Kafka, Kafka Everywhere, and Not a Thought to Think!: In Prague on the Centennial of Franz's Death
I happened to be in Prague during the lead up to, and occasion of, the hundredth anniversary of Franz Kafka's death (June 3, 2024). The fact that Kafka as an image and as a topic seemed to pop up almost every time I turned a street corner in Prague's city center, opened a newspaper, or looked at a list of art exhibitions could hardly help but be gratifying given that Kafka is at the center of my literary universe. But still, amongst all the hoopla, I began to ask myself: how much was the substance of Franz Kafka the writer being transmitted in all this?
Of course, Kafka has long been used as a tourist icon in the city, but this is the first time that it became difficult to avoid his image. And not just in the city center: it was also the first time that I remember encountering Kafka's image immediately upon my arrival in the Prague airport, on a digital screen in the airport terminal.
And while Kafka as an iconic writer has always been a presence at the Svět knihy, the Prague international book fair, I can honestly say that I have never seen a lounge area at the book fair that was built around Kafka, specifically around a videogame about him, "Playing Kafka," which was "developed to commemorate the centenary of Kafka's death and was developed in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut, Prague." But the lounge was just the beginning. Germany was the featured guest at this year's book fair and was given extra space as a result, which they dubbed "Das Buch" and dedicated to Kafka, firstly in the form of the lounge, but also a dedicated section of books by and about him.
And then there was a display from the Goethe Institute and the Literaturhaus Stuttgart (Stuttgart House of Literature) showing various illustrations of Kafka's life and work in comic form from a book by Nicolas Mahler.
Indeed, this was all nicely encapsulated by the program note for Das Buch co-written by the directors of the Goethe Institute, The Austrian Cultural Forum, and the cultural attaché from the Swiss embassy. In it, they write that there is another "guest" at the book fair besides Germany, namely Franz Kafka, who:
"…died a hundred years ago but he still has a lot to say 'because his problems are the problems of people today'. A number of events will be thematically linked to Kafka, including a debate with Reiner Stach, author of the award-winning biography of Franz Kafka, or with cartoonist Nicolas Mahler, whose comic biography Komplett Kafka [Completely Kafka, in Czech: Kafka v kostce] is being published in Czech on the occasion of the Prague book fair. The accompanying Kafka-inspired programme also includes the launch of a video game entitled Playing Kafka and a cabaret show entitled Kafka Has Left the Building."
But the cabaret wasn't the only performance event about Kafka at the book fair. There was also a concert by the long-established, and worthy, Kafka Band: "Experience the thrilling fusion of indie, folk and rock at the upcoming Kafka Band concert!" its blurb reads. "The band's distinctive sound along with thought-provoking lyrics inspired by the existential themes of Franz Kafka promise an extraordinary musical experience." One of the band's members, it should be added, is the noted Czech writer Jaroslav Rudiš.
The book fair also featured numerous panel discussions about or touching on Kafka, such as "V4 Kafka," a panel discussion featuring an author from each of the Visegrád nations (the Visegrád Group is a cultural and political alliance of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) addressing the question of "what did and does Franz Kafka mean to Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and Polish culture and literature?"
I myself attended a panel discussion titled, "KAFKAESQUE: A discussion and book launch of the catalog to the exhibition."
You might notice that the "digital poster" being displayed at the panel discussion is similar to the one I saw at the airport. This is because they are both for a large exhibition at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, which is described in the program guide of the book fair as follows (my translation): "How does the literary work of Franz Kafka influence the present-day art scene? The works of more than thirty Czech and international artists show that Kafka's writings, with their references to existential fears and personal anxieties remain highly relevant in our time." Present for the panel discussion were two of the artists whose works were in the exhibition, and the exhibition's curators.
But the Kafka program at the book fair, extensive though it was, was not the only game in town. I encountered fully three additional programs of Kafka-themed events that had been organized for the anniversary. The first of these was undertaken by the Jewish Museum in Prague, titled "Kafka 100," and featured a series of lectures and exhibitions, including a virtual reconstruction of a library that Kafka had liked to visit and which had been destroyed by the Nazis during World War II.
And then there was the "Kafka 2024" program. This also included lectures, exhibitions, showings, and the like, but was spread out over the entire year and held in venues across Europe. In Prague this included an exhibit at the Museum of Literature that I had a chance to visit, titled "The Games of Franz Kafka."
