come back to young Mr. Kafka. And I think it’s extraordinary how he has spanned the whole 20th century into ours and how, the reach and the insight and I want to take us on a little journey together, to find out how he did it and what he did and why. Let’s get to the essence. Of Kafka. And he doesn’t look like the shy, alienated, terrified, bony little Kafka of so much of a stereotyped image, that’s come, you know, especially post Second World War, and come down in through existentialism and all the isms, and ways of studying and teaching Kafka and his work. I think this gives a picture of a different kind of guy.

There’s a wit, there’s a humour, there’s an insight, there’s an intelligence, obviously. And there’s an ironic, an irony, as well. So I’m going to dive into him. We see his short life, 1883 to 1924, and as I’m sure everyone knows, he died of tuberculosis, I think tragedy, at such a young age, and was sick for at least eight years, with TB, before his death. So, he dies in his early forties, and yet leaves such a remarkable legacy. Okay, the first thing I want to do is dive straight, I’m going to do a little bit on, on his life and then go much more into his books. ‘Cause I think most people know quite a bit about his life already. The first thing is to show an interview with Max Brod, taken much later after the war. And for those who may not know, just very quickly, Max Brod was his closest friend at university, and then for at least 24, 25, 24 years after till Kafka died. And Brod was the one who refused Kafka, asked him to burn everything, Brod refused, and escaped, prior, before the war, got out to the then Palestine, and much later published everything in Germany, in English and so on. And rarely, that we know Brod was his closest friend, without a doubt. And this is an interview with Brod and I want to show just the first couple of minutes of it, much later in Brod’s life, he’s interviewed here, on German TV talking about the young Kafka.

• Okay, I’m going to with Max Brod. What I really wanted was to show a different perception, a couple of things that Brod says, he was not nearly as depressive as he might be seen today. Not necessarily of a cheerful disposition as Brod says, but that he had such an intelligence, a keen eye, and a wit and a humour, especially in small circles, animated. He and Brod used to go for walks. Almost many nights in Prague, people have been to Prague or know all through the little cobbled streets in the streets, up and down around the castles, and down over the Charles Bridge, and that much more engaging and lively and intellectual and artistic and constantly meeting with his friends. Not this image of this extremely alienated, terrified, anxious, anxiety ridden, little boy, almost. And 'cause I don’t think that’s an accurate depiction of him at all. Completely different obviously, when he is very sick later, with tuberculosis. But anybody would be. So I think what Brod is trying to show, and he knew him for over 20 something years. Much more vitality, and love of life, and vitality. And I think that’s what he, and the wit and the humour, and through that is what I want to bring in, you know, today, and delve into that a bit further. So 1902, Brod and Kafka are students at Charles University in Prague, as he said at the beginning here, Brod gave a lecture on Schopenhauer, Kafka went up to him asking questions, and they walked around 'til midnight, and they would meet many days and nights, just walking and talking and questioning. And he constantly refers to Kafka’s, animated, lively, passionate intelligence, wanting to, you know, agree, disagree, argue.

Then to jump further, is in 1939, Max Brod and his wife flee Prague, and they get to Tel Aviv, where he continued. Max Brod worked as a Dramaturg for Habimah, everyone knows later becomes the Irish, sorry, the Israeli National Theatre. And he worked as a Dramaturg there for 30 years. And Brod later in this interview talks about, he and Kafka would walk at night and talk, and disagree and argue with ideas. And often Kafka disagreed. We get the sense of a lively, passionate, engaged Kafka. Not a terrified, anxious, scared little man. And Brod says in the interview later, they met frequently, often daily, as well. The other thing he talks about, which is mentioned in the interview, by the interviewer here, that Brod did, he was the one to call him the prophet of the century. And not in a naive way, but he understood what it means to be living in a bureaucratized automated world, which is beyond ideology, beyond economic system, almost, beyond even, you know, totalitarian versus democracies, live in a world that we live in today and people lived in post-war, what we might call the technological times, but he intuited he understood it, Kafka, from his own experience. And I want to get into depth with that, because that’s really powerful. So it’s in terms of a profit, it’s a profit of, of a sense of a zeitgeist, a sense of what is the times, that we are really living through? How is it that fascism can be creeping more and more, all the time in democracies and around the world, in our times and before? How is it, this darkening times? How is it that the life people live is, what’s a great phrase, quiet despair, that so many live in, or louder despair now, the rage, the pain, the suffering, so many things. And yet in a highly so-called civilised societies of the first world, not only obviously, the third world.

Okay, so the main things I’m going to look at, and in that way I think he’s a prophet, it’s a poet to see something behind, something that is inside the zeitgeist, the spirit, the feeling of the times, and is able to articulate it in a metaphorical, and imagistic way, not just an analytical, scholarly way. I’m going to focus on these three of his books, as I mentioned, “Metamorphosis,” “The Castle” and “The Trial.” And of course Orson Welles that I’m not going to show today, made a wonderful movie of “The Trial.” But those are three we’re going to focus on. Obviously it’s too much to focus on all of his work, but the amount of work he did before he dies in his early forties, there’s a picture of his father and mother, in Prague. And as Brod says, Kafka revered his father, and many misunderstand it that the conflict led to hate and all the rest, not at all. He revered, respected, understood in a way. And his father also, yes, he wanted him to go into business after. But Brod in that interview, talks about Kafka, gave him his book, the first book that he did get published. And his father said, put it by my bed. I’ll read it later. And he did, he would read it at night before going to sleep. So it’s the letter to the father.

