Coquitlam Public Library

Kafka

eng

illustrations

no index present

Rated T

non fiction

Kafka

electronic resource

dictionaries

This brief but inclusive biography of Franz Kafka and summary of many of his works, all illustrated by Crumb, helps us understand the essence of Kafka and provide insight beyond the cliche "Kafkaesque." "What do I have in common with the Jews? I don't even have anything in common with myself." Nothing could better express the essence of Franz Kafka, a man described by his friends as living behind a "glass wall." Kafka wrote in the tradition of the great Yiddish storytellers, whose stock-in-trade was bizarre fantasy tainted with hilarity and self-abasement. What he added to this tradition was an almost unbearably expanded consciousness. Alienated from his roots, his family, his surroundings, and primarily from his own body, Kafka created a unique literary language in which to hide away, transforming himself into a cockroach, an ape, a dog, a mole or a circus artiste who starves himself to death in front of admiring crowds

adult