Last time, we discussed Kafka’s summer fling with Selma Kohn. Let’s now continue.
During his later high school years, Franz Kafka forged a profound bond with Oskar Pollak, a friendship that would significantly influence his intellectual and artistic growth. The letters exchanged between the two friends from 1902 to 1903 suggest an intense connection, with some scholars speculating about a potential romantic interest on Kafka’s part. For instance, when Pollak mentioned a certain girl in one of his letters, Kafka responded, “Wouldn’t that separate us? Is that so strange? Are we enemies? I am very fond of you.” 1
At any rate, Pollak was a mentor figure to young Kafka, introducing him to new ideas in art, literature, and philosophy. What’s more, some letters to Pollak seem to foreshadow the grotesque imagery that Kafka would later employ in stories like “In the Penal Colony”. Consider, for instance, Kafka’s description of his writing desk as a torture device:
Where the writer’s knees usually are, it has two horrible wooden spikes. And now pay attention. If you sit down quietly, cautiously at it, and write something respectable, all’s well. But if you become excited, look out—if your body quivers ever so little, you inescapably feel the spikes in your knees, and how that hurts. I could show you the black-and-blue marks. And what that means to say is simply: “Don’t write anything exciting and don’t let your body quiver while you write.”2
This advice is essential for budding writers eager to produce anything too thrilling or, worse, disreputable. What a shame that Ikea no longer sells the ‘Kafka’ desk!
In another letter, Kafka offers a curious little tale involving ‘Shamefaced Lanky and Impure in Heart’, perhaps the earliest fictional work in the Kafka archive. Shamefaced Lanky, a thinly veiled self-portrait, is visited by a doppelgänger—a figure that may represent either himself or Oskar Pollak, spewing words like this:
Impure in Heart turned his eyelids toward the ceiling, and the words emerged from his mouth. Those words were fine gentlemen with patent-leather shoes and English cravats and glistening buttons; and if you furtively asked them, "Do you know what blood of blood is?" one would answer with a leer, "Yes, I have English cravats." And as soon as those little gentlemen were out of the mouth, they stood up on tiptoe and were tall; they then skipped over to Lanky, climbed up on him, tweaking and biting, and worked their way into his ears.3
I can’t help but notice the peculiar personification of words in this passage. They take on a life of their own, much like in that letter to Selma last week. But then, they were merely impotent scribbles. In this parable, they have mutated into something far more active, revengeful, malevolent—a metaphor for Hermann Kafka perhaps, who, no doubt, sold English cravats in his shop and, no doubt, knew what “blood of blood” was...
Also worth noting in these letters: Kafka was already presenting his manuscripts to Pollak as a kind of offering, something he considered worthless, to be consumed by flames (proof that he did destroy his “childhood things”, by the way). A ritual that would famously be repeated with Brod many years later:
I’ll put together a bundle for you; it will contain everything I have written up to now, original or derivative. Nothing will be missing except the childhood things (as you see, this misery’s been on my back from early on), then the stuff I no longer have, then the stuff I regard as worthless in this context, then the plans, since they are whole countries to him who has them and sand to everyone else, and finally the things I cannot show even to you, for we shudder to stand naked and be fingered by others, even if we have begged on our knees for that very thing. Anyhow, this whole past year I have written almost nothing. Whatever remains, and I don’t know how much it is, I’ll give to you. […] What I want to hear from you is not whether one might happily wait a bit or whether to go ahead and burn it all up with a light heart.4
And yet, he ends his message with this desperate admission: “God doesn’t want me to write, but I—I must.”5 The struggle within Kafka is evident, torn between the irresistible “misery” of writing and the repellent force that seems to thwart his creativity: writing is somehow wrong, a sinful deed.
Under Pollak’s influence, Kafka also became fascinated by the visual arts. He sketched numerous figures and scenes in his notebooks, frequented art history lectures, and delved into European and East Asian artistic traditions. Though he disparaged his own creative talents, referring to himself (in a 1913 letter to Felice Bauer) as a former “great draughtsman” destroyed by “academic drawing lessons with a bad woman painter”, Kafka nevertheless delved deeply into the realm of images and visual expression.
As Andreas Kilcher explains in the recent publication Franz Kafka: The Drawings (Franz Kafka: Die Zeichnungen, 2021), Kafka’s sketches, although hastily executed and often resembling caricatures, foreshadow the themes and visual motifs that would later feature in his literary works. Many of these sketches depict enigmatic figures with angular or curly, distorted or floating features, suggesting a sense of unease, displacement, or even comedy—similar to the experiences of Kafka’s fictional characters. The sketches may also bear traces of influence from Japanese art forms such as calligraphy and ink-wash painting. For some reason, they remind me of Federico Fellini’s drawings as well… Here (and above) are a few examples:
After completing Gymnasium, Kafka followed Pollak’s lead by enrolling at Universitas Carolina in Prague to study chemistry in 1901. Yet, he swiftly grew disenchanted with the natural sciences and, after thinking about moving to Munich to study German lit, pivoted to law in the end—a safer albeit unexciting choice that would, at least, get his father’s approval. As Reiner Stach points out in his biography Kafka: The Early Years:
The eighteen-year-old had no concrete notion of the shape his future life would take, and the idea that society had any meaningful mission in store for him—a mission that would go beyond the mere preservation of his social status—was so alien to him that for years he could not shake the feeling that there was no future in store for him.6
Kafka found intellectual stimulation beyond his law studies, however. He attended courses in literary history, psychology, and more. He also participated in student organisations such as the Lese- und Redehalle der Deutschen Studenten (Reading and Lecture Hall of the German Students), where he worked as a correspondent for the literature and art sections. This is where he met Max Brod, who later became his closest friend and literary executor.
Yet, their first encounter was, shall we say, tense. Brod had delivered a lecture condemning Nietzsche as a “swindler” in contrast to his spiritual master, Schopenhauer, which Kafka, having just emerged from his “Zarathustra summer” (see last week’s post), vehemently opposed. Still, Kafka was captivated by Brod’s dynamism, multifaceted abilities, and unwavering confidence. As Stach explains:
For the second time in just a few years, for the second time after getting to know Oskar Pollak, Kafka had come across a young man whose outlook gainsaid the experiences that darkened his own psychological interior. He discovered that Brod's manifold contemplative talents did not consume and cripple him, but radiated outward actively, even hyperactively, seemingly devoid of self-doubt, with astonishing zest and energy.7
Kafka’s years at university were characterised by a broadening intellectual and artistic curiosity fostered by friends such as Pollak and Brod. He engaged with new philosophies (Darwin, Marx, and others), delved into literature and art, all the while diligently studying law. These early encounters and associations would sow the seeds for the distinctive literary perspective he would cultivate in the subsequent twenty years.
In the next post/episode, I’ll delve into Kafka’s letters to Brod from this period and Brod’s recollections of his initial interactions with Kafka, as documented in his autobiography. For now, what are your thoughts on this snapshot of his formative years? Share your comments below!
Friends, loc. 115.
Ibid., loc. 125.
Ibid., loc. 197.
Ibid., loc. 237-243, emphasis mine.
Ibid., loc. 283.
The Early Years, loc. 3955.
Ibid., loc. 4176.
Interesting! I just assumed he spent all his time as an author. This fits with my theory that many lawyers are secretly (or not so secretly) also writers.😆
I saw some of his drawings in one of your other posts—I will have to check out his others!
Interesting! I just assumed he spent all his time as an author. This fits with my theory that many lawyers are secretly (or not so secretly) also writers.😆
I saw some of his drawings in one of your other posts—I will have to check out his others!