The a hundred pages of brilliance of Kafka’s letter, is very calmly written, and it’s not written without understanding his father. So it’s not just a naive clash of father son, you know, 'cause I want you to go into daddy’s business. You don’t want to go into daddy’s business, clash, rage, et cetera. Much more nuanced and human, I think. The relationship between the two, and ultimately a respect of the vitality of the father and the vitality of Kafka, the son, and the intelligence of both. Father’s not educated, he builds up everything from nothing. The self-made man as Brod says. Pictures of the young Kafka. We all know these, I’m sure only too well, this intense almost, not dramatic, but this intense, you know, looking picture. That’s why I prefer the first one. Obviously here he is very young, but as Brod said, this image of being the bohemian existentialist, nonsense, you know, he was always dressed elegantly, dressed calmly and you know, had a precise and intelligent mind that sort of, I suppose that rigour of that German education, in the gymnasium, the schools, the German schools in Prague, which was of course his first language. Pictures of his sisters who were all killed during the war. I’m not going to say more, you know, that’s awful. And obviously enough. This is a picture of one of the statues in Prague to Kafka. And I love it because it’s, you know, Czech humour, it’s ironic, it’s satirical, it’s playful with the iconic image, of Kafka and how he’s seen in the world. And then this here is a picture of the grave. You know, we all know, I’m sure people have been to the Jewish cemetery in Prague, and the picture of him there.

This is from the letter to the father, you know, “father,” you can see at the top there, Kafka’s writing. Now one of the great phrases, this is not in this piece, one of the great, Kafka had many aphorisms, and I don’t have time to go into them now really, but some of them are fantastic. “When you crucify a man, you have to lift him up, therefore you have to look up to him.” Kafka would always find ways, which I think is quite Jewish and quite ironic, to find the paradox, the double meaning in anything. And I think we miss half of the pleasure of reading Kafka, when we miss the double meaning in everything that he does. And it’s in that image when you crucify a man, you have to look up, you might be killing him and you might be putting him down. But also, you’re looking up. Kafka’s always looking for the paradox, the light in the dark, let’s call it, the hopeful and the painful, the suffering and the joys. “Does the bird seek the cage?” One of the great aphorisms of Kafka for me, and he played with this image of the bird in the cage quite a bit. And he asked himself, am I a bird? Am I a cage, looking for a bird? Am I a bird looking for a cage? Does the bird seek the cage? What does that mean? It means born free, but in our society, pushed towards conformity, pushed towards mediocrity, pushed towards the middle. Does the free spirit that children are, so many children are born with, without idealising, are they pushed towards fitting in, not only to belong but to fit in, and in democracies, not only totalitarian countries, to fit in and conform to something.

Does the bird seek the cage? Will they settle for complacency, mediocrity or the rest? Or, can they fly out of the cage? He would constantly play with this image, in his aphorisms and in some of the writings. Then one of my great pictures that I love, here is Mr. Freud and “I dreamed of was Kafka.” “Metamorphosis,” we all know the novel, where Gregor wakes up one morning and discovers he’s a beetle, cockroach, depending on translation from the German. “I dreamed I was Kafka,” Freud sitting, the cockroach is going for therapy in a dream. I love it because it captures not only the wit, but the paradox that I’m talking about. Everything has a double meaning in Kafka. And the cartoonist here is sharp, because he is aware of that, and playing the opposite of the obvious. So it’s also a question of belonging. Where does the world let a person belong? Where does the world let a person be? A bird maybe is not fully in a cage, partly or out, where do they belong? Does it always have to be a cage-like experience or not? Let’s look at Kafka, the alienated Jewish guy. Yes, he’s Jewish, he’s German speaking in Prague, and he’s Jewish, but he’s German speaking, the already alienating things in his life, whether he likes it or not, the religion, the language, and in Prague, and his love of literature. So, you know, he is not going the traditional conformist roots. So he’s already alienated, triple alienated. Where is he going to find he belongs? And he belongs with, I suppose, with writers, philosophers, things, cultural people, I suppose we’d call today or you know, to take the jargon away, fellow art-y misfits, you know, would be another way of calling us. And then there’s Jewish and not Jewish, and then there’s German speaking Jew in Prague, not Czech speaking. And we all know the tension between the two, as the rise of Czech nationalism can happen between the two wars. Let’s get a great phrase, again, the paradox in one of his aphorisms, “a man is afraid of dying if he hasn’t yet lived.”

