Kafka on Champagne

Toasting Faraway Flames and Pushing Through the Wallpaper

It’s 1907-1908. As I mentioned in an earlier post, after finishing his doctorate, the 23-year-old Franz Kafka, fresh out of law school, found himself tied to a soul-crushing desk job at the Assicurazioni Generali. The monotony of actuarial tables and bureaucratic tedium leaves him yearning for escape. But this doesn’t mean you should picture Kafka as a gloomy loner toiling away by the dim light of a flickering candle, morphing into a giant insect or getting summoned to sinister judicial hearings. Far from it!

In reality, Franz was quite the party animal. A glimpse into his personal life during his early twenties paints a picture of a more sociable and relatable Kafka, who, for example, had started studying Italian in anticipation of a potential transfer to Trieste (which never materialised). But more importantly, he embraced Prague’s vibrant nightlife with enthusiasm and gusto, as he later recounted in a letter:

I recall those long-gone, so-called gadabout days, when I spent many nights…