WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.220 Welcome to the Deep Dive, where we take those 00:00:02.220 --> 00:00:05.059 figures you think you know, and, well, we peel 00:00:05.059 --> 00:00:07.440 back the layers until we find the astonishing, 00:00:07.780 --> 00:00:10.939 often unsettling truth hidden just beneath the 00:00:10.939 --> 00:00:13.560 myth. And today, we are talking about a writer 00:00:13.560 --> 00:00:15.500 whose name has become more than a name, it's 00:00:15.500 --> 00:00:18.079 an adjective. A shorthand for modern dread, really. 00:00:18.429 --> 00:00:20.690 We're talking about Franz Kafka, the man who 00:00:20.690 --> 00:00:23.510 gave us the metamorphosis, the trial, and those 00:00:23.510 --> 00:00:25.929 endless baffling bureaucracies. Franz Kafka, 00:00:26.210 --> 00:00:30.269 born in 1883 and who died tragically young in 00:00:30.269 --> 00:00:34.350 1924, is just this towering, inescapable figure 00:00:34.350 --> 00:00:37.250 of 20th century literature. And what makes his 00:00:37.250 --> 00:00:39.210 work so powerful, what makes it stick with you, 00:00:39.289 --> 00:00:42.210 is that strange mix he creates. It's a unique 00:00:42.210 --> 00:00:45.950 and often frightening fusion of this meticulous, 00:00:45.950 --> 00:00:48.759 almost... clinical realism on one hand and the 00:00:48.759 --> 00:00:51.219 absolutely bizarre, the fantastique on the other. 00:00:51.299 --> 00:00:53.380 Right. His characters are usually these isolated, 00:00:53.539 --> 00:00:55.899 totally ordinary people. Exactly. And they're 00:00:55.899 --> 00:00:58.500 facing these surreal, often nightmarish predicaments 00:00:58.500 --> 00:01:00.619 that are brought on by these socio -bureaucratic 00:01:00.619 --> 00:01:03.380 powers that are so distant, so complex that they 00:01:03.380 --> 00:01:05.439 become utterly, completely incomprehensible. 00:01:05.700 --> 00:01:09.060 And that profound internal tension is what really 00:01:09.060 --> 00:01:12.430 defines our mission today. We want to fully unpack 00:01:12.430 --> 00:01:16.189 the origin of that term Kafkaesque. To do that, 00:01:16.189 --> 00:01:19.670 we have to dive deep into the life and the absolutely 00:01:19.670 --> 00:01:23.230 unique circumstances of the man himself. We need 00:01:23.230 --> 00:01:25.870 to move beyond just using the word when we mean 00:01:25.870 --> 00:01:28.540 something is. you know, complicated or annoying. 00:01:28.739 --> 00:01:31.359 Absolutely. The term Kafkaesque is so powerful, 00:01:31.459 --> 00:01:33.159 but you're right. It's often deployed carelessly. 00:01:33.280 --> 00:01:35.420 It's just thrown around. Yeah. If you look at 00:01:35.420 --> 00:01:38.239 the strict literary definition, it describes 00:01:38.239 --> 00:01:40.640 situations or concepts that are really reminiscent 00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:43.560 of his work involving a nightmarish, surreal 00:01:43.560 --> 00:01:47.040 kind of milieu where these large impersonal systems 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:49.340 just overpower the individual. And that leads 00:01:49.340 --> 00:01:52.879 to this feeling of. What? Senselessness. Senselessness, 00:01:52.920 --> 00:01:55.200 helplessness, and this acute disorientation. 00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:57.000 So if you're trying to renew your passport and 00:01:57.000 --> 00:01:59.659 the website crashes, that's just... administrative 00:01:59.659 --> 00:02:02.099 failure. It's annoying. That's just a bad Tuesday. 00:02:02.299 --> 00:02:03.840 But if you walk into the passport office and 00:02:03.840 --> 00:02:05.760 you're immediately ushered into this windowless 00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:09.479 room where an unsmiling clerk demands documents 00:02:09.479 --> 00:02:12.379 that don't actually exist and then refers you 00:02:12.379 --> 00:02:15.479 to a higher authority who insists that you are 00:02:15.479 --> 00:02:18.159 somehow the architect of the very system that 00:02:18.159 --> 00:02:20.280 is now destroying you. That is when you start 00:02:20.280 --> 00:02:23.759 approaching Kafkaesque. It has to go beyond the 00:02:23.759 --> 00:02:26.419 merely absurd or complex. So what's the crucial 00:02:26.419 --> 00:02:28.930 element? The crucial element, which scholars 00:02:28.930 --> 00:02:31.289 always stress, is the individual's continued 00:02:31.289 --> 00:02:34.430 desperate striving within that system. It's the 00:02:34.430 --> 00:02:38.210 feeling of hopeless yet fully hopeful, striving 00:02:38.210 --> 00:02:40.530 in the face of absolute bleakness that truly 00:02:40.530 --> 00:02:43.830 defines it. And to get there, we have to understand 00:02:43.830 --> 00:02:46.449 the man's identity because it was forged in the 00:02:46.449 --> 00:02:48.689 fire of these very conflicts. Exactly. It all 00:02:48.689 --> 00:02:51.020 starts in Prague. OK, so let's unpack the starting 00:02:51.020 --> 00:02:53.919 point. Yeah. We begin in Prague, 1883. And this 00:02:53.919 --> 00:02:56.319 wasn't Prague, Czech Republic, as we know. Not 00:02:56.319 --> 00:02:58.379 at all. This was Prague under the mighty, but, 00:02:58.439 --> 00:03:00.580 you know, definitely aging Austro -Hungarian 00:03:00.580 --> 00:03:02.919 Empire. And Kafka's family, who were they? They 00:03:02.919 --> 00:03:05.680 were German speaking, middle class Ashkenazi 00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:09.000 Jews. And that identity is perhaps the most critical 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:11.560 layer of complexity to understand. It sounds 00:03:11.560 --> 00:03:13.750 like a crossroads of cultures. Prague at that 00:03:13.750 --> 00:03:16.110 time was exactly that, a confluence of cultures, 00:03:16.270 --> 00:03:19.150 and Kafka existed at the intersection of three 00:03:19.150 --> 00:03:22.250 of them, never really fully belonging to any. 00:03:23.210 --> 00:03:25.669 Well, his family was acculturated. They spoke 00:03:25.669 --> 00:03:27.750 standard German, which was the language of the 00:03:27.750 --> 00:03:30.409 ruling class, the language of business and government. 00:03:30.629 --> 00:03:32.210 And that's the language he used for his writing. 00:03:32.370 --> 00:03:34.810 Yes, and it's why his prose feels so pristine, 00:03:34.830 --> 00:03:37.969 so clean. It was this pure German, unhindered 00:03:37.969 --> 00:03:40.629 by the regional slang of, say, Berlin or Vienna. 00:03:41.050 --> 00:03:43.310 It makes his language feel incredibly precise 00:03:43.310 --> 00:03:47.550 and almost cold. But he was living in a city 00:03:47.550 --> 00:03:49.550 that was becoming more and more Slavic. Exactly. 00:03:49.569 --> 00:03:51.990 He was living in a rapidly awakening Czech city. 00:03:52.250 --> 00:03:55.550 He also spoke and wrote in Czech, although apparently 00:03:55.550 --> 00:03:57.969 he spoke German with a heavy Czech accent. And 00:03:57.969 --> 00:04:00.229 he felt, according to his own notes, that he 00:04:00.229 --> 00:04:02.629 was never fully fluent. So he's a German speaker 00:04:02.629 --> 00:04:05.319 in a Czech city. And on top of that, he was Jewish, 00:04:05.340 --> 00:04:08.180 but his family was secular, focused on assimilation 00:04:08.180 --> 00:04:10.580 into that German -speaking culture. So he's constantly 00:04:10.580 --> 00:04:14.219 in this state of flux. Constantly. A German -speaking 00:04:14.219 --> 00:04:17.939 minority within a Slav majority. A Jewish person 00:04:17.939 --> 00:04:21.420 aspiring to a secular European culture. This 00:04:21.420 --> 00:04:24.319 tripartite tension created the absolute perfect 00:04:24.319 --> 00:04:27.180 environment for an author obsessed with alienation. 