I’m always reminded of the line from Bob Dylan, in his “Darkness at Noon” song. “He not busy being born is busy dying.” It’s so close to Kafka, Dylan writing it, whether he read Kafka or not, I don’t know, much later, he was also understood, how fear could work in such a technological, bureaucratized society that we live in. So Kafka is born in Prague to come on his life briefly. Here he is, young guy, going with a friend of his going swimming. I wanted to show this 'cause it’s a physically fit Kafka, he used to go mountain hiking often, in weekends. He used to swim an enormous amount. Before he got TB, he’s fit, you know, he’s not just, walking around Prague and everything, get away from this sort of anxiety ridden little guy, but you know, engaged physically with life. He trained as a lawyer. He becomes, he works for an insurance company, writing in his spare time, he was engaged to a couple of women, but never married. And then of course he died at the age of 42. His parents spoke German, Yiddish. His sisters, and the whole family is wiped out. Those who are alive, are killed, murdered in the Holocaust. Kafka’s relationship with his father, is in that hundred page that I mentioned. The letter to the father. He had a bar mitzvah, he got a degree of doctor of law. He loved going to the Yiddish theatre in Prague, and was very conscious, obviously, of his Judaism and learned Hebrew, there are writings of his in Hebrew as well. Not only in German. Then he worked for the Workers Accident Insurance Institute in Prague. And when he started to get sick with TB, he was put on a pension. And of course that illness is what killed him.

And ironically gave him plenty time, to write his masterpieces. And he spent many years of those last years of his life in sanatoriums. 1912, he meets Felice Bauer. This is what he wrote. “She was sitting at the table, I was not at all curious about who she was, but rather took her for granted. Bony, empty face, that wore its emptiness, openly.” That an amazing line? “An empty face that wore it’s emptiness openly. Bare throat, a blouse thrown on, she looked very domestic in her dress, although as it turned out, she was by no means domestic, almost a broken nose, blonde, somewhat straight, unattractive hair, strong chin. As I was talking, as I was taking my seat, I looked at her closely for the first time, and I already had an unshakeable opinion.” I wanted to read this coming from one of his letters because it shows, you know, we meet somebody all the time, and within the first five seconds we always talk about how we get to know somebody so quickly and et cetera. He is seeing so much inside one person so quickly, and is writing it, he’s able to find the words, to articulate it precisely and truthfully, to use the two words that Max Brod used about him, he’s truthful and precision with language. And it’s not judging, as he’s seeing Felice Bauer, he’s just trying to get insight to understand and write. What is a writer if they can’t project into somebody else’s head and understand it, the world from their perception, not just our own perception. He became engaged for a third time in 1920 to Julie, a woman his father didn’t like 'cause she was a Zionist. Anyway, go on and on. He became engaged to Milena, probably the big love of his life.

And then also, but he only met her four times in his life. And then Dora, who was a 25 year old teacher, came from a Jewish family. This is the main woman in his life, and she looked after him in the last years of his life. And I think there was a true, more mature love between the two. Brod often talks about how Kafka and he shared so much humour and laughter and that he loved, he rode horses, he loved swimming, he used to go rowing, you know, little with boats on the river in Voltava, and others, long hikes on weekends. He was fascinated by the Jews of Eastern Europe, and of Western Europe. And you know, he talked about Einstein, you know, many, many others. He’s fascinated about the Jews and the difference. And interestingly, Kafka talked about, wrote about, he thought that the Jews of Eastern Europe had a more intense, what he called spiritual life, whereas the Jews from Western Europe, France, and elsewhere, perhaps had a less spiritual life, but a more secular western life. Not to judge, when you read his writing, he’s always trying to just understand, his writing is full of references to other Yiddish writers. So he is imbued with Judaism, with Jewish writing, with Hebrew, with the Czech, with German writers, with having a bar mitzvah, living in a, you know, German and Czech speaking country. All of these things going on in his life. I’m reminded, you know, but what did he have in common with Jews or with writers and everything?

It’s the eternal tension we’ve spoken, all spoken, Trudy has spoken about much better than me, but so many, of assimilation or not assimilate. And he’s, you know, obviously in that tension between the two and some can read his writing, as the attempt to assimilate partly, you know, always caught up in that, on the horns of that dilemma. As Woody Allen said, “what have I in common with Jews? I hardly have anything in common with myself.” Okay, I think that’s a kind of Kafka joke as well. He spoke about in one of his letters, the triple dimension of Jewish existence, in Prague. And that’s what I’m trying to draw here. He’s aware of all the paradoxes, and the tensions. He wanted to move to then Palestine, but his tuberculosis is getting worse and worse. W.H. Auden called Kafka, the Dante of the 20th century. Now that’s an amazing phrase. Dante is one of the greatest writers ever, not just Italian, you know, the Italian Shakespeare, if you like, the Shakespeare, Gerta, Dantes, the Dante of the 20th century, from a poet who I love, W.H. Auden.

