By Reiner Stach
During compiling his hugely acclaimed three-volume biography of Kafka, whereas foraying to libraries and files from Prague to Israel, Reiner Stach made one surprising discovery after one other: unforeseen images, inconsistencies in handwritten texts, excerpts from letters, and tales from Kafka’s contemporaries that shed incredible mild on his character and his writing. Is that Kafka? provides the crystal granules of the genuine Kafka: he couldn’t lie, yet he attempted to cheat on his high-school tests; bitten by means of the health fad, he avidly the regime of a Danish workout guru; he drew superbly; he enjoyed beer; he learn biographies voraciously; he made the main attractive provides, specially for kids; bizarre issues made him cry or made him livid; he cherished slapstick. each discovery by way of Stach activates its head the stereotypical model of the tortured neurotic—and as each chips away on the monolithic darkish Kafka, the keynote, of all issues, turns into laughter.
For Is that Kafka? Stach has assembled ninety nine of his most enjoyable discoveries, culling the most excellent, so much wonderful bits, and including his knowledge-able commentaries. Illustrated with dozens of formerly unknown photographs, this quantity is a novel literary excitement.
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Example text
The limo made a gentle left turn and now we were on Hegemans Lane. Up ahead on the left was the Gold Coast Stables, or, as the owners liked to refer to it, “The Gold Coast Equestrian Center,” which sounded infinitely WASPier. As we passed by, I could see the green-and-white-striped stables, where the Duchess kept her horses. From top to bottom the whole equestrian thing had turned into a giant fucking nightmare. It started with the stable’s owner, a Quaalude-addicted, potbellied savage Jew, with a thousand-watt social smile and a secret life’s mission to be mistaken for a WASP.
Eliot and Walt Whitman. And it was there that Nadine Caridi—my lovable English, Irish, Scottish, German, Norwegian, and Italian mutt-of-a-duchess—learned to tie her curses together, as she was learning to tie the laces on her roller skates. It was sort of a grim joke, I thought, considering that Mark Hanna had warned me about going out with a girl from Bay Ridge all those years ago. His girlfriend, as I recalled, had stabbed him with a pencil while he was sleeping; the Duchess preferred throwing water.
And since the mommy in the story always liked to do things just right, she went out and researched the very best in surveillance equipment, and she ended up buying the latest and greatest TV cameras that give the clearest and brightest and most detailed picture that money can buy. And the best part, Mommy, is that it’s all in living color! ” Mommy’s legs were still spread wide open, in all their glory, when I said, “Anyway, about two months ago Mommy and Daddy were lying in bed on a rainy Sunday morning when she told him about an article she’d read about how some baby nurses and housekeepers mistreated the babies they looked after.