00:04:27.339 --> 00:04:29.519 And it seems his primary source of material, 00:04:29.740 --> 00:04:32.660 and maybe his profound torment, was much closer 00:04:32.660 --> 00:04:35.120 to home than the Habsburg bureaucracy. Oh, much 00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:38.860 closer. It was his father, Herman Kafka. Tell 00:04:38.860 --> 00:04:40.980 me about him. The relationship with Herman was 00:04:40.980 --> 00:04:43.379 the foundation of so much of the anxiety in his 00:04:43.379 --> 00:04:46.399 literature. It was, by all accounts, profoundly 00:04:46.399 --> 00:04:49.139 strained, incredibly formal. What did he do? 00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:51.660 Herman was a self -made, physically imposing 00:04:51.660 --> 00:04:54.879 man, a successful merchant. Kafka, through his 00:04:54.879 --> 00:04:57.259 letters and later through scholars, painted him 00:04:57.259 --> 00:04:59.399 as a huge, selfish, overbearing businessman. 00:04:59.860 --> 00:05:02.379 He was everything that Franz was not. That sounds 00:05:02.379 --> 00:05:05.379 like a classic generational clash. But with Kafka, 00:05:05.459 --> 00:05:07.680 it seems to go so much deeper, he almost dissects 00:05:07.680 --> 00:05:09.920 it. He does. And it is the single most important 00:05:09.920 --> 00:05:11.779 document for understanding the source of his 00:05:11.779 --> 00:05:14.220 narrative tension. We have the brief on Den Vater. 00:05:14.420 --> 00:05:17.060 The letter to his father. Yes. And it's over 00:05:17.060 --> 00:05:20.699 100 pages long. It's this relentless, devastating 00:05:20.699 --> 00:05:23.860 catalog of complaints and psychological analysis. 00:05:24.079 --> 00:05:28.019 It's just brutal. What did you say? Kafka describes 00:05:28.019 --> 00:05:30.620 his father's sheer physical vitality. Things 00:05:30.620 --> 00:05:33.759 like strength, health, appetite, loudness of 00:05:33.759 --> 00:05:37.779 voice, eloquence, self -satisfaction, worldly 00:05:37.779 --> 00:05:40.860 dominance, endurance, you know, all these alpha 00:05:40.860 --> 00:05:43.579 male traits. But there's a dark side. In Kafka's 00:05:43.579 --> 00:05:45.860 mind, this overwhelming strength came with, and 00:05:45.860 --> 00:05:48.180 I'm quoting here, all the defects and weaknesses 00:05:48.180 --> 00:05:50.439 that go with these advantages. So the father 00:05:50.439 --> 00:05:52.699 was this absolute force of nature, and Kafka 00:05:52.699 --> 00:05:54.879 was the sensitive, intellectual son who could 00:05:54.879 --> 00:05:57.379 never, ever measure up. That's it, exactly. And 00:05:57.379 --> 00:06:00.139 that feeling of guilt and inadequacy where, you 00:06:00.139 --> 00:06:02.000 know, atonement is only achieved through suffering, 00:06:02.180 --> 00:06:04.860 that just permeates his stories. That's the core 00:06:04.860 --> 00:06:07.279 literary connection right there. It is. The overwhelming 00:06:07.279 --> 00:06:09.779 irrational authority figures that plague Joseph 00:06:09.779 --> 00:06:12.000 K. in the trial or the protagonists in the judgment 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:14.680 are all essentially externalized versions of 00:06:14.680 --> 00:06:17.040 this father figure. Herman Kafka's arbitrary 00:06:17.040 --> 00:06:19.800 power became the model for the arbitrary power 00:06:19.800 --> 00:06:22.040 of the state. Perfectly put. And while Herman 00:06:22.040 --> 00:06:25.680 provided this dominant negative force, his mother, 00:06:25.800 --> 00:06:29.339 Julie Kafka, was a stark contrast. She was, and 00:06:29.339 --> 00:06:32.459 she was often absent. She was quiet, shy, and 00:06:32.459 --> 00:06:35.560 constantly busy. Both parents were largely absent 00:06:35.560 --> 00:06:37.480 because of the demands of their business. What 00:06:37.480 --> 00:06:39.480 was the business? They ran a haberdashery store, 00:06:39.660 --> 00:06:42.519 and Julie was working up to 12 hours a day managing 00:06:42.519 --> 00:06:45.740 it. This was not a leisure class family. It was 00:06:45.740 --> 00:06:48.680 a striving middle class family fighting to stay 00:06:48.680 --> 00:06:50.660 afloat. I remember reading something about their 00:06:50.660 --> 00:06:55.069 store logo. Yes. It was a jackdaw. And in Czech, 00:06:55.310 --> 00:06:59.009 the word for Jackdaw is Kafka. No way. Yes. It's 00:06:59.009 --> 00:07:01.430 pronounced and sometimes even written as Kafka. 00:07:01.769 --> 00:07:04.930 So the family business literally advertised with 00:07:04.930 --> 00:07:07.410 a bird that carried their name. The cost of that 00:07:07.410 --> 00:07:09.250 business, the price of all that striving, was 00:07:09.250 --> 00:07:11.589 a pretty lonely childhood for Franz. It was. 00:07:11.670 --> 00:07:14.490 He was largely raised by a revolving cast of 00:07:14.490 --> 00:07:16.449 governesses and servants. And the biographical 00:07:16.449 --> 00:07:18.790 tragedy doesn't end there, does it? I'm thinking 00:07:18.790 --> 00:07:21.490 of his siblings. No, it gets much, much darker. 00:07:22.139 --> 00:07:24.459 Franz was the eldest of six, though his two younger 00:07:24.459 --> 00:07:26.959 brothers died in infancy. His three sisters, 00:07:27.160 --> 00:07:29.680 Ellie, Vali, and particularly Otla, who was his 00:07:29.680 --> 00:07:32.939 closest confidant, they all met the worst possible 00:07:32.939 --> 00:07:35.180 fate. They were murdered in the Holocaust during 00:07:35.180 --> 00:07:37.899 World War II. Yes. Ellie and Vali were deported 00:07:37.899 --> 00:07:40.180 to the Odughetto. Ellie and her daughter Hannah 00:07:40.180 --> 00:07:42.300 were likely killed in the Kolmhof extermination 00:07:42.300 --> 00:07:46.339 camp in late 1942. Vali's fate also ended in 00:07:46.339 --> 00:07:49.410 Udu. And Otla, his favorite. Atla, who he shared 00:07:49.410 --> 00:07:51.870 his deepest confidences with, died later, in 00:07:51.870 --> 00:07:55.350 1943. And while Kafka died long before the Holocaust, 00:07:55.750 --> 00:07:58.089 the fate of his family just casts this incredibly 00:07:58.089 --> 00:08:01.040 sharp... painful retrospective light on his work. 00:08:01.180 --> 00:08:03.060 Which is so often focused on these premonitory 00:08:03.060 --> 00:08:05.839 themes. Exactly. Persecution, arrest, disappearance. 00:08:05.899 --> 00:08:08.980 It's all there waiting. So we have this cremented, 00:08:09.079 --> 00:08:11.779 hypersensitive young man who understands the 00:08:11.779 --> 00:08:13.899 weight of arbitrary authority from his own childhood. 