This gripping biography of the great Czech novelist, diarist and short story writer chronicles Kafka's entire (if tragically curtailed) life (1883-1924), but it focuses upon the writer's relationship to his father and his inheritance as a member of the Jewish mercantile bourgeoisie in Prague. Born into a German-speaking Jewish family, Kafka was a subject of the Austro-Hungarian empire until 1919 yet through his work he is one of the most modern of writers. While previous works have concentrated on Kafka and his women, Nicholas Murray will concentrate on his extraordinary relationship with his father which found its most eloquent literary expression in the story 'The Judgement' written in 1912 when Kafka was twenty-nine:in a reverse Oedipal move, the father condemns his son to death by drowning. This work is essential for an understanding of the intensely private and complex Kafka and the kind of writer he turned out to be - the creator in THE CASTLE, THE TRIAL and METAMORPHOSIS (the dazzling short story whose hero wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant insect) of some of the defining literature of the 20th century.
This gripping biography of the great Czech novelist, diarist and short story writer chronicles Kafka's entire (if tragically curtailed) life (1883-1924), but it focuses upon the writer's relationship to his father and his inheritance as a member of the Jewish mercantile bourgeoisie in Prague. Born into a German-speaking Jewish family, Kafka was a subject of the Austro-Hungarian empire until 1919 yet through his work he is one of the most modern of writers. While previous works have concentrated on Kafka and his women, Nicholas Murray will concentrate on his extraordinary relationship with his father which found its most eloquent literary expression in the story 'The Judgement' written in 1912 when Kafka was twenty-nine:in a reverse Oedipal move, the father condemns his son to death by drowning. This work is essential for an understanding of the intensely private and complex Kafka and the kind of writer he turned out to be - the creator in THE CASTLE, THE TRIAL and METAMORPHOSIS (the dazzling short story whose hero wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant insect) of some of the defining literature of the 20th century.
* First general biography in UK for twenty years of one of the defining writers of the 20th century - Franz Kafka.
Nicholas Murray is the acclaimed biographer of Victorian poet and critic MATTHEW ARNOLD (Hodder), ANDREW MARVELL and ALDOUS HUXLEY.
'[An] admirable and conscientious biography.' LITERARY REVIEW Nicholas Murray's KAFKA restores the great writer to the human world, not just of relationships, but of actual societies, thus delivering his masterpieces from appropriation by theological and philosophical exegetes.' TLS 'Nicholas Murray does what all decent biographers should do: leaves the reader hungry to fo back to the haunting and permanently elusive work that makes the unhappy life so extraordinary.' SUNDAY TIMES 'Kafka's writing didn't meet his inner demands for perfection...But when Murray quotes from him, you want to rush off and read more instantly. This makes KAFKA the best kind of literary biography.' INDEPENDENT 'Murray's work is necessarily various and surely the most truthful available.' THE TIMES 'Anyone lookig for a balanced and readable account of his [Kafka's] life and work will find Murray and engaging, conscientious and sympathetic guide.' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'A soulful, searching book, faultlessly researched and beautifully written.' OBSERVER
'[An] admirable and conscientious biography.' LITERARY REVIEW Nicholas Murray's KAFKA restores the great writer to the human world, not just of relationships, but of actual societies, thus delivering his masterpieces from appropriation by theological and philosophical exegetes.' TLS 'Nicholas Murray does what all decent biographers should do: leaves the reader hungry to fo back to the haunting and permanently elusive work that makes the unhappy life so extraordinary.' SUNDAY TIMES 'Kafka's writing didn't meet his inner demands for perfection...But when Murray quotes from him, you want to rush off and read more instantly. This makes KAFKA the best kind of literary biography.' INDEPENDENT 'Murray's work is necessarily various and surely the most truthful available.' THE TIMES 'Anyone lookig for a balanced and readable account of his [Kafka's] life and work will find Murray and engaging, conscientious and sympathetic guide.' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'A soulful, searching book, faultlessly researched and beautifully written.' OBSERVER
A biography that tries to pin down a well-known and widely discussed author risks seeming redundant, but this is definitely not the case with Murray's fascinating portrait of Kafka. Murray offers a new and original reading of one of the most complex writers of the 20th century, possibly the most significant such reading since the end of the Cold War. Born in Prague as part of the German-speaking minority, Kafka lived as the quintessential outsider: a Jew among Germans and a German among Czechs. Murray, himself a novelist as well as as a biographer, poet, and literary critic, divides this biography into four parts-"Prague," "Felice," "Milena," and "Dora," each revolving around a different aspect of Kafka's life. The first part explores the cultural milieu of Prague from the turn of the century until the author's death in 1924. The second analyzes Kafka's desperate long-distance relationship with Felice Bauer and the rich correspondence it generated over the course of five years. Milena is Milena Jesenska, a young writer who translated some of Kafka's stories into Czech and with whom he fell in love. Dora is Dora Diamant, his last lover, who described herself as "the wife of Franz Kafka." What emerges is a more humane, albeit complex Franz Kafka: an unhappy child, likable friend, passionate lover, and fiercely curious intellectual. This balanced literary biography is a masterpiece that belongs in all literary collections. [For an interview with Murray, see "Editor's Picks for Fall," LJ 9/1/04.-Ed.]-Ali Houissa, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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