THE KAFKA MUSEUM ~ WITH CROW & GINGERBREAD
I am certainly not the first American tourist to wander around Prague searching for signs of Kafka, and many have done a much better job of it than I. Some manifestations of the great "K" were not so hard to find:
Kafka Riding an Empty Suit
Reader in an Armchair
Others were more elusive. Despite the omnipresence of Kafka in Prague, a couple of times I felt like K., standing before the closed door of the law. Like the Man Before the Law, I was right in front of my goal, yet unable to pass through the barrier -- in this case, the barrier of my own tourist - blindness. As K. can attest, the object of your quest might be right before your eyes yet still impossible to perceive.
I carefully photographed this corner . . .
. . . before successfully locating, merely
one block away, this wall - mounted plaque,
that marks the location of Kafka's birth.
I had been standing directly beneath it,
but had neglected to look up!
Similarly, after tracing Kafka's route to school
across the Old Town Square, from the ornately decorated
House at the Minute ~ Dům U Minuty
. . . to the Masna Street Elementary School,
I stood right in front of the green front door,
looking across to the other side of the street.
But the aspect did not seem right, not as I had expected. . . .
Oh! because the school building was directly behind me!
Then there was that moment, wandering around the Municipal House (Obecní Dům), past the American Bar and the concert hall, when I peered into some kind of staging area filled with flat tables and standing metal bars. "Interesting art installation," I said to Gerry, thinking "how avant - garde," until he offered a moment of clarification: "That's the coat check!"
and a misunderstanding of the same matter
do not wholly exclude each other.”
Franz Kafka ~ The Trial
(271, Muir / Butler translation; 258 online edition)
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Interesting Kafka story: https://www.facebook.com/nancy.allen.311/posts/3931974863483406
ReplyDeleteKindness happiness love
October 7, 2020 ·
At 40, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who never married and had no children, walked through the park in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she had lost her favourite doll. She and Kafka searched for the doll unsuccessfully.
Kafka told her to meet him there the next day and they would come back to look for her.
The next day, when they had not yet found the doll, Kafka gave the girl a letter "written" by the doll saying "please don't cry. I took a trip to see the world. I will write to you about my adventures."
Thus began a story which continued until the end of Kafka's life.
During their meetings, Kafka read the letters of the doll carefully written with adventures and conversations that the girl found adorable.
Finally, Kafka brought back the doll (he bought one) that had returned to Berlin.
"It doesn't look like my doll at all," said the girl.
Kafka handed her another letter in which the doll wrote: "my travels have changed me." the little girl hugged the new doll and brought her happy home.
A year later Kafka died.
Many years later, the now-adult girl found a letter inside the doll. In the tiny letter signed by Kafka it was written:
"Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way."
#kafka #thedoll