00:08:14.060 --> 00:08:16.600 He has this intense need to write, which he describes 00:08:16.600 --> 00:08:19.920 as his only desire and my only calling. But before 00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:21.860 he could be a writer, he has to find a socially 00:08:21.860 --> 00:08:24.699 acceptable career. A path favored, of course, 00:08:24.800 --> 00:08:27.579 by his father. And that path, which he chose 00:08:27.579 --> 00:08:30.819 very reluctantly, was law. He started at the 00:08:30.819 --> 00:08:33.059 Deutsch Karl Ferdinand's University of Prague 00:08:33.059 --> 00:08:36.240 in 1901. But he wasn't interested in law at first, 00:08:36.320 --> 00:08:38.659 right? Not at all. He was interested in philosophy 00:08:38.659 --> 00:08:40.980 and chemistry, but he switched to law after only 00:08:40.980 --> 00:08:43.840 two weeks. It was stable. It was intellectual. 00:08:43.980 --> 00:08:46.940 And crucially, it satisfied Herman. He earned 00:08:46.940 --> 00:08:50.259 his doctor of law degree in 1906. And this legal 00:08:50.259 --> 00:08:52.299 training is absolutely critical. It didn't just 00:08:52.299 --> 00:08:54.899 give him a job. It basically provided the source 00:08:54.899 --> 00:08:56.960 code for the oppressive systems he would later 00:08:56.960 --> 00:08:59.200 build in his fiction. That is the key insight. 00:08:59.240 --> 00:09:01.700 After his degree, he performed this obligatory 00:09:01.700 --> 00:09:04.720 year of unpaid service as a law clerk for the 00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:07.179 civil and criminal courts. So he saw it all from 00:09:07.179 --> 00:09:09.440 the inside. He saw the whole mechanism, the documents, 00:09:09.639 --> 00:09:12.639 the processes, the courtrooms. And then in 1908 00:09:12.639 --> 00:09:15.639 came his main professional commitment, the Workers' 00:09:15.759 --> 00:09:17.740 Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom 00:09:17.740 --> 00:09:20.980 of Bohemia. That job sounds unbelievably dry, 00:09:21.179 --> 00:09:23.620 especially when you think about the fantastical 00:09:23.620 --> 00:09:26.070 fiction he was writing. the title sounds dry 00:09:26.070 --> 00:09:28.929 but the content of his work there was horrifyingly 00:09:28.929 --> 00:09:31.879 graphic what did he do His job was to investigate, 00:09:32.039 --> 00:09:34.460 assess, and determine compensation for industrial 00:09:34.460 --> 00:09:37.480 workers. And you have to remember, this was a 00:09:37.480 --> 00:09:40.460 period of rampant, appalling industrial safety 00:09:40.460 --> 00:09:43.279 standards. So lots of accidents. Terrible accidents. 00:09:43.940 --> 00:09:46.679 Factories, especially with lathes and drills 00:09:46.679 --> 00:09:49.600 and saws, were rarely fitted with proper safety 00:09:49.600 --> 00:09:52.820 guards. His reports documented horrific things. 00:09:52.980 --> 00:09:57.549 Lost fingers, dismemberment. So by day, he's 00:09:57.549 --> 00:10:00.389 meticulously applying this precise legal language 00:10:00.389 --> 00:10:03.929 to catalog human suffering, often involving really 00:10:03.929 --> 00:10:06.909 graphic injury. Exactly. And the profound irony 00:10:06.909 --> 00:10:09.230 is that he was really good at it. He was promoted 00:10:09.230 --> 00:10:11.450 rapidly. He wrote these annual reports that were 00:10:11.450 --> 00:10:13.669 highly praised for their clarity and technical 00:10:13.669 --> 00:10:16.110 precision. He was a successful bureaucrat. He 00:10:16.110 --> 00:10:18.350 hated it. He performed this only to pay the bills. 00:10:18.429 --> 00:10:20.690 He famously called it his bratberuf. His bread 00:10:20.690 --> 00:10:23.730 job. His bread job, yes. Max Broad suggests his 00:10:23.730 --> 00:10:26.179 father used that term. dismissively like it was 00:10:26.179 --> 00:10:28.379 a dull secondary thing compared to the family 00:10:28.379 --> 00:10:31.440 business. But Kafka cherished one crucial aspect 00:10:31.440 --> 00:10:34.659 of that job. The schedule. The schedule. He typically 00:10:34.659 --> 00:10:37.919 finished work by 2 p .m. and that early finish 00:10:37.919 --> 00:10:40.299 time was non -negotiable for him because it left 00:10:40.299 --> 00:10:42.879 the rest of the day and the night free for his 00:10:42.879 --> 00:10:46.220 literary work, his true vocation. Imagine that 00:10:46.220 --> 00:10:48.539 dichotomy. I mean, think about it. The cold, 00:10:48.659 --> 00:10:51.000 objective language required to write a liability 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:53.379 report by 2 p .m. and then immediately switching 00:10:53.379 --> 00:10:55.570 over to write something like. the judgment, or 00:10:55.570 --> 00:10:58.809 the metamorphosis, he mastered bureaucratic precision. 00:10:59.149 --> 00:11:02.049 Only to use that same precision to describe these 00:11:02.049 --> 00:11:05.169 absurd illogical systems in his fiction. That's 00:11:05.169 --> 00:11:07.590 exactly it. And scholars like James Hawes argue 00:11:07.590 --> 00:11:10.210 that the settings, the documents, the legal ranks, 00:11:10.389 --> 00:11:12.669 even the procedures Joseph K. encounters in the 00:11:12.669 --> 00:11:15.590 trial are not just random absurdities. They're 00:11:15.590 --> 00:11:18.049 real. They are often accurate, informed descriptions 00:11:18.049 --> 00:11:21.090 of the highly structured, secretive, inquisitorial 00:11:21.090 --> 00:11:23.450 German and Austrian criminal procedures of the 00:11:23.450 --> 00:11:26.500 time. He translated his intimate knowledge of 00:11:26.500 --> 00:11:28.919 the law's meticulous inner workings into a universal 00:11:28.919 --> 00:11:31.500 metaphor for alienation. We should also briefly 00:11:31.500 --> 00:11:35.139 touch on his frustrating foray into being a business 00:11:35.139 --> 00:11:38.120 owner himself. Oh, yes. The Prager Asbestos Work 00:11:38.120 --> 00:11:41.059 Herman & Co. Asbestos Factory. A mouthful. An 00:11:41.059 --> 00:11:44.360 asbestos factory. An asbestos factory. He co 00:11:44.360 --> 00:11:47.120 -founded it using his sister Ellie's husband's 00:11:47.120 --> 00:11:50.139 dowry money. Initially, he approached it with 00:11:50.139 --> 00:11:52.460 this methodical zeal of a trained professional, 00:11:52.860 --> 00:11:55.200 but he very quickly came to resent it intensely. 00:11:55.559 --> 00:11:58.039 Why? Because it demanded more of his time. It 00:11:58.039 --> 00:11:59.779 was encroaching on his sacred writing hours. 00:12:00.080 --> 00:12:02.799 For Kafka, anything that pulled him away from 00:12:02.799 --> 00:12:05.200 the internal world of creation was a profound 00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:08.460 personal tragedy. And tragically, his life was 00:12:08.460 --> 00:12:11.259 cut short, though not by the war he managed to 00:12:11.259 --> 00:12:14.009 dodge. Right. He received a draft notice for 00:12:14.009 --> 00:12:16.710 World War I, but was granted an essential service 00:12:16.710 --> 00:12:19.090 deferment because his work as an insurance officer 00:12:19.090 --> 00:12:22.250 was deemed vital government service. The ultimate 00:12:22.250 --> 00:12:24.669 irony. The bureaucracy saved him from the battlefield. 