Call me Leni. I'll be your mistr-, er, hostess.  Let's make ourselves a little more comfortable and I'll tell you about my dear friend Franz.

        Welcome, one and all. You might be wondering, "Why'd you pick that slut Leni to host your page?" Well, yes, she is a little cock-crazy, but there's more to her than that. To start with, I like her raw carnality, as brought into Joseph K.'s cold, unfeeling, sterile world.  [Footsteps in background. Angry male voice.]  "You stupid whore!  I thought this was going to be the tryouts for Leni Does Prague!  Not this book stuff!  What a ripoff!"  [Door slamming.]  Before we were so rudely interrupted, I'd just like to say. . .

        Well, what can you say about a man who lived at home until he was 40 (more or less), despite difficult relations with his father, had a crappy job, tried to pass himself off as a slacker (claiming he did nothing but sit around and accomplished next to nothing, cf. the Letter to his Father), was teminally depressed, believed he was an utter failure (according to his father's standards), and proved to be one of the greatest writers of the 20th century (even if against his own wishes)?
 
 

        Boring Disclaimer: I made this page to give a different perspective on Franz Kafka, to show another dimension of his personality and work.  No disrespect of any kind is intended.  In fact, I think it adds to his talent to see it in another light. All errors of fact are mine alone.  If you see any errors or room for improvement, please let me know.  In my opinion, one should be able to above all enjoy Kafka's work, or what's the point?  It is unnecessary that studying Kafka should be a Kafkaesque task! Also, I'm not big on bizarre, whacked-out, interpretations of Kafka.  Poor Franz has been subjected to some of the most bizarre interpretations of all time.  Throughout history there have been, naturally enough, strange interpretations of everything, from judges of the Inquisition deciding if an artist's motives are "pure" to stoned kids trying to figure out the REAL meaning of some song or movie, but Kafka frequently takes the cake.  There's an awful lot of these (in my humble opinion) sometimes breathtakingly wrongheaded interpretations (e.g. that he was actually a closet homosexual, (barely) hidden sadomasochism in The Trial, or seething undercurrents of incest in The Metamorphosis--you get the idea.  Sick minds with too much time on their hands.  Join the club.)  It is my belief that Kafka is a Rorschach test--you read into it what you want to see. Interpretations frequently tell you more about the interpreter than about Kafka, that's for sure!  I just want to have the basic info here.  That said, I hope, like Leni, that you like it.

            Biography  Retelling of Kafka's life story.
 

            Milena Jesenská    This is my own little tribute to Milena Jesenská, one of Kafka's girlfriends but much more than that.  Added 4/30/99

            Kafka and Judaism    Here's an essay I wrote about the relation between Kafka and Judaism. Pretty bad, but I thought the topic was fascinating.  Added 10/21/98.

            Czech Corner    Although the Czech influence on Kafka wasn't quite as important as the German and Jewish influences were (in that order), it would be a mistake to ignore it.  Added 6/3/99.

            Texts    Right now this includes The Judgment, The Metamorphosis, Letter to his Father, and Josephine the Singer, or The Mouse Folk.  You can also see a few of the manuscripts.
Added 10/3/98: A Country Doctor, First Sorrow
Added 10/23/98: Diaries 1910
Added 11/22/98: Diaries 1911, part 1
Added 12/14/98: Diaries 1911, part 2
Added 1/7/99: Diaries 1912
Added 2/26/99: Diaries 1913
Added 4/5/99: A Report to an Academy
Added 5/10/99: Diaries 1914
Added 10/30/99: Jackals and Arabs

            Summaries    Think of it as a poor man's Cliff's Notes, but slightly more detailed.  Includes The Trial, The Castle and Amerika. And now also including "The Metamorphosis"!

            Pictures    The best part!  Sorry if it takes forever to load.  11/29/98: I fixed up the pictures so they won't take near as long to load. 6/25/99: Fixed the pictures so that they don't have that annoying moiré on them.

            How Grete Was Tormented By Her Husband Hans, or Some Books By and About Kafka    The mysterious porn novel read by the magistrates in The Trial is, alas, not here, but there's a lot of good stuff to make up for that.

           Kafka at the Movies    Despite the difficulty in filiming Kafka, this hasn't stopped people from trying.  Here's a brief rundown of a few of them.  Added 2/10/99

         Some views about Kafka and his works    Basically, this is the obligatory Quotes Page about our boy Franz. But it's interesting!

         Fun with Kafka    Studying Kafka doesn't have to be too serious, as this stuff shows. Besides, playing around is what I'm best at!  Added 11/4/98

          Vladimir Nabokov's lecture on "The Metamorphosis"    Fascinating. For more info about Nabokov, you can visit Waxwing or Zembla, the Nabokov Butterfly Net.

         Links    Other, more sober sites (mostly).

          Feel free to use anything on these pages for a paper or essay, as long as you don't steal too shamelessly.

          Junk on this and other pages ©1998, 1999, 2000 by Leni Kafka

This page last fussed over on 11/19/00.

Since 11/21/00
+30,000 (about) since 10/15/98
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