And lastly I can point to a program prominently advertised at the main branch of the city library, where it was held from June 3rd through June 6th. It featured a day-long academic conference in German on the "inter-medial" Kafka, a public lecture in Czech on Kafka the traveler and sportsman, a walking tour of Kafka's Prague, and a showing of the 1997 Austrian-German film adaptation of The Castle (with Czech sub-titles). It was also titled "Kafka 100."
A week before the city library's program, I attended a stand-alone event in the large hall of the library, a premiere showing of a television documentary that was to be broadcast on Czech television on the anniversary day of Kafka's death. Titled "Franz Kafka - známý neznámý" (Franz Kafka – Known and Unknown), the documentary's director, producer, writer, and other production staff were present to discuss it and answer questions.
However, this wasn't the only mass media event I was able to view during this special time. Premiering on the broadcast channel Czech Television 2 in the lead-up to the anniversary was the Austrian TV series Kafka. And so I was able to see – was fascinated, in fact, to see – Kafka's life dramatized in a TV series. The two episodes broadcast before I left are titled "Max" and "Felice" (the remaining episodes, it should be noted, are titled "Family," "Office," "Milena" and "Dora").
Of course, as I have already mentioned, this all played out against Kafka's already ubiquitous presence in Prague. It was all well and good, that is to say, for the Quadria shopping center in the center of Prague to highlight on one of their display screens an admonition to "Remember Kafka" and to state that "on June 3 we will commemorate the 100th anniversary of Kafka's death and honor his memory."
But the shopping center has for the whole ten years of its existence been commemorating Kafka's memory. First and foremost, this can be seen in the now iconic sculpture, the "Head of Franz Kafka," that they commissioned the deservedly celebrated Czech sculptor David Černý to design. They not only paid the considerable bill for the construction of it (over a million dollars), but also pay the ongoing maintenance and operational costs for the 42 motor modules and kilometer of cables needed for its rotating stainless steel panels that configure, disconfigure, and then reconfigure likenesses of Kafka's head over and over again. Of course, considering the scores of tourists that the sculpture draws to the mall's courtyard, a cynic might question whether they are not so much commemorating Kafka's memory as taking advantage of it. In fact, in Bety Suchanová's masterful one minute animated film depicting Kafka's visit to modern day Prague, "Welcome Home [Vitej Doma]," it is this statue that causes him to reach his breaking point.
But here I will ask again my earlier question: "How much was the substance of Franz Kakfa the writer being transmitted in all this?" For while I can say, in their favor, that all of the anniversary-related events that I attended were done with some thought and sensitivity to the life of Franz Kafka, I can also say that it is exactly there that the problem lies.
Because, as I made my way through these maze of events, it slowly but surely became apparent that the hoopla was mostly celebrating the life and times of Franz Kafka but not the work of Franz Kafka. This is perhaps best illustrated by the exhibit at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, which, though its curators claimed that it "focuses on reflections on Kafka's work and poetics in contemporary visual art," seemed to flow more from the life of Kafka as opposed to his works. This assertion can be given some empirical validation by the fact that the clear majority of artists stated in their commentaries (most of the exhibit's works presented comments from the artist as to what inspired the particular work in question, or what it was about Kafka that inspired their work over the years) that the inspiration for the works in question came from Kafka's diaries, his letters to his lovers, or his letter to his father. Only a minority cited one or more of his works of fiction, and even then the more obviously autobiographical story "The Judgment" figured prominently.
In addition, though the exhibit was titled "KAFKAesque," there seemed to be few examples of the Kafkaesque in it – if we accept the Oxford dictionary definition of the adjective as "used to describe a situation that is confusing and frightening, especially one involving complicated official rules and systems that do not seem to make any sense." Only a couple of the paintings (both by Jaroslav Róna), an installation piece by Pavel Büchler, and the clips from Orson Welles' film "The Trial" being projected at the entrance to the exhibit could be said to, in a clear way, represent an individual lost in the broader scheme of things. Most of the works, that is too say, were either too non-representational to convey "complicated official rules and systems," or too focused on the image of Kafka himself.
