Reading Franz Kafka

Open your eyes to the world of Kafkaesque absurdity. Succumb into a Kafkian nightmare and, just like Gregor Samsa, watch yourself transform into a bug.

[kafkaesque-world]

Perhaps there are other forms of writing, but I know only this kind; at night, when fear keeps me from sleeping, I know only this kind.

Franz Kafka, Letter to Max Brod, 1922

[kafkaesque-world]

Sleep is the most innocent creature there is and a sleepless man the most guilty.

 Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

[operajaune]

Just a cute reader

[callmefrieden]

Dear Milena,

I wish the world were ending tomorrow. Then I could take the next train, arrive at your doorstep in Vienna, and say: “Come with me, Milena. We are going to love each other without scruples or fear or restraint. Because the world is ending tomorrow.” Perhaps we don’t love unreasonably because we think we have time, or have to reckon with time. But what if we don't have time? Or what if time, as we know it, is irrelevant? Ah, if only the world were ending tomorrow. We could help each other very much.

― Franz Kafka

[franzkavkas]

You had hardly described our meeting in Berlin when I was already dreaming of it…we weren’t walking arm in arm, admittedly, but we were closer to each other than when people are arm in arm. Oh God, it’s difficult to describe on paper my invention for not walking arm in arm, not being conspicuous, but still walking very close to you…

But wait, I’ll draw it. Walking arm in arm is like this. But we were walking like this.

Franz Kafka, Letter to Felice Bauer, February 11th/12th, 1913

[virginiewoolf]

It’s just that I belong in the quietest quiet, that’s what’s right for me.

Franz Kafka, in a letter to Milena Jesenská, from Letters to Milena

[unchildhood]

FRANZ KAFKA

Letters to Milena (1952);

original photos and edit

[kafkaesque-world]

“Do you know, darling? When you became involved with others you quite possibly stepped down a level or two, but If you become involved with me, you will be throwing yourself into the abyss.” ― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

[stay-close]

You see, as far as I'm concerned what's happening is incredible —my world is collapsing, my world is rebuilding itself: wait and see how you (meaning me) survive it all. I'm not lamenting the falling apart, it was already in a state of collapse, what I'm lamenting is the rebuilding, I lament my waning strength, I lament being born, I lament the light of the sun.

— Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

[stay-close]

Forget everything. Open the windows. Clear the room. The wind blows through it. You see only its emptiness, you search in every corner and don't find yourself.

— Franz Kafka, Diaries 1914-1923

[thezeroquotes]

I don't feel particularly proud of myself. But when I walk alone in the woods or lie in the meadows, all is well.

— Franz Kafka, Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors

[wingful]

a kafka quote that kept me awake at night

[kafkaesque-world]

[oumaimas]

The Diaries of Franz Kafka, 1914-1923

[barcarole]

Picture postcard from Franz Kafka (to his sister) in Paris dated 13th September, 1911. (Additional commentary by Max Brod on the bottom right.)

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

Hopes?

Franz Kafka, from a diary entry written c. February 1914 featured in “Diaries”

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

Despair in every direction. Extra-lucid nights.

Paul Valéry, tr. by Hilary Corke, from The Collected Works; “Autobiography”

[antigonick]

But the poet task, says Kafka, is to lead the isolated human being into the infinite life—

Anne Carson, excerpt of Mimnermos and the Motions of Hedonism (Mimnermos: The Brainsex Paintings)