Kafka : The Early Years / Reiner Stach.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stach, Reiner, author.

Contributor:

Frisch, Shelley.

Standardized Title:

Kafka, die frühen Jahre. English

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924--Childhood and youth.

Kafka, Franz.

Authors, Austrian--20th century--Biography.

Authors, Austrian.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 564 pages, 32 leaves of plates) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2016]

Language Note:

In English.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

How did Kafka become Kafka? This eagerly anticipated third and final volume of Reiner Stach's definitive biography of the writer answers that question with more facts and insight than ever before, describing the complex personal, political, and cultural circumstances that shaped the young Franz Kafka (1883-1924). It tells the story of the years from his birth in Prague to the beginning of his professional and literary career in 1910, taking the reader up to just before the breakthrough that resulted in his first masterpieces, including "The Metamorphosis." Brimming with vivid and often startling details, Stach's narrative invites readers deep inside this neglected period of Kafka's life. The book's richly atmospheric portrait of his German Jewish merchant family and his education, psychological development, and sexual maturation draws on numerous sources, some still unpublished, including family letters, schoolmates' memoirs, and early diaries of his close friend Max Brod.The biography also provides a colorful panorama of Kafka's wider world, especially the convoluted politics and culture of Prague. Before World War I, Kafka lived in a society at the threshold of modernity but torn by conflict, and Stach provides poignant details of how the adolescent Kafka witnessed violent outbreaks of anti-Semitism and nationalism. The reader also learns how he developed a passionate interest in new technologies, particularly movies and airplanes, and why another interest-his predilection for the back-to-nature movement-stemmed from his "nervous" surroundings rather than personal eccentricity.The crowning volume to a masterly biography, this is an unmatched account of how a boy who grew up in an old Central European monarchy became a writer who helped create modern literature.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Translator's Preface / Frisch, Shelley

Chapter One. Nothing Happening in Prague

Chapter Two. The Curtain Rises

Chapter Three. Giants: The Kafkas from Wosek

Chapter Four. Julie Löwy

Chapter Five. Losing Propositions

Chapter Six. Thoughts about Freud

Chapter Seven. Kafka, Franz: Model Student

Chapter Eight. A City Energized

Chapter Nine. Elli, Valli, Ottla

Chapter Ten. Latin, Bohemian, Mathematics, and Other Matters of the Heart

Chapter Eleven. Jewish Lessons

Chapter Twelve. Innocence and Impudence

Chapter Thirteen. The Path to Freedom

Chapter Fourteen. To Hell with German Studies

Chapter Fifteen. Friend Max

Chapter Sixteen. Enticements

Chapter Seventeen. Informed Circles: Utitz, Weltsch, Fanta, Bergmann

Chapter Eighteen. Autonomy and Recovery

Chapter Nineteen. The Interior Landscape: "Description of a Struggle"

Chapter Twenty. Doctor of Law Seeking Employment

Chapter Twenty- One. Off to the Prostitutes

Chapter Twenty- Two. Cafés, Geishas, Art, and Cinema

Chapter Twenty- Three. The Formidable Assistant Official

Chapter Twenty- Four. The Secret Writing School

Chapter Twenty- Five. Landing in Brescia

Chapter Twenty- Six. In the Heart of the West

Chapter Twenty- Seven. Ideas and Spirits: Buber, Steiner, Einstein

Chapter Twenty-Eight. Literature and Tourism

Acknowledgments

Key to Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Photo Credits

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 531-548) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

9781400884476

1400884470

OCLC:

964524805