Franz Kafka: The Office Writings (Hardcover)

~ Franz Kafka (Author), Stanley Corngold (Editor), Jack Greenberg (Editor), Benno Wagner (Editor), Eric Patton (Translator), Ruth Hein (Translator)
Key Phrases: agricultural quarries, trade inspectorate, unauthorized coverage, Office of the Governor, Prague Institute, Ministry of the Interior (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

The Office Writings, however, convincingly suggests that his job was also integral to his writing, and that his literary production was not an escape from the alienation of daily life to that 'dreamlike inner life' but a striving to reconcile the two.
(Alexander Provan The Nation )

Kafka himself complained constantly that his day job at the Prague Workmen's Accident Insurance Institute oppressed his artistic calling; this volume's editors beg to differ. In the hands of Kafka scholars Stanley Corngold and Benno Wagner and the legal scholar Jack Greenberg, the 18 briefs collected here comprise more than a record of the author's years in the insurance business. By reading between his legal writings and his fiction, the editors argue that Kafka's dual identities are inextricable: the writer is informed by the lawyer, the lawyer by the writer. Franz Kafka is the Franz Kafka we know not in spite of his day job, but rather because of it.
(Rachel Sugar The National )

[T]he texts have impressive sociological merit: They provide a compelling picture of what life was like for an early twentieth-century bureaucrat who took his work seriously, believed in it, and did it well. . . . But ultimately, the value of The Office Writings lies less in the potential connections to Kafka's fiction than in the fundamental disconnect.
(Ben Kafka Bookforum )

Cognizant that some readers might be put off by the legal writing style, Corngold (German & comparative literature, Princeton Univ.), Jack Greenberg (law, Columbia Univ.), and Benno Wagner (literature, media, & culture, Univ. of Siegen, Germany) provide ample and rich analyses that demonstrate the close link between Kafka's profession and his literary creativity and oeuvre. This scholarly book is indispensable to an understanding of Kafka. Highly recommended.
(Ali Houissa Library Journal )

This event--finally, the translation and publication of the last known scrap of Kafka's work left untranslated, and unpublished--brings us to the subject of this series: how Kafka's office writings influenced his fiction, and what that influence means. Kafka's office writings, as presented here, cannot be read on their own . . . but, instead, must be read as companions, to demystify the three novels and stories (which are anything but boring). Taken together, though, both workaday fact and masterwork fiction create a network of connections that exposes not just the concerns of a single writer, but also that of a singular culture--the culture of the Office, which has imposed itself on what used to be our lives.
(Joshua Cohen Nextbook.org )

This handsome volume fills a void in Kafka studies and rectifies the unbalanced image of Kafka as a tortured genius who labored in an insurance office by day and wrote fiction by night. . . . A fascinating read for scholars of Kafka and modern Central European literature.
(M. McCulloh Choice )

The editors--Stanley Corngold, Jack Greenberg and Benno Wagner--have done a masterful job in making the drafts of speeches, letters, internal reports and newspaper articles relevant.
(Raymond Johnston Czech Business Weekly )

Review

This volume is an important addition to our understanding and appreciation of Kafka and his work.
(Harold T. Shapiro, president emeritus, Princeton University )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 424 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (September 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691126801
• ISBN-13: 978-0691126807
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #573,771 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Indispensible & Riveting, September 16, 2009

By	jason b - See all my reviews

Much better than "The Complete Geological Surveys of Andrei Tarkovsky 1952-58," and almost as good as "The Land Surveys of Henry David Thoreau 1851-62 (Unabridged Version, 2400 pp): Schocken Classics Series." But when will they finally release his surviving laundry lists?!

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Artemy Lebedev doesn't want you to read this book!, March 31, 2009

By	Werehamster (Columbus, OH) - See all my reviews

Yes, the very same Artemy Lebedev who doesn't want you to save energy by turning off the light when you leave the room. Here he wants to keep you in the dark about this great compendium of Kafka's office minutiae, this literary feast of all things mundane, this intricate web of clerical nonsense, that only Kafka could come up with. No, wait, him and half a billion of other accountants and subrogation service specialists that ever lived. The Office Writings by Kafka easily beats US Tax Code on entertainment value alone, and (unlike the Code) it answers the important question that pops up every single time somebody gets their claim adjustment document - Who wrote this drivel? Kafka did, that's who. At least the ones in this book. Some say this book helps to gain insights into the origins of Kafka's other writings - The Trial for example. That's true - it is about as helpful as reading Stephen King's car service records is to understanding the magic behind From a Buick 8. Seriously, read this book as if it were the last thing you read. It probably will be.