And, as regards Kafka's approach to fiction – his style or mode of expression – only Jan Švankmajer's short film The Flat gives the exhibition-goer a sense of the "rebellion of the means against the ends" or "a reality being constantly undermined" that Kafka so often utilized (and that we at The Cafe Irreal – a publication that I co-edit and which publishes, or so we hope, fiction "in the tradition of Franz Kafka" – consider to be foundational to our publication's content). In addition, the often singular focus on Kafka's real-life psychological states (using, e.g., a passage from his diary to inspire a painting) meant that, even though many of the works were non-representational, they couldn't be said to be "so many pointers to an unknown meaning" that also characterizes much of Kafka's work.
Given the focus on Kafka's life in all of these events, it is not surprising that Rainer Stach, whose massive and impressively written three volume biography of Kafka can reasonably lay claim to being "definitive," played an important role in many of them. The producers of the documentary I previously mentioned ("Franz Kafka – Known and Unknown") specifically state, for example, that the documentary sets forth Stach's demystifying interpretation of Kafka. Thus, in it, the Kafka "myth" -- that he was a loner, a genius freak, and a clerical cog in corporate machinery -- is replaced by an image of Kafka as he actually was: an often genial man with a lively sense of humor, and a lawyer highly regarded by the insurance company he worked for.
Stach himself highlights this point when he is interviewed in the documentary. Pointing to the standard, iconic photograph used to represent Kafka, which shows the writer looking grim and gaunt (it was taken only months before his death from tuberculosis), Stach states that this is a misleading depiction of Kafka. That if we want to capture the true Kafka, it would be better to show a picture from a few years before, in which he is standing beside his sister with a mischievous grin on his face.
Stach is also one of the screenwriters for the Kafka TV series mentioned earlier. In the two episodes broadcast while I was in Prague, the series too revealed Kafka to be a good-natured, sometimes even upbeat man making his way through life. And it showed him to have some deep-seated, though not debilitating, issues with his familial and romantic relationships, as well as with his place in society. But, above all and quite correctly, the series showed Kafka to have an absolute determination to express himself through writing.
But, welcome though this widespread application of Stach's corrective is to Kafka's biography, it certainly does nothing to correct the excessive focus on Kafka's life, as opposed to his work.
And because of this focus, I couldn't help but feel that we were also witnessing the integration of Franz Kafka into 21st century celebrity culture. One in which, a little bit like the Kardashians, the celebrity's life and loves are all that is known about them. So much so that why it was they (and perhaps now, for many, Kafka as well) became a celebrity in the first place has been forgotten.
Postscript:
[I am calling this part of my account a "postscript" to acknowledge that the conclusions drawn from it are based on a smaller subset of experiences than the main section of the article, thereby making them more provisional in nature. In addition, they might also be considered by some to be more controversial.]
It should be added for the sake of completeness that there were a couple of instances amongst these many events that I attended, or was made aware of, in which Kafka's work was more directly addressed.
The first of these was the "Kafkus Hybernská," an event that occurred a month or so before I arrived in Prague. It took place at the Hybernská campus in the Prague city center, described on its website as being "a complex of buildings and courtyard on Hybernská street where creativity, art, innovation and the academic world come together." It has, in my experience of it, the look of being a large, anarchist squat, but is in fact jointly administered by the city government and Charles University. For the Kafkus event the campus was, according to its organizers' description on Facebook, transformed over a period of five days into a "laboratory" that, through immersive theater, exhibits, lectures and other means, evoked Kafka's literary work. Additionally, it was the "enigmatic, but also cheerful and mischievous face, of Franz Kafka" that was uncovered, inviting the visitor to "change your view of this important author and discover new dimensions of his work." Similarly, the description of the event's concluding performance, "Kafka's Dreambook," states: "The week-long 'Kafkus Hybernská' event concluded with a collective performance, which for several hours transformed the courtyards and cellars of the Campus into an array of fanciful scenes from the works of Franz Kafka. Participants there read, typed, played football, danced, went hungry, and played music. We are interested in Kafka the prankster, Kafka green, cheerful and dark, Kafka in love or Kafka the athlete." (A short video summarizing this interesting performance piece is available on the revue Prostor YouTube channel.)
