On Not Understanding Kafka
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Abstract
The title of this essay provokes the objection that its author must either be guilty of a mere pretence to ignorance, or should not write about what he does not understand. Yet while there is much in Kafka that I do not understand, I believe that I do understand some things in Kafka by understanding my not understanding Kafka. At least the situation is somewhat kafkaesque. On the eve of a visit to his beloved fiancee which led to the first-inconclusive-breakup of the engagement, Kafka wrote: "I write differently from the way I speak, speak differently from the way I think, think differently from the way I ought to think, and so on and down into deepest darkness."2 What is, perhaps, appropriate is the sense of being a talking onion: voices, layer upon layer, each contradicting the next.