Contemplation (Kafka)

Contemplation is an anthology of 18 mostly short prose texts by Franz Kafka, published the end of 1912. It was Kafka's first published book was - laid in the then young Rowohlt Verlag - with the year 1913. The small anthology bears the dedication Kafka's " For MB ", so for his friend Max Brod.

In 1908, eight of the prose pieces with the top title consideration in the journal Hyperion, edited by Franz Blei, has been published.

Content

In consideration of topics are presented, the Kafka took up also in the other again and again, namely juvenile sociability, interpersonal differentiation, bachelor loneliness and the troubles of Kaufmann existence.

The stories are as follows:

• Children on the road
• Unmasking of a village scavenger
• The sudden walk
• Decisions
• The trip to the mountains
• The misfortune of the bachelors
• The merchant
• Airborne addition Gaze
• The Way Home
• The Runners-
• The passenger
• Clothes
• The rejection
• Thought for Herrenreiter
• The streets window
• Desire to be Indians
• The trees
• Unhappiness

Narrative

Of the 18 pieces, eight deal with the position of the voyeuristic observer. The critic Paul Friedrich speaks in the context of " Kafka's bachelor of art ". It presents life transgressions, because Kafka's heroes remain a bourgeois everyday world arrested without being able to meet their criteria.

The texts are determined by the cinematic vision; they transferred the possibilities of the new medium initially only for short sequences. Kafka told with the help of the method kinomathographischen no closed stories, but provides experimental sequences in which expand and complement motion pictures, lighting effects and snapshots of the diversity of narrative representation.

Reception

• V. Jagow (p. 403 ): "The 18 partly very small united in this band lyrics revolve around the theme of escape from you, a community or family, the complex of self- on - the - road - making; they stage looks on your body, girl, kids and also to the self. In these structures can be seen that repeat themselves in Kafka's work that will be carried forth ... "

Expenditure

• Franz Kafka: All narratives. Edited by Paul Raabe, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1970. ISBN 3- 596-21078 -X.
• Franz Kafka The narratives. Original version, edited by Roger Herms, Fischer Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-596-13270-3.

Secondary literature

• Klaus Wagenbach: Franz Kafka images from his life, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8031-3625-1.
• Peter- André Alt: Franz Kafka: The eternal Son. A biography, C. H. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-53441-4.
• Peter- André Alt: Kafka and the film, Beck Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-58748-1.
• Barbara Neymeyr: Contemplation. In: Manfred Engel, Bernd aurochs (ed.): Kafka manual. Life - Work - effect. Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2010, pp. 111-126, ISBN 978-3-476-02167-0.
• Bettina von Jagow and Oliver Year in Kafka 's Guide. Life - Work - action, Cambridge University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-20852-6.
• Joachim Unseld: Franz Kafka. A writer lives. Carl Hanser Verlag, 1982, ISBN 3-446-13568-5 Ln.