The second instance was an exhibition at the Museum of Literature [Muzeum literatury] that I mentioned previously, and which I did have the opportunity to visit. Titled "The Games [or, perhaps better, "Playfulness"] of Franz Kafka," the exhibition's brochure states that the focus isn't on the themes of solitude, guilt, and criticism of modern society that so often characterize the analysis of Kafka's work; the exhibit will instead emphasize what Kafka's friend Oskar Baum felt to be the essence of Kafka's work, namely "a free, creative and, in this sense, playful approach to the anxiety and unstable existence of modern people."
Indeed, the exhibit raises interesting questions about the "play" of Kafka's (dream-like) narrative technique, the narrative "playing field" (a kind of "sliding paradox") he sets up with his readers, his use of word-play, and the extension of the world of "play" into the theatrical aspects of Kafka's texts.
But take note of the fact that here, as well as (apparently) at the Kafkus Hybernská event, we seem to find our way yet again to this new, more playful Kafka. In these cases, however, the playfulness extends beyond Kafka's life and times to his literary output as well.
And while I have no more argument with Baum's description of Kafka's work than I did with Stach's description of Kafka's life, I have to admit to feeling a sense of discomfort with it all. That, somewhat improbably, Kafka is also being sucked into, or at least tempered by, the positive thinking paradigm.
It is perhaps no coincidence that I had just been thinking of this ideology of happiness – "ideology" in the sense that maintaining a positive outlook becomes an ideological mandate – while passing through Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport on my way to Prague. There, I saw the many display boards put up by the Amsterdam-based global insurance company IMG. Under the slogan "Do Your Thing," which is a part of the company's "Think Forward strategy" that "articulates our purpose of empowering people to stay a step ahead in life and business," they showed people of all ages and nationalities in what might be called "life-affirming" activities. These included an elderly man flexing his biceps on a beach, a mountain climber hanging from a rock, and somebody napping with their pet beside them.
In the United States, where the ideology of positive thinking runs deeper and has a longer history, it has additionally become apparent that it is penetrating more deeply into what are supposed to be oases of critical thinking – college campuses.
Thus, the library at one university I sometimes visit was recently incorporated into the "Student Success District," which includes the "Thrive Center" and the "Strategic Alternative Learning Techniques Center." To get there, I have to walk by the just completed "Grand Challenges Research Building."
And at a local community college, it is not enough to have a "Health Professions Building," it must now instead be the "Center of Excellence for Health Professions Building." *
That this mind-set might be having an influence on the students of these institutions occurred to me when I recently saw, at yet another university, an exhibit from an art class. In it, the students had been asked to use a computer graphics program to illustrate their proposals for outdoor art projects. The titles they gave their proposals – such as "Color the Sky," "Sky-High Technology Flies," "Sky's the Limit," "Just Keep Growing," and "Keep Life Flowing" – would have made the power of positive thinking guru Norman Vincent Peale proud.
Hence my sensitivity to this new and happier Kafka, and my concern that the 100th anniversary events were being mediated by a world ruled by the "tyranny of positive thinking" in which "cheerfulness is required, dissent a kind of treason" (or at least this is how it is characterized by Barbara Ehrenreich in her 2009 book Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, p. 31). And as a result, in spite of the intentions and scholarship of its organizers and participants, the overall effect of the anniversary was, by so consistently emphasizing the "lig hter side" of Kafka in both the man and his work, to make him into less of an existentially and politically imposing literary figure.
It might not be possible, that is to say, to use good scholarship and literary analysis to make Kafka into a figure who exemplifies the supposed "power of positive thinking." It might, however, be possible to use it to make him into less of a challenger figure to this propagandistic paradigm.
And that, I am suggesting, is a trap that we must avoid falling into. The same way that we must avoid falling into the trap of thinking of Kafka primarily in terms of his life and loves.
* This trend seems also to be present at British universities, or at least so it would seem from the following depiction in Peter Robinson's short story "The Campus Novel," published recently in Fortnightly Review: "Beneath the sky, at a distance, glinting through trees, I caught a glimpse of our reconfigured park lake. Fluttering red pennants were inviting us all to the brave new worlds of transferable skills and employability. What the banners spelled out if the wind were blowing hard enough in the right direction was Limitless Potential, Impact, and Ambition. Now they flapped in the breeze, a spaghetti of lettering putting on airs."
G. S. Evans is Co-editor of The Cafe Irreal.