00:12:24.889 --> 00:12:27.289 It did. His later attempts to actually join the 00:12:27.289 --> 00:12:29.549 military were thwarted by his medical problems, 00:12:29.669 --> 00:12:32.230 specifically tuberculosis, which was diagnosed 00:12:32.230 --> 00:12:35.850 in 1917. And he died in 1924 at just 40 years 00:12:35.850 --> 00:12:38.769 old. From laryngeal tuberculosis. And the method 00:12:38.769 --> 00:12:42.970 of his death. It's just this profoundly dark, 00:12:43.149 --> 00:12:46.629 almost unbearable literary coincidence. He was 00:12:46.629 --> 00:12:49.289 essentially starving because the condition in 00:12:49.289 --> 00:12:52.370 his throat made eating too painful. And he was 00:12:52.370 --> 00:12:54.970 editing one of his last stories, A Hunger Artist, 00:12:55.289 --> 00:12:58.470 on his deathbed. Story about a man who starves 00:12:58.470 --> 00:13:01.950 himself for his strange art, achieving notoriety 00:13:01.950 --> 00:13:04.769 only through self -annihilation. It's just... 00:13:05.639 --> 00:13:07.980 it's chill let's turn to his personal life which 00:13:07.980 --> 00:13:11.240 seems to have been defined by this extreme ambivalence 00:13:11.240 --> 00:13:13.759 especially towards any kind of permanent commitment 00:13:13.759 --> 00:13:16.860 that ambivalence is absolutely key to understanding 00:13:16.860 --> 00:13:20.600 his profound sense of guilt and alienation according 00:13:20.600 --> 00:13:24.000 to broad he was tortured by this intense sexual 00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:26.960 desire but at the same time he was paralyzed 00:13:26.960 --> 00:13:30.059 by a fear of sexual failure he had a complex 00:13:30.059 --> 00:13:33.309 private life very He visited brothels throughout 00:13:33.309 --> 00:13:35.429 his adult life, and his private collection of 00:13:35.429 --> 00:13:37.490 erotica and pornographic photographs suggests 00:13:37.490 --> 00:13:39.870 a very wide, almost connoisseur's range of interests. 00:13:40.110 --> 00:13:42.129 But the most famous relationship, the one we 00:13:42.129 --> 00:13:44.269 all know about, was with Felice Bauer. Yes, and 00:13:44.269 --> 00:13:46.409 they were engaged not once but twice, and they 00:13:46.409 --> 00:13:47.970 largely conducted their relationship through 00:13:47.970 --> 00:13:49.909 letters, hundreds of them later published as 00:13:49.909 --> 00:13:52.490 letters to Felice. And this correspondence gives 00:13:52.490 --> 00:13:55.809 us a window into his internal struggle. An unparalleled 00:13:55.809 --> 00:13:58.330 view. He wrote very clearly in his diary that 00:13:58.330 --> 00:14:01.309 his writing was his only desire and my only calling, 00:14:01.429 --> 00:14:04.450 and that a marriage could not change me. He saw 00:14:04.450 --> 00:14:07.850 marriage, domesticity, as a direct threat to 00:14:07.850 --> 00:14:10.110 the absolute solitude he needed for his art. 00:14:10.559 --> 00:14:12.419 It's fascinating that he struggled so much with 00:14:12.419 --> 00:14:15.279 commitment, yet he kept trying. It's that hopeless, 00:14:15.419 --> 00:14:18.200 hopeful striving again. It is, exactly. He had 00:14:18.200 --> 00:14:20.480 other significant, intense relationships, too. 00:14:20.620 --> 00:14:23.039 There was the intellectual fire of his correspondence 00:14:23.039 --> 00:14:25.500 with Milena Jezinska, a Czech journalist and 00:14:25.500 --> 00:14:28.480 translator. And then his final relationship with 00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:31.539 Dora Diamond. Yes, an intense final relationship. 00:14:31.580 --> 00:14:33.840 She was a kindergarten teacher from an Orthodox 00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:36.019 Jewish background whom he met on the Baltic Sea 00:14:36.019 --> 00:14:37.840 coast. It was Dora who helped him make his final 00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:40.320 attempted escape, wasn't it? Escaping Prague, 00:14:40.539 --> 00:14:42.899 his family. Yes. They moved together briefly 00:14:42.899 --> 00:14:46.240 to Berlin, and this period saw a powerful reigniting 00:14:46.240 --> 00:14:49.179 of his interest in Judaism. He began studying 00:14:49.179 --> 00:14:51.559 Hebrew and the Talmud with her, almost like he 00:14:51.559 --> 00:14:53.480 was seeking some rooted identity in his last 00:14:53.480 --> 00:14:55.820 years. Was there ever a time he felt at peace? 00:14:56.120 --> 00:14:59.279 There was a period in 1917 while he was staying 00:14:59.279 --> 00:15:03.120 with his sister Atla on a farm in Zura. He described 00:15:03.120 --> 00:15:06.059 that time, free of all professional and familial 00:15:06.059 --> 00:15:08.899 responsibilities, as perhaps the best period 00:15:08.899 --> 00:15:12.059 of his life. That's when he produced the profound 00:15:12.059 --> 00:15:15.340 zero aphorisms. So we have this meticulous, successful 00:15:15.340 --> 00:15:18.460 lawyer who is also a tormented writer, a highly 00:15:18.460 --> 00:15:21.039 sensitive vegetarian, a non -drinker. But also 00:15:21.039 --> 00:15:24.210 a man who loved physical activity. Riding, swimming, 00:15:24.509 --> 00:15:27.450 long hikes, a mass of contradictions constantly 00:15:27.450 --> 00:15:29.750 at war with his own nature. Everything we've 00:15:29.750 --> 00:15:31.870 discussed, this conflict -ridden life, the genius, 00:15:31.990 --> 00:15:34.370 the internal battles, all of it would have been 00:15:34.370 --> 00:15:36.950 just a footnote in literary history if not for 00:15:36.950 --> 00:15:39.169 one man's momentous act of defiance. That is 00:15:39.169 --> 00:15:41.350 the perfect way to frame it. If the first half 00:15:41.350 --> 00:15:44.009 of our deep dive defined Kafka's struggle for 00:15:44.009 --> 00:15:46.629 a voice, the second half has to begin with the 00:15:46.629 --> 00:15:49.250 greatest silence of all, his desperate, failed 00:15:49.250 --> 00:15:51.809 attempt to destroy his own legacy. And it was 00:15:51.809 --> 00:15:54.299 a desperate attempt. Kafka died virtually unknown, 00:15:54.500 --> 00:15:57.080 with only a few early stories published. His 00:15:57.080 --> 00:15:59.620 final explicit instruction to his closest friend, 00:15:59.759 --> 00:16:02.840 Max Broad, was brutal and uncompromising. What 00:16:02.840 --> 00:16:05.299 was it? Destroy all his remaining works diaries, 00:16:05.299 --> 00:16:08.179 manuscripts, letters, sketches, and crucially, 00:16:08.259 --> 00:16:11.580 destroy them unread. He wanted a total literary 00:16:11.580 --> 00:16:14.159 annihilation. He wanted to vanish. Completely. 00:16:14.320 --> 00:16:18.080 But Broad famously ignored this mandate. And 00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:20.419 this is where the whole conversation turns ethically. 00:16:20.899 --> 00:16:24.360 Well. Complicated. How did Broad defend that 00:16:24.360 --> 00:16:26.879 choice? He claimed he had already told Kafka 00:16:26.879 --> 00:16:29.320 he wouldn't comply and that if Kafka had truly 00:16:29.320 --> 00:16:31.639 wanted his work destroyed, he should have chosen 00:16:31.639 --> 00:16:34.179 a different executor. But wait a minute. Isn't 00:16:34.179 --> 00:16:36.000 that the ultimate act of intellectual theft, 00:16:36.200 --> 00:16:39.200 regardless of the cultural outcome, to just override 00:16:39.200 --> 00:16:42.320 the dying wishes of your dearest friend? It raises 00:16:42.320 --> 00:16:44.919 these profound philosophical and ethical questions 00:16:44.919 --> 00:16:47.299 about the ownership of art, about the duty of 00:16:47.299 --> 00:16:50.279 a friend versus the duty to posterity. Breut 00:16:50.279 --> 00:16:52.500 felt he had a moral imperative to save what he 00:16:52.500 --> 00:16:54.740 immediately recognized as essential world literature. 