And the humour is the ability to understand this feeling, of being trapped in a bureaucratized world. Orson Welles, “"The Trial,” is the greatest work. It’s even greater than my “Citizen Kane.”“ That’s Orson Welles’ writing. So I just give these as a few examples, of the extraordinary esteem this guy’s held in. Aphorisms from Kafkas, before we go into his novels, "I solve problems by letting them devour me.” This is a sketch of Kafkas, a jockey riding a horse. But look how playful, the little jockey, the big horse playing with cubism, influenced by Picasso. He would’ve known all the painters of Paris and others, known of their work rather, you know, but it’s playful, it’s ironic, it’s a doodle. But it shows us something about the guy. And this is one I love as well. This is a self-portrait, for himself of Kafka. “I am free and that is why I am lost.” Always the paradox, always seeing both sides of the same coin. F Scott Fitzgerald who once said, “intelligence is the ability to see both sides of the same coin, but still able to act in the world.” “I am free and that is why I am lost.” You know, he leaves us with the dichotomy. He leaves us with a duality, Kafka. This is a picture of Brod from later in his life. The one that I showed the interview with earlier. Milan Kundera, who’s the great Czech writer, I’m sure we all know, “Unbearable Lightness of Being,” and many other of his novels. Brilliant writer, who’s obsessed with Kafka, and Kundera has a fantastic book called, short book, called “The Art of the Novel.” And it’s brilliant.

It’s one of the best understandings of the novel, European novel, that I’ve ever read. Kundera writes, “we are born, we leave childhood without knowing what youth is. We marry without knowing- Is a planet of inexperience. We keep doing things, but we don’t have a clue what it really is until we’re in it.” That’s the absurdity, that’s the irony, that’s the paradox of Kundera, inside Kundera’s writing. And I think inside Kafka’s. Kafka’s world in his books, it’s not about money, it’s not about commerce, it’s not about class struggle. It’s not about religious conflict. It’s not about wars and armies fighting in battlefields, you know, of Europe, or wherever in the world. It’s not about any of that, it’s set in the office. It’s bureaucratic institutions. Kafka’s words, he doesn’t mention the word totalitarianism. He doesn’t mention the word democracy. There’s no party or ideology mentioned in his books. There’s no police, rarely. There’s no army, there’s no politics. So how on earth does he become a poet of the century, and yet he’s not writing as all will and the others do. How on earth, what is he seeing and what is he doing? In one of the great letters that he wrote to Milena, and this is a picture of Milena, you know, who I think was a great girlfriend of, the love of his life, really. And he wrote to her and he said, “everybody sees the office as a boring, dull institution with no poetic potential. I see the office as having enormous poetic and literary potential. It is a fascinating place. It is the place of contemporary man of the 20th century. The office is a fantastical space.

Full of jealousy, love, hate, compassion, forgiveness, war.” But, he goes on, all of this is written in this piece, in this letter to Milena. And Kundera identifies that letter. And when you read it, it’s extraordinary. He sees for the first, he’s the only writer, for the first time who sees something, that we might regard as dull, boring, predictable, technocratic, bureaucratics. He sees it as this is the poetic image of our times. The office, obviously, the factory, but the office and that so much of people’s lives, is in an office, eight, 10 hours a day in an office. How can it not become the central image, of novels, of literature? You know, it’s not riding horses of the past. It’s not even cars or aeroplanes . The day to- Reality is office and you know, everybody’s, oh God, go to the office, you know, but he sees it as imbued, what he called, in the translation from the German, the best closest word is fantastical, poetic possibility and potential. And he turns the office and the bureau, the bureaucracy of the office into poetry. That is the genius, that is the prophet. That he can see something that is so obvious, in a way, but he’s the first to do it. And he turns it in all of his novels and his writing, and the files and the filing and the hierarchies, and all the emotions of human life in the office. We called it petty politics today, gossip, you know, this one said this, this one said that, the hierarchy, you know, et cetera, et cetera, we all know it. The little tea in the corner, and so on, the tone of the voice or this or that, an email comes in, a message, this or that, and so on. It’s all happening in the office. That’s why Orson Welles says, he’s the greatest, Auden, and so many of the others.

To turn that place into a poetic place is extraordinary. And once he can see it, and he writes it in his letter so he knows it. That is the key, I think, to understanding Kafka. And it’s not the same as, you know, just being bored or alienated or depressed in an office. It’s seeing something much deeper that’s going on. And I think that’s what makes him such a great writer. The clue is in that little phrase. The second clue with Kafka, as I said, there’s nothing mentioned of all ideology per, of politics or other things. It’s no, much deeper than socialism, communism, capitalism, deeper than political parties, deeper than even totalitarian democracy. Deeper is the office. And you know, when I had the great fortune to work with, work on some of Václav Havel’s plays in his theatre, Havel knew this completely. And Havel also often sets his in an office, or a similar situation, all influenced by Kafka. It’s with all these petty, what we call petty jealousies, petty emotions, but actually are big. We don’t need battlefield. We don’t need all the other things, because- Then in addition, Kafka spoke about, in the bird image with a cage, the punished seek the crime. People want to find out what it is they have done. They’re punished, but they don’t know why. If you’re told what you do in the office is bad, or not good enough, or you haven’t reached the target, or you haven’t reached the value, haven’t raised enough money, or haven’t this or that, punished before even really given a chance.

