Franz Kafka: A
L .
vatuahon
(On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of his death)
T WENTY YEARS
ago, in the summer of
1924,
Franz Kafka died
at the age of forty. His reputation grew steadily in Austria and Ger–
many during the twenties and in France, England and America dur–
ing the thirties. His admirers in these countries, though strongly dis–
agreeing about the inherent meaning of his work, agree, oddly enough,
on one essential point: all of them are struck by something new in
his art of story-telling, a quality of modernity which appears no–
where else with the same intensity and unequivocalness. This is sur–
pri~ing
because Kafka-in striking contrast with other favorite au–
thors of the intelligentsia-engaged in no technical experiments
LA-
whatsoever; without in any way changing the German language, he
stripped it of its ·involved constructions until it became clear and
simple like everyday speech purified of slang and negligence. The
simplicity, the easy naturalness of his language may indicate that
Kafka's modernity and the difficulty of his work have very little to
do with that modern complication of the inner life which is always
looking out for new and unique techniques to express new and unique
feelings. The common experience of Kafka's readers is one of gen–
eral and vague fascination, even in stories they fail to understand,
a precise recollection of strange and seemingly absurd images and
descriptions- until one day the hidden meaning reveals itself to them
with the sudden evidence of a truth simple and incontestable.
Let us begin with the novel
The Trial,
about which a small
library of interpretations has been published.
It
is the story of a man
who is tried according to laws which he can't discover and' finally is
executed without having been able to find out what it is all about.
In his search for the real
rea~ons
for his ordeal, he learns that
behind it "a great organization is at work which ... not only em–
ploys corrupt wardens, stupid inspectors, and examining magistrates
... but also has at it'> disposal a judicial hierarchy of high, indeed, of
the highest rank, with an indispensable and numerous retinue of ser–
vants, clerks, police and other assistants, perhaps even hangmen." He