00:16:55.080 --> 00:16:57.639 So he became the champion of Kafka's work. The 00:16:57.639 --> 00:17:00.409 tireless promoter. And within a decade of Kafka's 00:17:00.409 --> 00:17:02.509 death, Broad was responsible for publishing the 00:17:02.509 --> 00:17:05.329 unfinished major novels, which instantly cemented 00:17:05.329 --> 00:17:07.390 Kafka's posthumous acclaim. Which ones were those? 00:17:07.750 --> 00:17:11.430 Der Prozess, or The Trial, appeared in 1925, 00:17:11.829 --> 00:17:15.369 Das Schloss, The Castle in 1926, and America 00:17:15.369 --> 00:17:18.390 in 1927. But since they were unfinished, Broad 00:17:18.390 --> 00:17:21.450 had to make some editorial choices. He took significant 00:17:21.450 --> 00:17:24.369 liberties. He finished sentences. He arranged 00:17:24.369 --> 00:17:26.289 the order of unnumbered chapters, especially 00:17:26.289 --> 00:17:29.009 in the trial. And his versions became known and 00:17:29.009 --> 00:17:31.430 accepted for a long time as the definitive editions. 00:17:31.829 --> 00:17:34.670 The saga of the manuscripts themselves is almost 00:17:34.670 --> 00:17:37.769 a Kafka novel. A labyrinth of flight, confiscation, 00:17:37.769 --> 00:17:40.529 and decades -long legal disputes. It is truly 00:17:40.529 --> 00:17:43.109 labyrinthine, and it runs parallel to the century's 00:17:43.109 --> 00:17:46.250 great tragedies. In 1939, as the Nazis invaded, 00:17:46.609 --> 00:17:48.789 Broad fled from Prague to British Palestine, 00:17:49.049 --> 00:17:51.750 and he was carrying suitcases filled with Kafka's 00:17:51.750 --> 00:17:53.890 unpublished paper. But not everything was saved. 00:17:54.089 --> 00:17:56.970 No. We have to remember Dora Diamond. She saved 00:17:56.970 --> 00:17:59.450 a vital collection, 20 notebooks and 35 letters, 00:17:59.589 --> 00:18:01.990 but they were confiscated by the Gestapo in Berlin 00:18:01.990 --> 00:18:05.200 in 1933. And they're still missing. Tragically, 00:18:05.220 --> 00:18:07.779 they remain missing to this day. A huge portion 00:18:07.779 --> 00:18:10.420 of his private world just vanished into the abyss 00:18:10.420 --> 00:18:12.900 of history. So what happened to the papers that 00:18:12.900 --> 00:18:15.140 Broad successfully smuggled to Israel? Well, 00:18:15.140 --> 00:18:17.579 when Broad died in 1968, he didn't leave the 00:18:17.579 --> 00:18:20.059 papers to an institution. He left them to his 00:18:20.059 --> 00:18:22.769 secretary. Esther Hoff. To an individual. Yes. 00:18:23.130 --> 00:18:25.650 And when she died, the archive passed to her 00:18:25.650 --> 00:18:27.869 two daughters, which led to this decade long 00:18:27.869 --> 00:18:30.730 international legal battle against the National 00:18:30.730 --> 00:18:33.150 Library of Israel. The battle for the archive. 00:18:33.470 --> 00:18:35.150 What was the central argument? What were the 00:18:35.150 --> 00:18:37.910 stakes? The Hoff family argued the papers were 00:18:37.910 --> 00:18:40.910 personal, inheritable property. But the National 00:18:40.910 --> 00:18:43.210 Library of Israel countered that these documents 00:18:43.210 --> 00:18:45.970 written by a central figure in German and Jewish 00:18:45.970 --> 00:18:49.730 literature were cultural assets belonging to 00:18:49.730 --> 00:18:52.130 the Jewish people. A powerful argument. They 00:18:52.130 --> 00:18:54.450 argued that given Kafka's complicated, tragic 00:18:54.450 --> 00:18:56.809 identity, his works were part of the cultural 00:18:56.809 --> 00:18:59.029 heritage that the state of Israel was founded 00:18:59.029 --> 00:19:01.549 to protect. So ownership wasn't just about money. 00:19:01.650 --> 00:19:03.930 It was about the very nature of cultural identity. 00:19:04.269 --> 00:19:07.140 Precisely. And the Israeli Supreme Court finally 00:19:07.140 --> 00:19:09.660 upheld the ruling in favor of the National Library 00:19:09.660 --> 00:19:13.640 in December 2016. That ruling cemented the principle 00:19:13.640 --> 00:19:16.079 that certain literary works, especially those 00:19:16.079 --> 00:19:19.539 linked to a shared tragic past, transcend personal 00:19:19.539 --> 00:19:22.299 inheritance and become national cultural treasures. 00:19:22.579 --> 00:19:25.539 The reliance on Broad's initial editing colored 00:19:25.539 --> 00:19:28.359 our perception for decades. But getting those 00:19:28.359 --> 00:19:30.920 original manuscripts back... must have changed 00:19:30.920 --> 00:19:33.880 everything it did the later critical editions 00:19:33.880 --> 00:19:38.599 championed by scholars like malcolm pasley meticulously 00:19:38.599 --> 00:19:42.079 reconstructed the original german texts this 00:19:42.079 --> 00:19:45.559 reconstruction revealed the texts in their fragmented 00:19:45.559 --> 00:19:48.559 raw original state and that challenged broad's 00:19:48.559 --> 00:19:50.940 interventions it completely challenged his often 00:19:50.940 --> 00:19:53.160 sentimental interventions let's focus on the 00:19:53.160 --> 00:19:55.920 big controversy in the trial What did Broad's 00:19:55.920 --> 00:19:58.700 rearrangement of chapters change philosophically? 00:19:58.819 --> 00:20:01.559 Broad felt he needed to bring structure and a 00:20:01.559 --> 00:20:04.019 sense of, you know, narrative completion. In 00:20:04.019 --> 00:20:06.740 the original manuscripts, the chapters were unnumbered. 00:20:06.740 --> 00:20:09.220 Right. And scholars realized that Broad had imposed 00:20:09.220 --> 00:20:11.700 an order that suggested this linear, inevitable 00:20:11.700 --> 00:20:14.759 progression toward Joseph Kaye's execution. But 00:20:14.759 --> 00:20:16.940 that might not have been the case. When the manuscripts 00:20:16.940 --> 00:20:19.140 were reconstructed, it became clear that the 00:20:19.140 --> 00:20:21.480 true ending, the execution, might have actually 00:20:21.480 --> 00:20:23.880 occurred before Kay exhausted all his appeals. 00:20:24.160 --> 00:20:26.099 What does that structural difference imply? What 00:20:26.099 --> 00:20:28.480 does that change for the reader? It changes everything. 00:20:28.680 --> 00:20:32.140 If Kay dies before exhausting his appeals, the 00:20:32.140 --> 00:20:35.059 novel is a story about a flawed individual resisting 00:20:35.059 --> 00:20:38.119 a flawed system. It maybe even suggests that 00:20:38.119 --> 00:20:40.660 the legal system isn't all -powerful. In Broad's 00:20:40.660 --> 00:20:43.420 version. If he dies after exhausting all legal 00:20:43.420 --> 00:20:46.339 paths, as Broad implied, the novel becomes this 00:20:46.339 --> 00:20:49.480 absolute statement on totalitarian inevitability, 00:20:49.579 --> 00:20:51.859 that the system will crush you no matter what 00:20:51.859 --> 00:20:54.710 you do. The critical editions lean toward the 00:20:54.710 --> 00:20:57.069 less definitive, more fragmented, and I would 00:20:57.069 --> 00:20:59.930 argue more modern interpretation. And even more 00:20:59.930 --> 00:21:01.769 recently, we've learned that Broad didn't just 00:21:01.769 --> 00:21:05.089 reorder chapters. He actively sanitized Kafka's 00:21:05.089 --> 00:21:07.990 private life. Yes, the 2023 publication of the 00:21:07.990 --> 00:21:10.950 first unexpurgated English diaries was a major 00:21:10.950 --> 00:21:13.829 literary bombshell. It revealed that Broad, in 00:21:13.829 --> 00:21:16.390 his desire to present Kafka as this sort of spiritual 00:21:16.390 --> 00:21:19.430 saint of secular Judaism, deliberately removed 00:21:19.430 --> 00:21:21.750 several key passages. What kind of passages? 