What is the guilt? Haven’t reached the target, was it my fault? Was it somebody else’s fault? I’m just told, haven’t reached, was it all me? Was it somebody else? Anxiety and guilt is built into the office as an institution. And he talks about people have to, what have they done wrong, is it entirely their own selves? It’s not perhaps a little bit about the company or the business? They’re also because they haven’t reached a target or whatever it is. Joseph K, in his novels. He thinks about everything he’s done, when to deserve it. And Kafka’s his this remarkable phrase, “the punished beg for recognition of the guilt of their crime, which they never committed.” It’s an amazing insight of Kafka’s. “The punished beg for recognition of their guilt, for a crime they never committed.” All happening in the office, in the office structure. The office is a world of endless labyrinths. No one can escape, no one can understand. It’s run by laws nobody remembers even making, Joseph K’s fate in his, in the main novels, depends on a file, so often. Say in our times, what did the paper say? What does the file say?

Depends on a file. And it’s been misled, in “The Castle,” the entire premise of the novel in “The Castle,” is a file has been mislaid in the castle’s bureaucracy. That’s the world of Kafka. Your file is mislaid in the passport office, in the visa office, in the income tax office, in the office at work, the office through art society. The whole life has changed. Kafka art turned it into poetic poetry in his novels. That’s the essence of “The Castle.” Think of the castle in Prague. You know, for those who’ve been there, walking around, you’re always seeing this massive castle. I think it’s one of the biggest in Europe, up on the top of the hill. Wherever you are on Prague, you can’t help it. The castle is there. It’s not a cathedral, it’s not a church, it’s a castle. It’s a symbol of absolute architectural power, and therefore the power of royalty. But in our times, it’s the centre of bureaucracy. So the ordinary person doesn’t have a hope, getting so lost in the image of the castle. For me, Kafka is closer to a certain poetic realism, than only, you know, the sort of contemporary way of seeing it is full of alienation. It’s real, there’s the castle. He saw, he used what was real in his daily life in Prague. It’s an extraordinary insight of Kafka’s. The punished person seeks the offence. What is it they’ve done? You know? And so they become obsessed with their own guilt, but they’re not guilty, because the passport officer says, the citizen, the visa officer says that, the other office for the travel, for the journey, for the trip, you know, you get the email about the aeroplane, about the holiday or the office, from some manager somewhere, which changes your life completely. Somebody else, the anonymity of daily life.

What have they done wrong? What have they done to deserve it? Nothing. In “The Castle,” Joseph. K reviews every word, every thought, what have I done wrong, why? My file’s been misplaced. I start to inculcate the guilt and then the fire myself, it’s not me, they’ve done it or somebody else, but they never admit it. He read the first chapter of “The Trial” to his friends, and they laughed, they said, this is funny. It’s ridiculous. In “Metamorphosis,” you know, Gregor wakes up and he’s a cockroach. And when they read it, his friends burst out laughing and said, this is so funny and ridiculous. A guy wakes up and discovers he is a cockroach? It’s ridiculous, it’s ironic, it’s funny, it’s satire. And that is what is so missed by so many of the existentialist interpretations in today’s society. “Metamorphosis,” what’s the story of “Metamorphosis?” Gregor has a job in his father’s business, corrupt, lot of money to the company. So Gregor, his job is- To pay off the father’s debts, father son relationship. And Gregor wakes the first opening page of the novel, as a giant beetle or cockroach, whichever. And Gregor’s first response, and this is brilliant of Kafka, is not horror, as what’s happened to a beetle or cockroach, anxiety that he’s going to be late for work. See, and then what happens? I can’t come down. His family says, “come Gregor, come for breakfast before you go after your job.” “I can’t, I can’t, something’s happened,” da da da da. And the family’s only interested in coming down for breakfast so you can get to your job and help pay off daddy’s debts.

And what happens? The company’s chief clerk and knocks on the door. “What’s happened? You’re late for work, where are you?” Gregor, “I can’t, I can’t,” nobody’s vaguely interested. Neither is family nor the chief clerk, that he’s been transformed into a giant beetle or cockroach. The only interest is that you’re late for work, and if you don’t go to work, we’re going to have to deduct your pay, or you lose your job and the family won’t, can’t carry on without your salary. And the obsession becomes how to fill, get into the job. I had a friend I worked with, and this is only some years ago in England here, who fell and broke his arm one day, he was so obsessed with saving his phone, as to not break the phone and the messages. And it was so obsessed and didn’t want to go to hospital. The arm was broken. Because he had to get some emails replied to, he had to get some documents through the office. And I said, but you’ve broken your arm, and you know, come on. You know, it was pure moment of Kafka. It’s a society of a life without secrets. A citizen does not have to hide anything from the state. Think about everything that is known about us. The trick of, especially in the internet, you know, the file has become that, anything can be known about us. Something we did as a child, something we did 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, can become known about us, anything. So the abolition of privacy in democracies, not only totalitarian state, ‘cause it’s obvious in a totalitarian state, you know, what have you said about your neighbour? What have you said about your parents?

