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“In the stories which Kafka left us, narrative art regains the significance it had in the mouth of Scheherazade: to postpone the future. In The Trial postponement is the hope of the accused man only if the proceedings do not gradually turn into the judgment.”

— The patriarch himself is to benefit by postponement, even though he may have to trade his place in tradition for it. “I could conceive of another Abraham-to be sure, he would never get to be a patriarch or even an’ old-clothes dealer-, an Abraham who would be prepared to satisfy the demand for a sacrifice immediately, with the promptness of a waiter, but would be unable to bring it off because he cannot get away !I being indispensable; the household needs him, there is always something or other to take care of, the house is never ready; but without having his house ready, without having something to fall back on, he cannot leave-this the Bible also realized, for it says: ‘He set his. house in order.’ ” This Abraham appears “with the promptness of a waiter.” Kafka could understand things only in the form of a gestuS, and this gestus which he did not understand constitutes the cloudy part of the parables. Kafka’s writings emanate from it. The way he withheld them is well known. His testament orders their destruction. This document, which no one interested in Kafka can disregard, says that the writings did not satisfy their author, that he regarded his efforts as failures, that he counted himself among those who were bound to fail. He did fail in his grandiose attempt to convert poetry into doctrine, to turn it into a parable and restore to it that stability and unpretentiousness which, in the face of reason, seemed to him to be the only appropriate thing for it. No other writer has obeyed the commandment “Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image” so faithfully. “It was as if the shame of it was to outlive him.” With these words The Trial ends. Corresponding as it does to his “elemental purity of feeling,” shame is Kafka’s strongest gesture. It has a dual aspect, however. Shame is an intimate human reaction, but at the same time it has social pretensions. ========== Benjamin. Illuminations

walter-benjamin-quotes

“In the stories which Kafka left us, narrative art regains the significance it had in the mouth of Scheherazade: to postpone the future. In The Trial postponement is the hope of the accused man only if the proceedings do not gradually turn into the judgment.”

— The patriarch himself is to benefit by postponement, even though he may have to trade his place in tradition for it. “I could conceive of another Abraham-to be sure, he would never get to be a patriarch or even an’ old-clothes dealer-, an Abraham who would be prepared to satisfy the demand for a sacrifice immediately, with the promptness of a waiter, but would be unable to bring it off because he cannot get away !I being indispensable; the household needs him, there is always something or other to take care of, the house is never ready; but without having his house ready, without having something to fall back on, he cannot leave-this the Bible also realized, for it says: ‘He set his. house in order.’ ” This Abraham appears “with the promptness of a waiter.” Kafka could understand things only in the form of a gestuS, and this gestus which he did not understand constitutes the cloudy part of the parables. Kafka’s writings emanate from it. The way he withheld them is well known. His testament orders their destruction. This document, which no one interested in Kafka can disregard, says that the writings did not satisfy their author, that he regarded his efforts as failures, that he counted himself among those who were bound to fail. He did fail in his grandiose attempt to convert poetry into doctrine, to turn it into a parable and restore to it that stability and unpretentiousness which, in the face of reason, seemed to him to be the only appropriate thing for it. No other writer has obeyed the commandment “Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image” so faithfully. “It was as if the shame of it was to outlive him.” With these words The Trial ends. Corresponding as it does to his “elemental purity of feeling,” shame is Kafka’s strongest gesture. It has a dual aspect, however. Shame is an intimate human reaction, but at the same time it has social pretensions. ========== Benjamin. Illuminations

walter-benjamin-quotes

“ritual is the erasing of sins from the book of memory.“ What has been forgotten-and this insight affords us yet another avenue of access to Kafka’s work-is never something purely individual.”

— Everything forgotten mingles with what has been forgotten of the prehistoric world, forms countless, uncertain, changing compounds, yielding a constant flow of new, strange proctucts. Oblivion is the container from which the inexhaustible intermediate world in Kafka~s stories presses toward the light. “Here the very fullness of the world is considered as the only reality. All spirit must be concrete, particularized ========== Benjamin. Illuminations

The security,...the good salary... so long as I am a bachelor all these things mean nothing to me & are transformed into torments.

andyvantino

““By his mid-thirties, however, Kafka had come to see that on this night, his father had not actually caused the irreparable harm, but at most had exploited, magnified, and exposed it. …exposed an unconsciously existing distress that ran much deeper,” says Rainer Stach.”

— http://twitter.com/AndreVantino/status/1384314432344543235

‘She was silent up there in the window of the compartment, with a mouth rapturously contorted by embarrassment and slyness and with twinkling eyes that swam on the wrinkles spreading from her mouth. She must have believed I loved her, as was indeed true,’ Kafka writes. … 'With these glances she gave me the sole fulfillment that a young but experienced woman, a good wife and mother, could give a doctor of her imagination,’ Kafka writes. … 'The train seemed about to leave, we quickly said good-bye, shook each other’s hands, I tipped my hat and then held it against my chest, we stepped back as one does when trains leave, by which one means to show that everything is finished and one has come to terms with it. … 'The train did not leave yet, however, we stepped up close again, I was rather happy about it, she asked after my sisters,’ Kafka writes. … 'She let her handkerchief float in the wind, I tipped my hat, at first awkwardly, then, the farther away she was, the more freely.' … 'Later I remembered that I had had the impression that the train was not really leaving but only moving the short length of the railway station in order to put on a play for us, and then was swallowed up,’ Kafka writes

'Parents who expect gratitude from their children (there are even some who insist on it) are like usurers who gladly risk their capital if only they receive interest', Kafka writes.

the whole of the unconscious man emerged, purposeful, self-tormenting, having himself firmly in hand and then going to pieces again

in the death enacted I rejoice in my own death, hence calculatingly exploit the attention that the reader concentrates on death, have a much clearer understanding of it than he, of whom I suppose that he will loudly lament on his deathbed

The best things I have written have their basis in this capacity of mine to meet death with contentment.

the more I write and the more I free myself, the purer and more worthy of you I may become

kafkas-diaries

8 April. The metaphysical urge is only the urge toward death.

Franz Kafka, Diaries (via kafkas-diaries)

she was on the stage, I sang the tunes with her, later the words, I thanked her after several performances; because of this, again, she naturally liked me very well. But if she spoke to me out of this feeling I was so embarrassed that she undoubtedly fell back into her original disinclination

When we see each other after a longish time we get used to the irritation, then we put up a front of words so that our yawns wont be noticed

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'reproached myself for the foolishness of my anxiety’: Kafka describes his indecisiveness, in this his wooing begins https://t.co/laJXiuUiaC

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bright girls, SocialDemocrats, who've to keep their teeth clenched lest they come out with a conviction,a principle,on the least provocation

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