Kafka: the death journey in the everlasting present
Hudson Review Winter 2012
(in library use RPL Central Lit)
Victor Brombert
The writings of Franz Kafka have teased commentators into contradictory, even outlandish interpretations. They range from strictly pathological readings to fancy assertions that his work represents an endless spiritual quest. In between such extremes, according to the inclinations of the critic, the stress might fall on guilt, self-punishment, nightmarish fears, the sense of alienation of a Central European Jew, or readings bent on detecting in Kafka's works a crypto-religious search for salvation or even sainthood. Most ofetn the proposed readings are mutually exclusive, ignoring Kafka's radically ironic turn of mind which calls for the simultaneous presence of opposing views, inclusion rather than choice, instantaneous passage from one meaning to another without prospect of genuine communication between them....(in Cental Lit)
also in this issue
essay
Charles Dickens: the show but don't tell man
by Susan Balee
fiction
The Lady Macbeth of Mtensk
by Nikolai Leskov
poetry by
Dick Allen
James Applewhite
Kevin Cutrer
Emily Grosholz
and more
Reviews including
Trilling Matters "Why Trilling Matters"
by William Pritchard