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When one considers Kafka has had so much influence on literature that the word "Kafkaesque" was invented to describe his thoughts and effects on us (how many writers can claim their "own word"!),it is surprising that only three notable biographies on him exist. This one is by a man who knew Kafka closely for the last half of his life.When they met Kafka was 19, he died one month short of his 41st birthday.The author's reverence makes the reader become passionately attached to the subjects of Kafka's inner feelings; his reserved,taciturn approach to people, his obsession with pure thoughts, his sensitivity to noise, his devotion to the the earth,its humans,animals and plants. Even now, three quarters of a century later, the reader feels the exasperation, the frustration, the torment Kafka suffered under his materialistic, social climbing father who dominated and eventually ruined his son. The book cannot be called lively,Kafka's lifestyle was not frolicsome. However, it is never dull. His clandestine trysts with the sleazier side of Prague nightlife takes the reader by surprise.Then comes Brod's stunner of a revelation only unearthed in 1948, twenty-four years after Kafka's death.??? The last quarter of the book is the best.Intense and sorrowful, just as Kafka would have wanted it. For those looking for the intellectual side of Kafka the book offers insights into his appreciation of Goethe (his idol),Thomas Mann, Flaubert and Dickens, among many others. Brod's ace is his ability to quote the sensitive Kafka; viewing the fish at a Berlin aquarium after Kafka became an ardent vegetarian he is quoted, "Now I can at last look at you in peace,I don't eat you anymore".Read more ›
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
This biography lets you on the inside of not only a great writer but on the inside of a close friendship between two writers and friends. It's written in a rather relaxed way, the way only good friends can be with one another. I read a biography on Kafka many years ago and it left me a bit indifferent about Kafka. This biography lets you feel the warmth and exuberance of the man, the everyday of this extraordinary writer. You can almost imagine yourself in his childhood home, meeting the family, understanding how Kafka became Kafka, how the seeds for his stories were planted and evolved. This biography had all the intimacy of an autobiography. Anyone who would like to know the tender underside of the beast, this is the biography you're looking for.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Max Brod was Kafka's best friend. Kafka willed his writing to the flames and Brod rescued them, and helped make them known to the world.
Brod was a writer of considerable accomplishment and output yet to his great credit he recognized that it was Kafka who was the great genius who mankind would come to reread and reread.
The biography tells the story of Kafka's difficult quest to live and write. It contains much of what Kafka reportedly said and is thus rich in his own unique voice.
It is not the most comprehensive nor the authoritative biography but it is the first and most influential .And it is the one which helped save the name , and give the work of this great genius to the world.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Those of us who feel that Mozart might have been right, when he complained to his father about having to give music lessons for enough money to live, will find Max Brod entirely on our side in FRANZ KAFKA, A BIOGRAPHY, when it comes to "Philistines who are of the opinion that it is enough if genius has `a few hours free'--they don't understand that all the available hours barely suffice to guarantee to an even tolerably uninterrupted ebb and flow of inspiration and repose its right and proper far-flung arc of oscillation." (pp. 88-89). Kafka obtained a doctorate in jurisprudence on July 18, 1906, did a year of unpaid practice in the law courts typical for those who intend to be called to the bar, and tried to find a job with office hours that would be through at 2 p.m. each day. In July 1908, he began working at the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague. Work is tiring, so "Kafka tried sleeping in the afternoon and writing at night. That always went all right for a certain length of time, but he was not getting his proper sleep." (p. 80). With television providing entertainment at all hours, and people eating enough to produce sleep apnea to wake them constantly for another gasp of breath after we are too fat to sleep normally, it is not surprising that people find themselves in a state of mind which matches whatever Kafka was writing. I checked a few biographies to see how much emphasis had been given to Kafka's work on the job, since reading recently in a book by Peter Drucker that Kafka does not get enough credit for requiring people in the presence of falling objects to wear safety helmets.Read more ›
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Blessed with the gifts of an outstanding writer in his own right, this brief biography of Kafka from Max Brod spares you the tedious minutia that weigh down most literary biographies. What you are left with is a deeply personal and truly felt picture of a friend who sacrificed himself for his art. Kafka comes across here as a saintly martyr for literature and art-a suffering genius who found salvation and meaning in his work. Yet Brod is careful not to paint too dark of a picture; he is attuned to Kafka's tremendous humor and satirical wit. In short, he was a man sensitive to the pain and absurdity of the human condition, in all its beauty and pain. An outstanding portrait of this cutting edge artist who wrote for the crickets and is now secure in the literary pantheon.
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