00:21:22.059 --> 00:21:24.680 Specifically, he cut homoerotic references and 00:21:24.680 --> 00:21:27.440 he excised negative or prejudiced comments that 00:21:27.440 --> 00:21:29.900 Kafka had made about Eastern European Jews. That's 00:21:29.900 --> 00:21:32.710 a huge shift in perspective. It completely transforms 00:21:32.710 --> 00:21:35.009 our understanding of Kafka's internal world. 00:21:35.130 --> 00:21:37.269 It shows us that his struggles with alienation, 00:21:37.390 --> 00:21:40.349 guilt and self -disgust were even more complex, 00:21:40.589 --> 00:21:43.130 intimate and perhaps psychologically brutal than 00:21:43.130 --> 00:21:45.450 we previously understood. So Broad gave us a 00:21:45.450 --> 00:21:48.150 saint. Broad's sanitization gave us a noble literary 00:21:48.150 --> 00:21:51.630 figure. The unexpurgated diaries reveal a human 00:21:51.630 --> 00:21:53.930 being struggling with prejudice, complicated 00:21:53.930 --> 00:21:57.710 sexuality and profound internal chaos, all of 00:21:57.710 --> 00:21:59.869 which feeds directly back into the literature. 00:22:00.430 --> 00:22:02.309 Now that we understand the man, the context, 00:22:02.410 --> 00:22:05.250 and the, well, the accidental preservation of 00:22:05.250 --> 00:22:06.930 his work, let's look at the works themselves, 00:22:07.150 --> 00:22:09.569 the source text for this idea of Kafkaesque. 00:22:09.750 --> 00:22:11.809 Right. He had some early breakthroughs, even 00:22:11.809 --> 00:22:14.069 during his short, tormented lifetime. He did. 00:22:14.509 --> 00:22:17.210 His first story collection, Contemplation, appeared 00:22:17.210 --> 00:22:21.049 in 1912, and A Country Doctor in 1919. But his 00:22:21.049 --> 00:22:23.690 true creative breakthrough was Das Urteil, The 00:22:23.690 --> 00:22:25.890 Judgment, the one he wrote overnight, famously 00:22:25.890 --> 00:22:28.609 written in a single night in September 1912. 00:22:28.849 --> 00:22:31.230 This story, which he dedicated to Felice Bauer, 00:22:31.309 --> 00:22:33.490 is a raw, shocking depiction of that troubled 00:22:33.490 --> 00:22:35.990 father -son relationship. Kafka later called 00:22:35.990 --> 00:22:38.589 it a complete opening of body and soul. And, 00:22:38.670 --> 00:22:41.160 of course, the defining work. The metamorphosis, 00:22:41.359 --> 00:22:44.779 the image of the traveling salesman Gregor Samsa 00:22:44.779 --> 00:22:47.839 waking up transformed into a giant insect, is 00:22:47.839 --> 00:22:50.720 universal. It is, but the actual German description 00:22:50.720 --> 00:22:52.980 is far more complex and crucial to the theme. 00:22:53.160 --> 00:22:57.920 He is transformed into an ungehörsungesiefer. 00:22:58.099 --> 00:23:00.200 Which means? Well, it's frequently translated 00:23:00.200 --> 00:23:03.240 simply as giant insect or cockroach, but the 00:23:03.240 --> 00:23:06.079 original German is a highly generalized derogatory 00:23:06.079 --> 00:23:10.019 term meaning monstrous vermin or historically 00:23:10.019 --> 00:23:13.180 an unclean animal for sacrifice. Why is that 00:23:13.180 --> 00:23:15.900 distinction so important? Because Kafka intentionally 00:23:15.900 --> 00:23:19.279 chose a broad, non -specific term. He didn't 00:23:19.279 --> 00:23:21.220 want Gregor to be scientifically labeled as an 00:23:21.220 --> 00:23:23.539 insect. He wanted the word to convey Gregor's 00:23:23.539 --> 00:23:26.539 profound, absolute, and inhuman disgust at his 00:23:26.539 --> 00:23:29.000 transformation. So it's a moral term, not a biological 00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:31.019 one. Exactly. It's a term of moral and physical 00:23:31.019 --> 00:23:33.519 uncleanliness, which emphasizes not just the 00:23:33.519 --> 00:23:35.960 physical change, but his immediate and utter 00:23:35.960 --> 00:23:38.059 alienation from his family and from society. 00:23:38.400 --> 00:23:40.460 Let's move to the great unfinished trilogy of 00:23:40.460 --> 00:23:43.700 novels. They really define his thematic landscape. 00:23:43.950 --> 00:23:46.809 America seems to be the outlier. It is. America, 00:23:47.029 --> 00:23:49.349 which was originally titled Der Verschillen, 00:23:49.450 --> 00:23:52.529 or Then Who Disappeared, is the most humorous 00:23:52.529 --> 00:23:54.650 and arguably the most realistic of the three. 00:23:54.789 --> 00:23:57.150 And it had a different potential ending. Critically, 00:23:57.210 --> 00:23:59.369 it is the only work for which Kafka considered 00:23:59.369 --> 00:24:01.690 an optimistic ending, though Broad eventually 00:24:01.690 --> 00:24:04.849 shaped it otherwise. It's slightly lighter, inspired 00:24:04.849 --> 00:24:07.430 partially by his time observing Yiddish theater, 00:24:07.609 --> 00:24:09.750 which really broadened his awareness of his Jewish 00:24:09.750 --> 00:24:12.779 heritage. Then we sink into the pure existential 00:24:12.779 --> 00:24:16.180 dread of the trial. Their process is the absolute 00:24:16.180 --> 00:24:19.059 crystallization of the Kafkaesque. Joseph K. 00:24:19.220 --> 00:24:22.579 is arrested by an authority that is remote, inaccessible 00:24:22.579 --> 00:24:25.859 and entirely mysterious for a crime that is never, 00:24:25.940 --> 00:24:28.279 ever named. It's just a meditation on oppressive 00:24:28.279 --> 00:24:30.980 bureaucracy. It is a meditation where the individual 00:24:30.980 --> 00:24:33.460 is victimized by forces they cannot see, cannot 00:24:33.460 --> 00:24:36.680 challenge and cannot comprehend. The Nobel laureate, 00:24:36.680 --> 00:24:39.740 Elias Kennedy, even titled his study of Kafka's 00:24:39.740 --> 00:24:42.240 relationship with Felice Kafka's other trial. 00:24:42.420 --> 00:24:45.240 So he saw that. connection. He recognized that 00:24:45.240 --> 00:24:47.680 the externalized abstract conflict in the novel 00:24:47.680 --> 00:24:50.539 was a direct parallel to the internal psychological 00:24:50.539 --> 00:24:53.500 warfare Kafka fought in his personal life. In 00:24:53.500 --> 00:24:56.430 the third novel, The Castle. offers a different 00:24:56.430 --> 00:24:59.490 lens on the same theme of hopelessness. Das Schloss 00:24:59.490 --> 00:25:02.609 introduces Kay, the land surveyor, who is engaged 00:25:02.609 --> 00:25:05.190 in this futile, endless struggle to gain access 00:25:05.190 --> 00:25:07.589 to the mysterious, distant authorities who live 00:25:07.589 --> 00:25:09.470 in the local castle that governs the village. 00:25:09.730 --> 00:25:12.589 So it's about alienation. Absolute alienation 00:25:12.589 --> 00:25:15.390 and the hopeless pursuit of an unattainable goal. 00:25:15.569 --> 00:25:18.369 And even here, the ending Kafka intended, though 00:25:18.369 --> 00:25:21.630 he never wrote it, was bleakly optimistic. How 00:25:21.630 --> 00:25:24.589 so? Kay would receive notification on his deathbed 00:25:24.589 --> 00:25:26.529 that his His legal claim to live in the village 00:25:26.529 --> 00:25:29.289 was not valid, but he would be permitted to live 00:25:29.289 --> 00:25:32.309 and work there due to certain auxiliary circumstances. 00:25:32.930 --> 00:25:35.829 So you achieve your goal only when it's entirely 00:25:35.829 --> 00:25:38.930 irrelevant. Exactly. Classic Kafka. We have to 00:25:38.930 --> 00:25:40.430 revisit the fact that he was a trained lawyer. 