NIGHTMARE OF REASON [Paperback]

Ernst Pawel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 1985

A comprehensive and interpretative biography of Franz Kafka that is both a monumental work of scholarship and a vivid, lively evocation of Kafka's world.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 466 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage Books ed edition (April 12, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039472948X
• ISBN-13: 978-0394729480
• Shipping Weight: 15.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,306,717 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Bio, July 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: NIGHTMARE OF REASON (Paperback)

This is the best biography of Kafka available in the English language. It is not a starchy academic biography removed from the living currents of an author's life. Pawel understood all the factors in fin de siecle Prague that combined to produce the century's greatest writer. This biography concentrates on everything that was vital to Kafka's background, from his anguished relationship with his father to his private yearning for the tradition of his ancesstors. That this book has been allowed to go out of print is a shame.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Nightmare Interpreted, January 8, 2006

By 

Sharjeel Sabir (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: NIGHTMARE OF REASON (Paperback)

Mr. Pawel's book is an articulate account of Kafka's tortured life. Though the details are interesting, it is the manner in which these details are presented by Pawel that makes this book such a pleasure to read. Pawel's style is commendable and his insight is impressive. A worthy tribute to a giant of modern literature.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and moving biography of the most lonely literary genius who nonetheless inspired deep love and devotion, April 1, 2006

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: NIGHTMARE OF REASON (Paperback)

I would like to focus in this review on the final pages of this outstanding and moving biography. In it Pawel tells the story of two of the great loves of Kafka's life, Milena Jesenka and Dora Dymant. In these stories we see how Kafka who somehow more deeply than any other writer conveys anxiety in loneliness, was very much loved and respected in his own lifetime. The heroic Milena Jesenka whose courage in helping people throughout her terrible time in Ravensbruck Concentration camp where she died on May 17, 1944 is related by her friend Margeret -Buber- Neumman's outstanding memoir of their time there.She understood and was devoted to the genius Kafka. Dora Dymant was with Kafka through the painful last months of his life. Her sacrifice, devotion and love of him knew no limit.They dreamed together of traveling to 'Palestina' and beginning a new life together. She loved him with a total and true love, and remained devoted to his memory throughout her life. We owe the fact that Kafka's works were not destroyed, and in fact became known to the world through the devoted action of his best friend, writer and biographer, Max Brod.
This book is written with deep human feeling and sensibility.
I want to close this review with Milena Jesenka's obituary for Kafka which appears towards the end of the book.
" Dr.Franz Kafka , .. writer who lived in Prague, died the day before yesterday in the Kierling Sanitorium at Klosterneuberg near Viena. Few knew him, for he was a loner, a recluse wise in the ways of the world, and frightened by it. For years he had been suffering from a lung disease, which he cherished and fostered even while accepting treatment.. It endowed him with a delicacy offeeling that bordered on the miraculous, and with a spiritual purity uncompromisingto the point of horror... He wrote the most significant works of modern German literature' their stark truth makes them seem naturalistic even where they speak in symbols. They reflect the irony and prophetic vision of a man condemned to see the world with such blinding clarity that he found it unbearable and went to his death."
I believe with the years many readers would substitute for the phrase 'most significant works in modern German literature' the phrase 'most significant works in world literature'.