And it’s become a life with secrets are not really possible. Abolition of privacy. Kafka got it. Political correctness, which holds everybody accountable to ridiculously high standards, left as much as the right. You know, we expect you to have perfect blameless behaviour when you’re a child or any anywhere else. Make a comment at work, and you can be had, for whatever or whatever it is at work, society, algorithms, all the rest we know this only too well, but what it leads to is the abolition of the private self, and the secrets that one is entitled to. So- And people on the left may think it’s a society creating, but it’s not. Total surveillance, and that is whether it’s democracy or totalitarian happening, Kafka saw it all coming. The intrusion of the state, the intrusion of technology and bureaucracy in all these ways, is the abolition of privacy. That is a Kafkaesque world. Joseph K is in his bed, in “The Castle,” moving from “Metamorphosis,” he’s in his bed in the opening paragraph of the novel. What could be a more private space? Two officers arrive to arrest him. There’s never a clue. Who are they, what have they done?

• [Lauren] David, I’m so sorry to interrupt, but the internet is getting a little choppy, so I’m going to go ahead and take over screen sharing, so that we can hear you better. I think so.

• Yeah, okay, all right, great. Thanks Lauren, appreciate it. Sorry, I didn’t know that. Okay, so it’s this kind of a surreal society, this kind of a world. And I think what Kafka’s done is transform the ordinary stories of everyday life of the office and individuals, into a mythical poetic novel that is, that he was the first and never been done before. And that way he’s prophetic. And that is what for me is Kafkaesque in the world we live in. It’s how the private life gets played out, on the great stage of history. Kafka wrote, “you go to synagogue, what is it that sustains you in a synagogue? The idea of Judaism or the idea of God?” This is Kafka’s writing, “this is the most important thing, of a continuous relationship between yourself and a reassuringly distant, possibly infinite God. He who feels this has no need to roam about like a lost dog. Mutely gazing with importing, with imploring eyes. He never need yearn to slip into a grave, as if it were a warm sleeping bag in the life, and life, a cold winter night. He understands.” In “Metamorphosis,” that I mentioned, and how Gregor wakes up and the anxiety, what is striking again is that nobody is concerned, what’s happened to Gregor, but that he’s, the metamorphosis of his body. Instead, it’s the mundane, anxious thought that takes over, carry on with the job, work it, live it, the family. Nobody’s really worried. That’s where the irony, the humour, the satire, lies completely. I’m just going to write, read the first sentence of the novel.

“As Gregor Samsa woke up one morning, from uneasy dreams, he found into a gigantic insect.” One sentence, but look at the satire, there’s irony in which insight, and that everyone carries on acting as if he’s normal. And you know that again, is where the humour lies. And the Chief Barrett that when the chief clerk comes to him in “Metamorphosis,” what does he say? What is Kafka? This is quoting from the novel, “"Mr. Samsa,” the chief clerk called, “what is wrong? You barricade yourself in your room. You give us no more than yes or no for an answer. You are causing serious and unnecessary concern, to your parents, and you fail. You failed to carry out your business duties, in a way that is quite unheard of. Mr. Samsa, you-”“ Not a question, nobody’s asking, are you sick, are you okay? Are you well, aren’t you? And so on. ”“But sir,” called Gregor, beside himself, forgetting all else in his excitement. “I’ll open my door immediately, just a moment. I’m a little bit unwell. An attack of dizziness, I think. Haven’t been able to get out of bed until now.”“ Anxiety, I can’t fulfil what the boss wants. So, and then he goes on, I’m quite fresh, and I’m going to get out of bed, et cetera. So it goes on and on. In "The Trial,” in the novel, Joseph K works in a bank. It’s a story of a man arrested and prosecuted, because of some remote inaccessible authority where the crime is not revealed. Joseph K, nor the reader. This is of the novel, Kafka’s writing. “Two gentlemen, ordinary men, surprised Josephs K in bed one morning. They tell him he’s under arrest each up his- K is a well disciplined civil servant. Instead of throwing the men out of his flat, he stands in his night shirt, and gives a lengthy self-defense.

He sits in the room, and the other, the two men sit in the room and calmly eat Joseph’s breakfast.” Brod, in that interview talks about, this is almost like police interrogators coming in a totalitarian state later to come, or a democracy that could come from any of the bureaucratic institutions of civil life to arrest him. They need wearing police uniforms, official uniforms. They’re dressed quite casually. They’re not violent, they’re not threatening, they’re just bureaucrats doing their job. And the crucial thing becomes, doing the job, fulfilling what the boss wants no matter what. It becomes, everything is about the job. The office, do what the boss wants. Everything becomes about fulfilling the institution, the company’s requirements, not the personal life. Does the bird seek the cage? Does the free spirit seek the cage of the institution, the company, the bureaucratic space? K is arrested and he spends the rest of the story, in “The Trial,” having encounters with court officials, lawyers, advisors, who he hopes can help him make the case to the court and clear his name. But there never is a trial. Catch 22, there never is a trial. Joseph K never gets to meet an official. The officials he meets are powerless. He can’t clear his name. The final chapter he’s taken to quarry and murdered, as the one guy says in the book, in the novel. “I can’t even confirm that you are charged with an offence, rather, I dunno whether you are or not, but you are under arrest.” It’s a dream satire.

