A COMMUNICATION
521
within a given set of intellectual assumptions, but rather to locate
Josephine fully in space and time and then understand her in the whole
range of intellectual associations that her existence involves, the natural–
istic needs of the story are slight. It is foolish to suppose, however, that
Kafka does not respect the naturalistic impulse or has not learned from
it. That Burnham admits Kafka's "sudden pulses of tenderness" as well
as wit and gaiety is an admission that he recognizes Kafka's loyalty to
the observed fact. Can one "hate life" and have the marvelous sense of
humor evident in the Josephine story? I think not. That Kafka con–
sidered life a bad bargain is something else again.
Burnham writes that "The literal meaning in Kafka is not an ade–
quate starting point; it is not complete or sufficient in its own terms."
If
the literal meaning of Kafka's stories is not "sufficient," then the
~tories
themselves are not "sufficient," because all their meaning has been
translated into literal terms. There is no difference between Dante's and
Kafka's method, only a difference in doctrine, in conclusions from ex–
perience. Allegory is allegory, and must stand on its own feet. The stories
actually do "suffice" quite well as stories, just as such imitations as
Isaac Rosenfeld's
The Brigadier
suffice. Kafka may be interested in how
the actual world embodies the abstractions of mind, but he is a novelist
first. Again, Burnham backs me up by writing, "We wrong Kafka by
turning him into a philosopher or theologian or social scientist." Why
then claim that his stories are not "sufficient" on their own grounds
when all one means is that they are suggestive, as indeed all good fiction
must be in various degrees?
We are not getting any closer to Manichaeism, no matter how we
approach. The anxiety which Burnham claims to be the dominant note
in Kafka is an existential virtue. The first people to become doctrinally
aware of themselves as existents were the first to claim anxiety as a
virtue. It implies an inseparable union of spirit and matter-perhaps as
far from the Manichaean heresy as any doctrine could possibly be.
As Burnham admits, Kafka had normal animal appetites. He was
fond of athletics and good at them; he was not averse to the pleasures of
the table or good company. He had to postpone and forego marriage for
a complex of difficulties, but did not forego the company of women.
There seem to be no signs of spiritual vocation in Kafka. He was simply
a rare spirit, which is not the same thing. His mind was legal,
logical, philosophical, and occasionally lyrical, as any sensitive reader of
such a story as
Josephine
will know. An extraordinary spate of nonsense
about his "supersonic" explorations wili be found in the recent Luce
press and Sunday supplements.
The further evidence for Kafka's Manichaeism adduced by Burn–
ham is also unconvincing. He bases Kafka's alleged loathing of sex on
the encounter in
The Castle,
forgetting the two quite different episodes
