Approaches to Personal Identity in Kafka's Short Fiction: Freud, Darwin, Kierkegaard (review)

Abstract

MLR, 96.3, 200 I 893 series ofhistorical novels. Herfinal seventeen years ofsilence areattributed nottoa Nazibanonpublication, buttoViebig's knowledge that shehadoutlived hertime as a writer. Herdebts toNaturalism andtoHeimatkunst arecarefully assessed and theneedfor a thorough examination ofherwomen figures isexplained. Thatshe showed society from below ina development ofthenineteenth-century Gesellshaftsroman justifies renewed interest inher works. Thisbookisa most important survey ofwriters whose social impact alsobelongs to anymodern history ofGerman literature. To avoidthem is to leaveouta dimension andbypass many problems that still engage more than half ofthe serious reading public. Theeditor istobepraised for bringing together a setofessays that reflect thevariety andfervour ofworks byGerman women writers onehundred yearsago. Future researchers willfind herea wealth ofinformation andviews demanding reappraisal. Thebookstill tobewritten onforgotten German women dramatists would make a suitable companion volume. MELLEN UNIVERSITY, IOWA BRIAN KEITH-SMITH Approaches toPersonal Identity inEafka's Short Fiction. Freud, Danvin, Kierkegaard. By LEENA EILITTA.Helsinki: Finnish Academy ofSciences. I999. 227PP. I20FMK. Formorethanhalf a century, industrious minds haveunpicked every thread in Kafka's work, evaluated eachword heused, andupturned every stone onthe path hetrod. IfValerie Greenberg canuncover parallels between suchapparently illmatched figures as KafkaandMax Planck, thentheauthor's debttoFreudian psychoanalysis, SocialDarwinism, and Kierkegaard's religious-existential philosophy should provide aneasy brief. Thechallenge istofind a new purchase onthe rock-face. Likesomany publications ofitstype, thebookisa closederivative ofits author's doctoral thesis, originally researched atthe University ofOxford. Kafka's experience ofidentity isthe point ofdeparture. Acknowledging a debt to ErikErikson, Leena Eilitta setsoutto broadenthedeSnition oftheauthor's 'identity' to include'thesocialreality aroundhim',withtheensuing aim of demonstrating that the'wide-ranging historical andcultural changes, which took placeduring Kafka'slife-time, contributed tothefact that Kafkafelt a particular needtoelaborate ideasabout personal identity into hisfiction'. (p.g)Thisisa task that would make demands onanypostgraduate's abilities. Inthebookofthethesis, ninepagesmust suffice for'Political andCultural CrisesintheLateHabsburg Empire', with valuable spacebeing allocated tophotographs ofVienna's RingstraJffle andBurgtheater asthey were when Kafkawasagedfive. R.D. Laingiswheeled into remind usthat 'a human being whothroughout hislife posesprofound questions abouthimself andhisrelationship totheworld suffiers from a deepontological . * nsecurlty'. After thesepreliminaries, it comesas something of a relief to findoneself examining thetexts themselves. Eilitta begins promisingly with Beschreibung eines Kampfes, a text that hasproduced someconfusion among theexperts. Butinthese twenty pages, little isachieved beyond thedemonstration ofmotifs typical ofJin-desiecle decadence andthe critique ofculture. Theimpression isofa determined attempt tolocatetheauthor within specific temporal andcultural coordinates. Thebackground iswell researched; Eilitta builds upa compelling picture ofhowKafkacametoknow hisDarwin andFreud. But Kafka'sdistinctiveness is lostin a tangledmaze of analogies.His styleis characterized as 'quitesimilar' tothat ofcontemporaries suchas Peter Altenberg, Reviews 894 Robert Walser, andJules Laforgue (p.59).Thereismuch emphasis on'Austrian' features inreiterated formulations suchas 'Kafka'sdescription [...] resembles closely many other characters intheAustrian fin-de-siecle literature', exemplified, surprisingly, byJensPeter Jacobsen, HenriFrederic Amiel, andThomasMann (p.47). Thereis a tendency to reducethemulti-ethnicity ofPragueto those discredited antinomies favoured by a resolutely WestEuropeanperspective: '[Kafka]hadlittle interest intheCzech; culture orlanguage' (p.23), or'[Kafka's friends] werenotGermans orCzechsbutJews' (p.22). Intheend,heismadeto speak with the voice ofonewho, inthe wake ofKierkegaard andFreud, regrets 'that the modern world forces human beings tolimit their spiritual capacity byimposing uponthem economic andsocial pressures' (p. 2 I 3).Thisisnota Kafkawhocannot begrasped through familiar experience. UNIVERSITY OF KENT OSMAN DURRANI Ihomas Mann. Das Leben als Kunstwerk: EineBiographie. By HERMANN KURZKE. Munchen:Beck. I999. 672pp. 40plates.DM68. Asthe title indicates, Hermann Kurzke haswritten anunusual biography. Using his enormous knowledge ofMann'sfictional andnon-fictional writing hesetsoutto overcome the main obstacle tothe biographer's task, the relative paucity ofpersonal andintimate detail: 'wir kennen nur verschiedenartige Stilisierungen desErlebten, nichtdas Erlebte selbst'(pp.I5I-52). Usingtherevelations contained in the surviving volumes ofMann's diaries, particularly about hispersistent, powerful, but probably never sexually fulfilled (seep.5I 7),homoerotic inclination, Kurzke writes brilliantly, andoften speculatively, aboutthewriter whose ownsuccessful life and career emerge from this investigation asa very deliberate construct oforder inthe faceofthecontinual threat ofchaos.The biography attempts to focus on the intimate personal andpsychological detail. Thefirst section ofthechapter 'InAcht undBann', which covers the years I933-I936, opens thus with thedeclaration that Kurzke will notcover again inany detail the well-researched political andhistorical events ofthat period: 'Wir wollen unsaufdasSeelische konzentrieren' (p.394). Unlike theexisting biographies byPeter de Mendelssohn, KlausHarpprecht, DonaldPrater, andMarianne Krull, which traced Mann'slife andwork overthe years ofhislife, Kurzke sets outtoreconstruct andtellthehidden personal life of theauthor that feeds...