Miss that, and we miss the humour, and we miss the paradox. A great phrase that I love. Page 120 of the novel. Wow, “the higher officials kept themselves well hidden.” Havel and others, take this all up, and many of Kundera, you know, the top officials keep themselves well hidden in Kafka’s world. But, ultimately with Kafka, even those officials have somebody to report to above them. There’s no political, there’s no top. Where’s the appeal go to? And our obsessing K is forced, he goes back to every thought. What have I done, what is my crime? Et cetera, what am I guilty of? He doesn’t even know. So a society where we don’t even know what we’ve done wrong. We don’t even know what the charge is, and will we ever find out? We are born and thrust into a world, to make us anxious or guilty. That’s the Kafka poetic, the Kafkaesque. So it’s, you know, offending work, colleagues, offices, elsewhere. You don’t know what it is that you’ve really done wrong, or is it so wrong, is it such a big crime? Ultimately, in Kafka’s words, it’s a world of obedience. That is for me, his poetic masterpiece. The insight, it’s a world of obedience. How much are people rarely going to challenge or try and change it? It’s a world that inculcates not only conformity, and mediocrity, but obedience. And where the only human adventure, is to maybe move from one office to another. The world obviously of bureaucracy, and how bureaucracy works in all these different ways. And the landlady in “The Trial” says, she says to K, “you misunderstand everything, even a person’s silence.”

So unless we get it, that this is a world of obedience, a world of authority, unless we get it, we will misunder- And Joseph k becomes obsessed with, you know, trying to find his file, and that’s a mistake in the file. The abolition between the private and the public, between the guilty and the accused, and the free is all blurred. All of these things, when we have a life, society with that where secrets cannot be held, citizen can’t hold onto any privacy. So I want to pull this together by saying that I think he understood not only bureaucracy, but institutions, and companies, business. How so much of it for the ordinary person has to be lived. And when the human being becomes so bureaucratized, so caught up in it. But what he did was he created a poetic image, out of the office, which is an insane thing, if you think about it, trying to create a poetic image out of, but he does it. And through satire, achieves it. The punishment seeks the crime. Like the bird seeks the cage. That, already have done something wrong, and therefore have done something I must be punished for, without trying to question, find out, and can we really find out? Or is it going to be so duplicitously covered up, and told in all different ways to us? We don’t know. The last thought to leave us with, Kafka sees a world, in Kundera’s phrase, estate, democracy, authoritarian, totalitarian, where state is a single immense administration, life has become an enormous administration, where everyone is an employee. “Maybe a judge,” this is Kundera writing, “maybe a judge, maybe a shopkeeper, maybe a lawyer, maybe a business owner, a business manager. But ultimately I’m an employee of the state, not only an employee of the company, therefore we are all functionaries, and employees of a state.” Joseph K at the end of, toward later, in “The Castle,” says, I belong to the, sorry, in “The Trial,” “I belong to the court.” Isn’t that extraordinary?

“I belong to the court.” Something of the state, of a functionary. Can I leave us with this thought? Kafka loved parables. He went another whole time can be on, on his Jewishness and his Judaism. The influence of storytellers. Jewish stories, Jewish storytellers, the influence of the Jewish Yiddish Theatre, the influence of his parables and parables from the Bible. And how he loved parables in his aphorisms. Always the duality, the double, the paradox. And I guess if we can go onto the last slide, please. When after Milena, I think. Finally, thanks Lauren. What, he said was, “a book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.” Books must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. One of the best definitions from the 20th century, I think, of art and what literature can achieve, to open up the frozen sea of the heart, inside us to reveal what people really feel, perhaps. Okay, so let’s hold it at that. And thank you very much everybody. And we can go into questions, and I’m able to open the questions here, Lauren, thanks.

Q&A and Comments:

Q: From Ruth, “did Max Brod do a good or bad thing, in publishing Kafka’s work?”

A: Ruth, Ruth. Ruth, I think absolutely. And Brod says that Kafka said, okay, burn all my books. But he never put it in his will. And he knew he was dying, he had TB. So Brod brought this out later and said, well, it was never written, it was just told to me. And I think Max Brod did a fantastic thing. 'Cause Brod in other interviews says, Kafka, he thought always would’ve loved his- That he, you know, had this impulsive reaction, burn it all. I think we’ve, and I think the world would be much poorer without Kafka’s work.

Thorough, this is from Gail. “Some people live lives of quiet desperation.” Thanks, well, that’s what the phrase is exactly, quiet desperation, thanks Gail. Sandy, “my favourite aphorism from Kafka. The bony structure of his forehead blocks his way. He batters himself bluntly against his own forehead.” Yeah, exactly. Lovely, thanks, Sandy.

Rita, Max Brod, that’s the interview. Thanks so much for that, that’s great. If anyone else wants to watch, it’s about a 25 minute full interview, German TV, and I think it was 1968, it was done.

Q: William, “how did Yiddish become pigeon German? Not Spanish.”