00:25:40.630 --> 00:25:42.569 You pointed out that the legal proceedings he 00:25:42.569 --> 00:25:44.750 depicts are often structurally accurate. This 00:25:44.750 --> 00:25:47.470 is a point of immense subtlety. He knew the law. 00:25:47.869 --> 00:25:50.650 He translated his intimate knowledge of its meticulous 00:25:50.650 --> 00:25:53.009 self -referential procedures, which were designed 00:25:53.009 --> 00:25:55.390 to seek truth through long, often opaque written 00:25:55.390 --> 00:25:59.430 examinations, into a universal nightmare system. 00:25:59.829 --> 00:26:02.869 A system where the process itself is the punishment. 00:26:03.109 --> 00:26:05.670 That's it. The law in Kafka's world isn't based 00:26:05.670 --> 00:26:08.650 on moral justice. It is, as one scholar put it, 00:26:08.730 --> 00:26:10.930 a pure force of domination and determination. 00:26:12.109 --> 00:26:14.569 And the cold, objective tone of his writing just 00:26:14.569 --> 00:26:17.269 reinforces this sense of legal inevitability. 00:26:17.490 --> 00:26:19.930 Let's shift to a thematic element scholars have 00:26:19.930 --> 00:26:24.369 identified, the constant use of animals, or zoopoetics. 00:26:25.079 --> 00:26:26.779 That's a term that needs a little more context. 00:26:27.140 --> 00:26:29.859 Zoo poetics is essentially the study of how writers 00:26:29.859 --> 00:26:32.960 use animal figures to reflect, critique or, you 00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:35.720 know, challenge human existence in society. And 00:26:35.720 --> 00:26:38.180 Kafka used animals extensively. Besides Quaker 00:26:38.180 --> 00:26:40.660 Samsa. Oh, yes. Think of the meticulous burrower 00:26:40.660 --> 00:26:43.279 in the burrow, the mouse folk in another story. 00:26:43.539 --> 00:26:45.799 These animal figures are often shown suffering 00:26:45.799 --> 00:26:48.799 because of human animal -esque actions, cruelty, 00:26:49.180 --> 00:26:52.559 thoughtlessness, bureaucratic indifference. It 00:26:52.559 --> 00:26:54.880 allows him to critique society from. a position 00:26:54.880 --> 00:26:57.319 outside of human morality. One of the greatest 00:26:57.319 --> 00:27:00.460 paradoxes about Kafka is that his works, which 00:27:00.460 --> 00:27:02.920 we perceive as these monuments of dread, were 00:27:02.920 --> 00:27:04.640 apparently hilarious when he read them aloud. 00:27:04.980 --> 00:27:07.200 That is the ultimate dynamic shift, and it's 00:27:07.200 --> 00:27:10.099 absolutely confirmed. Max Brod recollected that 00:27:10.099 --> 00:27:12.380 when Kafka read his own work to friends, even 00:27:12.380 --> 00:27:14.819 passages from the fearful earnestness of the 00:27:14.819 --> 00:27:18.839 trial, they laughed quite immoderately. He laughed 00:27:18.839 --> 00:27:21.420 too. He did. Kafka himself sometimes laughed 00:27:21.420 --> 00:27:24.009 so hard he couldn't continue reading. Why do 00:27:24.009 --> 00:27:26.049 you think he saw the humor in something we now 00:27:26.049 --> 00:27:30.109 see as pure dread? The humor, I believe, is intrinsically 00:27:30.109 --> 00:27:33.049 tied to the system's absurdity. It's the gallows 00:27:33.049 --> 00:27:35.509 humor of realizing the utter futility of the 00:27:35.509 --> 00:27:38.029 situation. Punishment without a crime, transformation 00:27:38.029 --> 00:27:41.490 into vermin, endless circular legal reasoning. 00:27:41.789 --> 00:27:44.329 It's like slapstick applied to philosophy. That's 00:27:44.329 --> 00:27:46.109 a great way to put it. The surreal humor acts 00:27:46.109 --> 00:27:48.329 as a subversive element. It's the only logical 00:27:48.329 --> 00:27:51.069 response to absolute dread. And finally, we have 00:27:51.069 --> 00:27:53.069 to acknowledge the immense translation woes. 00:27:53.390 --> 00:27:55.789 This complicates things for every English speaker 00:27:55.789 --> 00:27:58.470 who reads Kafka. It does. The primary challenge 00:27:58.470 --> 00:28:01.490 lies in Kafka's masterful use of classical, high 00:28:01.490 --> 00:28:04.230 German grammar. German permits these extremely 00:28:04.230 --> 00:28:06.529 long subordinate clauses that defer the main 00:28:06.529 --> 00:28:08.789 verb and therefore the final impact and meaning 00:28:08.789 --> 00:28:12.150 to the very end of the sentence. And that structure 00:28:12.150 --> 00:28:14.910 mimics the bureaucratic experience. Perfectly. 00:28:14.910 --> 00:28:17.509 You are trapped in the syntax, waiting until 00:28:17.509 --> 00:28:20.009 the very last word to understand what fate the 00:28:20.009 --> 00:28:22.920 sentence or the system has delivered. English 00:28:22.920 --> 00:28:25.099 sentences just can't sustain that tension in 00:28:25.099 --> 00:28:27.880 the same way. No. English usually requires the 00:28:27.880 --> 00:28:30.619 verb much earlier, so the translator has to work 00:28:30.619 --> 00:28:33.220 incredibly hard to achieve that same sense of 00:28:33.220 --> 00:28:35.900 cumulative, delayed shock, and claustrophobia. 00:28:36.039 --> 00:28:38.839 And we can't overlook the linguistic ambiguities 00:28:38.839 --> 00:28:41.460 he used, like the famous shocking conclusion 00:28:41.460 --> 00:28:44.670 to The judgment. Exactly. The final sentence 00:28:44.670 --> 00:28:47.630 uses the German word verkehr. While it means 00:28:47.630 --> 00:28:50.849 traffic or transport, at that moment, an unending 00:28:50.849 --> 00:28:53.329 stream of traffic crossed over the bridge. It 00:28:53.329 --> 00:28:55.769 also carries the meaning of intercourse in both 00:28:55.769 --> 00:28:58.549 a sexual and non -sexual sense. And he intended 00:28:58.549 --> 00:29:00.869 that ambiguity. He confessed abroad that when 00:29:00.869 --> 00:29:02.549 he wrote that final line, he was specifically 00:29:02.549 --> 00:29:05.950 thinking of a violent ejaculation, that ambiguity, 00:29:05.970 --> 00:29:09.049 traffic, communication, sex, sudden violent release, 00:29:09.150 --> 00:29:11.710 death. It adds psychological layers that are... 00:29:11.720 --> 00:29:14.119 just immensely difficult to capture fully, yet 00:29:14.119 --> 00:29:16.859 they define the raw power of his ending. So Kafka 00:29:16.859 --> 00:29:19.859 died virtually unknown, consumed by tuberculosis 00:29:19.859 --> 00:29:24.119 and his own internal conflicts. But his posthumous 00:29:24.119 --> 00:29:26.960 work fundamentally changed how we view the modern 00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:29.920 world. It made him a prophetic voice. Indeed. 00:29:30.319 --> 00:29:33.240 His writings were almost immediately seen as 00:29:33.240 --> 00:29:36.700 premonitory of a totalitarian future. Thinkers 00:29:36.700 --> 00:29:39.599 like Theodore Adorno and George Steiner recognize 00:29:39.599 --> 00:29:42.619 his foresight. W .H. Arden called him the Dante 00:29:42.619 --> 00:29:45.359 of the 20th century. He did, arguing he was the 00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:47.400 quintessential chronicler of the modern moral 00:29:47.400 --> 00:29:51.049 underworld. Vladimir Nabokov, who was a harsh 00:29:51.049 --> 00:29:53.150 critic of many of his contemporaries, placed 00:29:53.150 --> 00:29:55.130 Kafka among the greatest writers in history. 00:29:55.349 --> 00:29:57.990 And his influence just transcended language and 00:29:57.990 --> 00:30:00.529 geography. Immensely so. Think about Latin America. 