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Kafka: The Years of Insight

di Reiner Stach

Altri autori: Vedi la sezione altri autori.

Serie: Kafka (3)

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Telling the story of Kafka's final years as never before—the third volume in the acclaimed definitive biographyThis volume of Reiner Stach's acclaimed and definitive biography of Franz Kafka tells the story of the final years of the writer's life, from 1916 to 1924—a period during which the world Kafka had known came to an end. Stach's riveting narrative, which reflects the latest findings about Kafka's life and works, draws readers in with nearly cinematic precision, zooming in for extreme close-ups of Kafka's personal life, then pulling back for panoramic shots of a wider world blighted by World War I, disease, and inflation.In these years, Kafka was spared military service at the front, yet his work as a civil servant brought him into chilling proximity with its grim realities. He was witness to unspeakable misery, lost the financial security he had been counting on to lead the life of a writer, and remained captive for years in his hometown of Prague. The outbreak of tuberculosis and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire constituted a double shock for Kafka, and made him agonizingly aware of his increasing rootlessness. He began to pose broader existential questions, and his writing grew terser and more reflective, from the parable-like Country Doctor stories and A Hunger Artist to The Castle.A door seemed to open in the form of a passionate relationship with the Czech journalist Milena Jesenská. But the romance was unfulfilled and Kafka, an incurably ill German Jew with a Czech passport, continued to suffer. However, his predicament only sharpened his perceptiveness, and the final period of his life became the years of insight.… (altro)
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Mostra 3 di 3
An excellent final volume, or second volume in writing order, to a wonderful biography. There's very little to complain about: Stach does a great job, particularly in the final third. As in the other volumes, he's a bit too inclined to give Kafka every possible good quality and to deny him any bad one, but any decent reader will be able to put him/herself in the position of Kafka's friends, family and lovers, and imagine what a bloody nightmare it must have been to live with him, as well as a joy. Like pretty much everyone else, in that way, at least.

The last two pages were also a good reminder that Kafka, whom Stach often enough presents as the unluckiest human being to ever sink back into the earth (an astonishing presentation, given Kafka's economic and employment standing), was lucky in at least one way: few of those who survived him survived Auschwitz, Treblinka, or the war. ( )
  stillatim | Oct 23, 2020 |
As the last in Reiner Stach's magisterial 3-volume biography of Franz Kafka, "The Years of Insight" covers Kafka's last decade, the years 1914-1924. I opened it with some curiosity, and was quickly captivated by its prose. I love this work ! -- it gave me the insight into this odd, enigmatic author that I was seeking.

The time span covered in this biography includes Kafka's publication of his best-known, non-posthumous works. These include "The Metamorphosis" (published in 1915), "The Judgment" (1916), "In the Penal Colony" (1919), and "A Country Doctor" (1920). It also includes his re-engagement and 2nd breakup with his fiancé Felice Bauer; his contraction of tuberculosis; his relationships with Julie and Milena, and finally Dora, who was with him until he died (of TB) at the early age of 40.

I found "The Years of Insight" to be brilliant, insightful, beautifully written (and therefore, beautifully translated into English), engaging, and entertaining. Despite being 570 pages (with another 65 pages of notes), for me it never dragged, and I looked forward each night to being able to pick up where I'd left off. I underlined passages, made marginal notes, bent down page corners, stick post-it notes at places to go back to -- this is a book that I consumed, and plan to refer to in the future.

This volume and the others have been criticized on the grounds that the author goes too far beyond the written record to infer what Kafka must have been thinking at given times, and reasons for his actions. This criticism has some merit; but in light of the extensive written record provided by Kafka's voluminous, daily correspondence, as well as his writings, diaries, and the reminiscences of his friends, Reiner Stach's inferences appear on the whole to be well-founded. Another potential criticism is that the book gives little insight into the meaning of his various literary works. This point is off-the-mark in my view. Analyses of Kafka's writing has occupied literary critics for many decades and has yielded many thousands of works and a wide diversity of views. This biography offers insight into his writings by presenting the circumstances under which they were written. In that respect, it meets the goal of a literary biography, while leaving quarrels over meaning and significance to the self- appointed literary critics.

The muted language of my short review does not express my great enthusiasm for this magnificent work. Kafka studies cannot, or at least should not, ever be the same. It's an essential work. I loved reading it. ( )
1 vota danielx | Feb 22, 2019 |
This and Reiner Stach's earlier volume, Kafka: The Decisive Years, were easily the two best books I read in 2014. I'm still processing them, but I cannot recommend them enough to any serious Kafka reader. Kafka's life and work were intricately woven together, and reading about his life at this level of depth only serves to enhance our reading of his original texts. While they are notoriously resistant to interpretation, and often even mystified their creator, there is still so much to glean from them and Stach's ongoing biographical project provides an essential tool to discovery. ( )
1 vota S.D. | Nov 29, 2014 |
Mostra 3 di 3
Stach confesses in the foreword to the first volume that “biographers have a dream. . . . They wish to go beyond what was.” Then in typical fashion he continues: “This is impossible.” He has much to say about biography’s methods and challenges, the “pressing . . . question of the hermeneutic horizon,” the difficulties caused by “considerable lacunae.” He believes the time has come to grant biography the status of an independent form of literary art. Yet Stach’s intellectual gifts are not literary ones. He has empathy for Kafka but little imaginative insight.
aggiunto da danielx | modificaNew York Times, Joy Williams (Jan 1, 2013)
 

» Aggiungi altri autori (2 potenziali)

Nome dell'autoreRuoloTipo di autoreOpera?Stato
Reiner Stachautore primariotutte le edizionicalcolato
Frisch, ShelleyTraduttoreautore secondarioalcune edizioniconfermato

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Kafka (3)
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Telling the story of Kafka's final years as never before—the third volume in the acclaimed definitive biographyThis volume of Reiner Stach's acclaimed and definitive biography of Franz Kafka tells the story of the final years of the writer's life, from 1916 to 1924—a period during which the world Kafka had known came to an end. Stach's riveting narrative, which reflects the latest findings about Kafka's life and works, draws readers in with nearly cinematic precision, zooming in for extreme close-ups of Kafka's personal life, then pulling back for panoramic shots of a wider world blighted by World War I, disease, and inflation.In these years, Kafka was spared military service at the front, yet his work as a civil servant brought him into chilling proximity with its grim realities. He was witness to unspeakable misery, lost the financial security he had been counting on to lead the life of a writer, and remained captive for years in his hometown of Prague. The outbreak of tuberculosis and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire constituted a double shock for Kafka, and made him agonizingly aware of his increasing rootlessness. He began to pose broader existential questions, and his writing grew terser and more reflective, from the parable-like Country Doctor stories and A Hunger Artist to The Castle.A door seemed to open in the form of a passionate relationship with the Czech journalist Milena Jesenská. But the romance was unfulfilled and Kafka, an incurably ill German Jew with a Czech passport, continued to suffer. However, his predicament only sharpened his perceptiveness, and the final period of his life became the years of insight.

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