"I gotta pay taxes? What's up with that? That's messed up. That's Kafkaesque." This short line of dialogue from AMC's hit television show Breaking Bad in which Jesse Pinkman bemoans having to pay his taxes as "Kafkaesque" raises a very important question, who was Kafka?
Franz Kafka was born in 1883 to a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he died relatively young at age 40 in 1924 of tuberculosis. He wrote many short stories including Before the Law and The Metamorphosis. In addition to short stories he also authored longer novels such as his modern masterpiece, The Trial.
So why should we, in 2017, care about Kafka’s work (other than to understand a reference in Breaking Bad)? Fundamentally, I would argue that Kafka is one of the most creative authors of the modern era. His work provides a unique and entirely disturbing perspective on the bureaucracy he felt trapped by. Few authors provide as raw of a view on the draconian facelessness of depersonalized governmental administration as Kafka does in his seminal work The Trial.
Even though his work is powerful, Kafka himself didn’t seem to be primarily motivated by the monetary gains nor the fame of publishing his ideas. Although some of his work he published in his lifetime, he requested his friend and confidant Max Brod destroy his unfinished work, including the manuscript for The Trial, upon his death. This, of course, raises the question, if Kafka didn’t primarily want his work read, why did he write it? Kafka himself gives us a window into his process and mindset as to why he felt, almost compelled, to write.
Franz Kafka was born in 1883 to a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he died relatively young at age 40 in 1924 of tuberculosis. He wrote many short stories including Before the Law and The Metamorphosis. In addition to short stories he also authored longer novels such as his modern masterpiece, The Trial.
So why should we, in 2017, care about Kafka’s work (other than to understand a reference in Breaking Bad)? Fundamentally, I would argue that Kafka is one of the most creative authors of the modern era. His work provides a unique and entirely disturbing perspective on the bureaucracy he felt trapped by. Few authors provide as raw of a view on the draconian facelessness of depersonalized governmental administration as Kafka does in his seminal work The Trial.
Even though his work is powerful, Kafka himself didn’t seem to be primarily motivated by the monetary gains nor the fame of publishing his ideas. Although some of his work he published in his lifetime, he requested his friend and confidant Max Brod destroy his unfinished work, including the manuscript for The Trial, upon his death. This, of course, raises the question, if Kafka didn’t primarily want his work read, why did he write it? Kafka himself gives us a window into his process and mindset as to why he felt, almost compelled, to write.
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| Franz Kafka, c. 1910 |
“The infinite feeling continues to be as infinite in words as it was in the heart. What is clear within is bound to become so in words as well. This is why one need never worry about language, but at sight of words may often worry about oneself. After all, who knows within himself how things really are with him? This tempestuous or floundering or morass-like inner self is what we really are, but by the secret process by which words are forced out of us, our self-knowledge is brought to light, and though it may still be veiled, yet it is there before us, wonderful or terrible to behold.” (Kafka, Franz. “To Felice Bauer.” 18-19 Feb. 1913.)
Another interesting aspect of Kafka’s writing was when he chose to write. Kafka did most of his writing at night. He was plagued with insomnia for most of his life, as Kafka alludes to when he confessed his fears to German writer Milena Jesenská “Perhaps I am afraid that the soul, which in sleep leaves me,will not be able to return”. Whatever problems this insomnia caused in his personal life, it seems this illness helped draw out Kafka’s creativity. He told Max Brod “Perhaps there are other forms of writing, but I know only this kind,when fear keeps me from sleeping, I know only this kind.” This seeming connection between mental irregularities and creative output was also found in a study done by Indre V. Viskontas and Bruce L. Miller. This study focused on dementia patients, not those suffering insomnia like Kafka. It is, therefore, important to remember that neurodegenerative diseases and insomnia effect the brain very differently. That said this study does reveal an interesting and relevant conclusion that some art made by people with different brain structures can be “hailed as more creative by the artistic community”. As more research is done into the field of creativity, it will be interesting to see if a similar connection exists within people suffering insomnia.
Franz Kafka was creative both his process and the work that came out of his unique mind. His insomnia and intrinsic motivation drove him to create new and innovative pieces of literature which played with the concept of reliability in narrative, time, and space. Without either of these unique traits we would likely not have the great works art we do today. Kafka was, and is, a complex person. One would struggle to succinctly describe or pin him down. Both author and man were wholly creative and nothing if not totally Kafkaesque.
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| "Kafkaesque," Breaking Bad: Season 3, written by Peter Gould & George Mastras, directed by Micheal Slovis, American Movie Classics (AMC), 2010. |
Bibliography:
Baer, Markus, Greg R. Oldham, and Anne Cummings. "Rewarding creativity: when does it really matter?." Science Direct, Pergamon: The Leadership Quarterly, 2003, https://luc.app.box.com/s/n7kukzdq2un1v91v6gjq3pjphzyrvl94/file/47466987965. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Blaisdell, Bob. "Franz Kafka: "In Spite of Everything Writing Does One Good"." , 2006, www.whistlingshade.com/0601/kafka.html. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Currey, Mason. "Kafka was a great procrastinator." , Slate, 29 Apr. 2013, www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/features/2013/daily_rituals/franz_kafka_was_a_great_procrastinator.html. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
"Franz Kafka." Daily Routines: How writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days, edited by Mason Currey, 9 Dec. 2008, dailyroutines.typepad.com/daily_routines/2008/12/franz-kafka.html. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
"Franz Kafka." Encyclopædia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Franz-Kafka. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
Jones, Josh. "How Insomnia Shaped Franz Kafka’s Creative Process and the Writing of The Metamorphosis: A New Study Published in The Lancet." Open Culture , Literature Science, 19 July 2017, www.openculture.com/2017/07/how-insomnia-shaped-franz-kafkas-creative-process.html. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
"Kafkaesque," Breaking Bad: Season 3, written by Peter Gould & George Mastras, directed by Micheal Slovis, American Movie Classics (AMC), 2010.
Kafka, Franz. “To Felice Bauer.” 18-19 Feb. 1913.
Viskontas, Indre V., and Bruce L. Miller. "Art and Dementia: How Degeneration of Some Brain Regions Can Lead to New Creative Impulses." , https://luc.app.box.com/s/n7kukzdq2un1v91v6gjq3pjphzyrvl94/file/48329287605. Accessed 2 Oct. 2017.
I absolutely hated reading Kafka in high school, partly because it completely freaked me out that someone could think like that but mostly because he never truly ended "The metamorphosis" and that did not sit well with me. But he was a wildly interesting man and even though I don't particularly love his writing, every aspect of his process and lifestyle is so unlike most others, hence creative. Maybe I'll give his writing another chance... someday.
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