00:30:00.849 --> 00:30:02.950 Gabriel Garcia Marquez noted that reading The 00:30:02.950 --> 00:30:04.970 Metamorphosis showed him that it was possible 00:30:04.970 --> 00:30:06.970 to write in a different way, which helped him 00:30:06.970 --> 00:30:09.109 pave the way for magical realism. And others. 00:30:09.269 --> 00:30:11.730 He influenced figures like Milan Kundera, J .M. 00:30:11.730 --> 00:30:14.450 Koetzi, and the celebrated Japanese writer Haruki 00:30:14.450 --> 00:30:17.230 Murakami, who paid explicit homage in his novel 00:30:17.230 --> 00:30:19.769 Kafka on the Shore. borrowing themes of isolation 00:30:19.769 --> 00:30:22.769 and inexplicable journeys. Let's revisit and 00:30:22.769 --> 00:30:24.910 solidify the definition of the adjective he gave 00:30:24.910 --> 00:30:28.589 us, Kafkaesque. After this deep dive, we can 00:30:28.589 --> 00:30:31.069 define it much more richly than just complicated 00:30:31.069 --> 00:30:33.950 paperwork. The popular usage, yes, applies to 00:30:33.950 --> 00:30:36.990 any complex, illogical, or overwhelming real 00:30:36.990 --> 00:30:39.650 -life situation. But for the informed listener, 00:30:39.970 --> 00:30:42.609 the nuance is vital. So what is that nuance? 00:30:43.119 --> 00:30:45.480 Kafkaesque describes a setting that straddles 00:30:45.480 --> 00:30:48.900 fantasy and reality, characterized by cold, precise, 00:30:49.220 --> 00:30:51.799 effective language, and that determines sense 00:30:51.799 --> 00:30:54.559 of striving even in the face of absolute bleakness, 00:30:54.559 --> 00:30:56.599 that mixture of hopelessness and persistent, 00:30:56.779 --> 00:30:59.059 fragile hope. It's the feeling of being tried 00:30:59.059 --> 00:31:01.960 by a court you can't see for a crime you didn't 00:31:01.960 --> 00:31:04.220 commit. That's the heart of it. And we see this 00:31:04.220 --> 00:31:06.420 sensibility constantly reproduced in culture, 00:31:06.579 --> 00:31:08.799 transcending literature entirely. In film, for 00:31:08.799 --> 00:31:11.240 example. It's highly visible in dystopian cinema 00:31:11.240 --> 00:31:13.599 and television. Think of Terry Gilliam's masterpiece 00:31:13.599 --> 00:31:17.099 Brazil from 1985, which is a pure cinematic expression 00:31:17.099 --> 00:31:19.900 of bureaucratic breakdown and absurd pursuit. 00:31:20.140 --> 00:31:23.049 Orson Welles' film of the trial. A classic. And 00:31:23.049 --> 00:31:25.569 even seminal TV programs like The Prisoner and 00:31:25.569 --> 00:31:28.029 various episodes of The Twilight Zone are frequently 00:31:28.029 --> 00:31:30.710 cited as perfect examples of the Kafkaesque experience. 00:31:31.049 --> 00:31:34.049 The fear of the unseen system is universal. So 00:31:34.049 --> 00:31:36.930 the man who wanted his life's work burned has 00:31:36.930 --> 00:31:40.170 become this immortal shorthand for a core universal 00:31:40.170 --> 00:31:43.890 human experience. Alienation, confusion, and 00:31:43.890 --> 00:31:45.730 the struggle within a system designed to crush 00:31:45.730 --> 00:31:49.390 the individual with impersonal precision. And 00:31:49.390 --> 00:31:51.349 the world has made sure this profound legacy 00:31:51.349 --> 00:31:53.890 is physically honored. Commemorations include 00:31:53.890 --> 00:31:56.410 the prestigious Franz Kafka Prize, established 00:31:56.410 --> 00:31:59.329 in 2001 for literature promoting tolerance and 00:31:59.329 --> 00:32:01.430 human validity. And there's a museum in Prague. 00:32:01.670 --> 00:32:04.089 His museum in Prague houses the exhibit The City 00:32:04.089 --> 00:32:06.490 of K. Franz Kafka in Prague, which is dedicated 00:32:06.490 --> 00:32:08.390 to immersing the visitor in the geographical 00:32:08.390 --> 00:32:10.789 and psychological world that created him. And 00:32:10.789 --> 00:32:12.690 for those who look to the stars, there's even 00:32:12.690 --> 00:32:14.809 an asteroid named after him, discovered in 1983. 00:32:15.950 --> 00:32:19.369 3 -4 -12 Kafka. A fitting celestial commemoration 00:32:19.369 --> 00:32:21.509 for a writer whose vision was simultaneously 00:32:21.509 --> 00:32:24.289 grounded in the precise soul -crushing details 00:32:24.289 --> 00:32:27.289 of his day job and just transcendentally dark 00:32:27.289 --> 00:32:30.089 in its philosophical scope. So if we synthesize 00:32:30.089 --> 00:32:33.849 this entire deep dive, we realize that Kafka's 00:32:33.849 --> 00:32:36.829 work was never abstract commentary. It was a 00:32:36.829 --> 00:32:39.789 direct translation of his own agonizing internal 00:32:39.789 --> 00:32:42.589 tension. It really was. The meticulous, precise, 00:32:42.950 --> 00:32:45.890 highly successful lawyer thriving in the middle 00:32:45.890 --> 00:32:48.789 of Prague bureaucracy, pitted against the solitary, 00:32:49.190 --> 00:32:52.109 tormented writer desperate to escape his family, 00:32:52.269 --> 00:32:55.670 his body, his obligations. That tension, that 00:32:55.670 --> 00:32:58.130 sense of being permanently trapped between two 00:32:58.130 --> 00:33:01.470 irreconcilable worlds, the Jewish and the German, 00:33:01.569 --> 00:33:03.769 the professional and the vocational, the dutiful 00:33:03.769 --> 00:33:06.690 son and the despairing artist, is what forced 00:33:06.690 --> 00:33:08.809 those unforgettable systems of oppression into 00:33:08.809 --> 00:33:11.859 being. The bureaucracy he fought in fiction was 00:33:11.859 --> 00:33:14.480 merely the externalized, magnified version of 00:33:14.480 --> 00:33:17.019 the self he fought every single day. And to leave 00:33:17.019 --> 00:33:18.700 you with one final thought from the man himself, 00:33:19.019 --> 00:33:21.220 a paradox that's really worth carrying with you. 00:33:21.299 --> 00:33:23.759 This is aphorism number 50 from his Zurau notes. 00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:26.000 Man cannot live without a permanent trust in 00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:28.200 something indestructible within himself, though 00:33:28.200 --> 00:33:30.500 both that indestructible something and his own 00:33:30.500 --> 00:33:32.339 trust in it may remain permanently concealed 00:33:32.339 --> 00:33:35.160 from them. That is a staggering statement from 00:33:35.160 --> 00:33:37.599 a man who spent his life feeling anything but 00:33:37.599 --> 00:33:39.819 indestructible. and was constantly trying to 00:33:39.819 --> 00:33:43.180 destroy his own output. It raises a great provocative 00:33:43.180 --> 00:33:46.359 question for all of us. Why did a man who felt 00:33:46.359 --> 00:33:50.099 so alienated, so fragile, and so disposable spend 00:33:50.099 --> 00:33:52.619 his entire existence searching so tirelessly 00:33:52.619 --> 00:33:55.640 for something indestructible hidden deep inside? 00:33:56.000 --> 00:33:58.500 Perhaps he knew instinctively that the hope for 00:33:58.500 --> 00:34:00.559 that indestructible kernel was the only thing 00:34:00.559 --> 00:34:03.559 capable of surviving the fire. An excellent note 00:34:03.559 --> 00:34:05.440 to end on. That was the deep dive into Franz 00:34:05.440 --> 00:34:07.940 Kafka. We hope you feel thoroughly informed and 00:34:07.940 --> 00:34:09.780 perhaps a little more suspicious of your local 00:34:09.780 --> 00:34:10.760 administrative processes.