A: That would be, I would rather hold that. Going to sit on the fence, for an expert in Yiddish and German and the history of Yiddish than myself. William, thanks.

Rita, thank you, the photos are great.

Natalie, “it has been said Kafka was the ultimate pragmatist, please comment.” Well, I mean, he took a job, I mean he finished his doctorate in law, and he took a job in the worker’s accident insurance, pension fund, insurance company in Prague. But as soon as he started to get sick, he got sick leave for those last years of many years. Seven, eight years of his life.

Q: Pragmatist, I think he also suffered from, was he going to marry?

A: There were three women that he really, I think loved. Was he going to marry, wasn’t he? Was he going to settle down, have children, family? Because he wrote a lot about that, having children and a family, but didn’t. And he was pragmatic with his father, and the business in the end. But it didn’t stop him feeling emotionally. But he was rational about it as well.

Q: Judith, “what is the red band?”

A: Oh, here? Judith, thank you, oh gosh, I forgot. I’ve had multiple sclerosis for 40 years. It’ll be 40 years in early April, Pesach, Easter. I’ll be 40 years old with multiple sclerosis. And this is, I’m part of multiple sclerosis societies in England and elsewhere and globally. And I give money to it every month. And it’s part of a thing from one of the main MS society, in England to help raise awareness not only for MS, but neurological and other chronic conditions that people may have. I’m part of some other societies as well. That’s what the red band is, okay.

Q: Paula, “is the idea that the punished person seeks a crime a variation of the story of Job?”

A: Yes, absolutely, Paula, great connection, thank you.

Q: Essed, “whose translation of Hanukkah?” Hanukkah or Hyner?

A: Last week, perhaps, you mean? You mean There were quite a few translations of Hyner, that I used last week because there have been many fantastic translations into English. And I used a range and try to find what, what for me, were the best. You know, happy to share email, if you want.

BC, “I have no audio issues,” thank you.

Yolanda, ah, thank you, I didn’t know that, okay. “The internet is taken over your lectures.

Pure Kafka,” says Ed, that’s for sure. I feel like that beetle on the couch with Freud, you know, I fear I’m becoming like Kafka.

Q: Carol, “how much did his Jewishness contribute to his novels?”

A: As I’ve tried to mention, I think that what he called the triple dimension to his life, he’s German speaking, he’s in Prague and he’s Jewish, and he loves literature, or what we might call in the phrase of today, classic alienation and anxiety. You know, he’s on the margin. He’s an outsider, triple outsider, completely, I think hugely. He has a bar mitzvah, in a religious, fairly religious, not over religious, but you know, minimally religious family. I think it contributes hugely. You know, he reads Hebrew, he learns Hebrew, he goes to Yiddish theatre. Most of his friends were Jewish. He’s very close friends and he knows the Bible stories, how to write parables, et cetera. I think hugely. But I wanted to keep that perhaps for another lecture entirely.

Ronan, “a lot of transmission interference.” Ah, I’m sorry about that. Oh, Diane, thank you, I’m sorry about that.

Alice, “I think Lewis Carroll was influenced by Kafka when he wrote "Alice in Wonderland.”“ Yeah, he might have been. That’s a fantastic thought. Never thought of that, that’s great, Alice.

Gail, how are you? Hope you’re okay there in Joburg. Pinter’s "The Birthday Party,” echoes. Definitely, Pinter’s utterly influenced. Pinter, Orson Welles, James so many of the great writers utterly influenced by Kafka.

Sheila… Thanks “The Royal Ballet,” I didn’t see that piece, but I saw Berkoff’s piece, which was great. “Metamorphosis” and report to an academy, I think goes now the actor, maybe Henry Goodman who did it.

Fantastic, Miriam. “"Metamorphosis” has huge amount of abuse, neglects salvation,“ yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, maybe it prefigures the Nazis to come, you know, it would be instinctive in the poet in him, in the writer in him, of Kafka. Rita, thank you.

Kathleen, "there’s a concept of original sin.” I don’t think he goes into it very much. It’s more as you were saying earlier, “The Book of Job,” I think. I’m sorry that that it was so choppy.

Ralph. “David, I’ve read several of Kafka’s works. Thank you for your understanding, et cetera. Visiting Prague.” Yeah, exactly, that’s great. Gail, thank you, Miriam, thank you kindly.

Q: Carol, “do we know why he wanted his work destroyed?”

A: We spoke about that earlier.

Nina, “the TV long running and successful stories, "The Office” reflects Kafka.“ Yes, I don’t think anybody could write a thing called TV or film called "The Office” without understanding, those key insights of Kafka.

Ethel, “it is not pigeon German.” No, it’s not for me. 'Cause German was his home language. Riva, “Kafka brilliant understanding of our world. Exactly the intentions,” yep.

“Psychosis, Putin’s war,” yep. Phil, thank you.

Transmission, ah, stopped many times. So sorry, Maxine, thanks. Rita. Well thank you. Okay, sorry about those interruptions. Really, really sorry about that. And what can I say?

Thank you so much everybody. Hope you well have a great rest of the weekend. And Lauren, thanks so much again.