Introducing Kafka

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Reviewed by: Tom Hendricks, Musea Review Service. Posted courtesy of the Underground Literary Alliance Book Review Blog. Tom Hendricks is a ULA member. He has probably never met Robert Crumb, but might want to. I'd like to meet Robert Crumb. What is it? : Franz Kafka's biography with text by David Mairowitz, and illustrations by celebrated underground comic artist Robert Crumb. Technical Quality: High. Book is a well made, 175 page, trade paperback. Note the somewhat chilling cover with an orange Prague cityscape drawing , with a green insert of Kafka writing. Innovative Quality: High. The book uses the graphic novel approach to tell the life story of the troubled but brilliant Franz Kafka. Crumb illustrates the main biographical events and portions from some of Kafka's most celebrated works. Review: Three parts come together to make this a memorable and notable read: Franz Kafka's life and works, Robert Crumb's illustrations on every page, and an informative biographical text by David Zane Mairowitz. Mairowitz writes: "Before ever becoming the ADJECTIVE (Kafkaesque) Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was a Jew from Prague, born into its inescapable tradition of story-tellers and fantasists, ghetto-dwellers and eternal refugees. His Prague, "a little mother' with 'claws' was a place that suffocated him, but where he nonetheless chose to live all but the last eight months of his life." That well sums up a lot of the main threads of Kafka's life too. He was a Jew in a country that more and more hated and persecuted the Jews. He had an oppressive and abusive father that, like Prague, he could never escape. He had troubled relationships with all the women he was attracted to, and he never got the respect for his writing in his life time that he deserved. The book goes into detail on all these issues and lets us see his world - a depressing world where it seems his only escape was his writing. And what writing he did. Throughout the book are illustrated excerpts of major Kafka works including: an early story 'The Judgement', the famous "Metamorphosis' where Gregor Samsa turns into an enormous bug; "The Burrow" an animal fable; "In the Penal Colony" with the new killing machine invention; his best known work, the novel, "The Trial" where 'K' is arrested - but for what?; "The Castle" the 2nd of 3 novels; "A Hunger Artist" who is a sideshow freak for his ability to starve himself, and "Amerika" his last unfinished novel. At the age of 39 he retired from his insurance job (one that by improving safety standards actually saved many lives) due to tuberculosis. Kafka instructed his friend Max Brod, to destroy almost all his works upon his death. Fortunately for us, Brod did not carry that wish out. The bio is fascinating, and the excerpts cover some of the best of Kafka's work. Now add to that the superb black and white illustrations of Crumb and we get a very great book indeed. Crumb, known for his underground comics, has taken that style of art to high ar

The serious student of Kafka or the neophyte will find much to admire in this rendering of the life and work of Kafka. IT is truer a retelling than Welle's The Trial. Excellent plot summaries well illustrated and very evocative. Crumb is the perfect artist to present the life and work of Mr. Kafka, with sincerity and illuminating truth. I wish Mr. Crumb would do more and full length versions of the Kafka opus

This is a great literary biography of Franz Kafka, written by David Zane Mairowitz, that is fantastically illustrated by Robert Crumb. It is an outstanding collaboration between a writer and artist, where each person's work enhances the finished product far more than just the sum of the parts. Mairowitz is a Kafka scholar whose words come to life with the brilliant illustrations of R. Crumb. Together they trace Kafka's life, his family and social influences, his relationships with women, and their effects on his various works. Truly a delightful introduction to Kafka and his writings that will serve as a model for future literary introductions.

As I read through this delightful summary of Franz Kafka's life and work, I was struck by the fact that both the Czech writer and the cartoonist R. Crumb have the same anguished yearning for determined young women. Curiously, these all have the strong legs, broad beams, and statuesque torsos of Crumb's fantasy women from Zap Comix to today. Perhaps, Crumb and Kafka have more in common than meets the eye. They are all there: Gregor Samsa's sister, the luscious Milena Jesenska, the Advocate's "nurse" Leni, Olga and Frieda from THE CASTLE, and the ravishing Dora Diamant. These women are all more durable than both Kafka and Crumb, who are wispy and likely to blow away in the next puff of wind. (I recommend that you see the excellent film documentary of the cartoonist's life, called, appropriately, CRUMB.) When one concentrates on the women in Kafka's life and work, the result is curiously enlightening. "None of his female characters seems to have her own existence," writes David Zane Mairowitz, "but is spawned in his imagination in order to distract 'K' or 'Joseph K,' to tempt and ensnare him. Kafka's sexual terror is put to the test time after time, yet these same women provide something more.... The outcome of these relationships is rarely 'intimate' (Leni being an exception) and has more to do with power than personal feelings. Kafka's talent would mostly SUGGEST erotic encounter, rather than indulging his characters in that act which he found 'repellent and perfectly useless.'"Perhaps Mairowitz and Crumb do not provide a measured and scholarly study of the writer, but within a mere 175 pages they have done more to rekindle my interest in Kafka than anything else I have ever read about him. This book is a perfect gem and a work of art in its own right.