Kafka on Love and Patience ( )

Transcription

1 Kafka on Love and Patience ( ) Kafka s Beautiful and Heartbreaking Love Letters Relationships are probably our greatest learning experiences, a wise woman once said, echoing Rilke ( s memorable proclamation that love is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks the work for which all other work is but preparation. When we fall in love, we are asked to rise to this task a polarizing pull that stretches the psyche in opposite directions as we crave surrender and safety in equal measure. relationships n. relationship n. - sino-us relationship Relationships are probably our greatest learning experiences Perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks the work for which all other work is but preparation. The discomfort of this wildly disorienting bidirectional pull is what 29-year-old Franz Kafka( ) articulated in a beautiful and heartbreaking letter to Felice Bauer, a marketing rep for a dictation machine company whom the young author had met at the home of his friend and future biographer Max Brod in August of Young Franz and Felice immediately began a correspondence of escalating intensity, with Kafka frequently exasperated as was Vladimir Nabokov the start of his lifelong romance with Véra over his beloved s infrequent and insufficiently romantic response. Over the five-year course of their turbulent, mostly epistolary relationship, they were engaged twice, even though they met in person only a few times. During that period, Kafka produced his most significant work, including The Metamorphosis. Five hundred of his letters survive and were posthumously published in the intensely rewarding and revelatory Letters to Felice (public library). discomfort n. disorienting adj. correspondence n. escalating intensity exasperated adj.

2 engaged adj. Over the five-year course of their turbulent, mostly epistolary relationship, they were engaged twice, even though they met in person only a few times. In November of 1912, three months after he met Felice, Kafka writes: Fräulein Felice! I am now going to ask you a favor which sounds quite crazy, and which I should regard as such, were I the one to receive the letter. It is also the very greatest test that even the kindest person could be put to. Well, this is it: Write to me only once a week, so that your letter arrives on Sunday for I cannot endure your daily letters, I am incapable of enduring them. For instance, I answer one of your letters, then lie in bed in apparent calm, but my heart beats through my entire body and is conscious only of you. I belong to you; there is really no other way of expressing it, and that is not strong enough. But for this very reason I don t want to know what you are wearing; it confuses me so much that I cannot deal with life; and that s why I don t want to know that you are fond of me. If I did, how could I, fool that I am, go on sitting in my office, or here at home, instead of leaping onto a train with my eyes shut and opening them only when I am with you? endure vi. confuse vt. It confuses me so much that I cannot deal with life. It what you were wearing Whether out of self-protective rationalization or mere pragmatism the onset of tuberculosis was, after all, what ended the relationship five years later he plaintively points to a physiological reason, almost as an excuse for the psychological: Oh, there is a sad, sad reason for not doing so. To make it short: My health is only just good enough for myself alone, not good enough for marriage, let alone fatherhood. Yet when I read your letter, I feel I could overlook even what cannot possibly be overlooked.

3 overlook vt. Yet when I read your letter, I feel I could overlook even what cannot possibly be overlooked. He resumes his plea, which seems directed more at himself than at her: If only I had mailed Saturday s letter, in which I implored you never to write to me again, and in which I gave a similar promise. Oh God, what prevented me from sending that letter? All would be well. But is a peaceful solution possible now? Would it help if we wrote to each other only once a week? No, if my suffering could be cured by such means it would not be serious. And already I foresee that I shan t be able to endure even the Sunday letters. And so, to compensate for Saturday s lost opportunity, I ask you with what energy remains to me at the end of this letter cure vt. foresee vt. No, if my suffering could be cured by such means it would not be serious. And already I foresee that I shan t be able to endure even the Sunday letters. He closes in true Kafkaesque fashion: If we value our lives, let us abandon it all I am forever fettered to myself, that s what I am, and that s what I must try to live with. value vt. abandon vt. fetter vt. If we value our lives, let us abandon it all I am forever fettered to myself, that s what I am, and that s what I must try to live with.

4 It makes sense, of course, for a man who associated pleasure with pain nowhere more vividly than in his famous proclamation that a book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us to experience love as at once elating and anguishing. But the paradox of love is perhaps the same as that of art, which Jeanette Winterson so elegantly termed the paradox of active surrender in order for either to transform us, we must let it turn us over and inside-out. That is what Rilke called love s great exacting claim, and in that claim lies its ultimate reward. associate a with b a b pleasure n. pain n. elating adj. anguishing adj. It makes sense, of course, for a man who associated pleasure with pain nowhere more vividly than in his famous proclamation that a book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us to experience love as at once elating and anguishing. 41 Kafka on Love and Patience Patience is the master key to every situation. One must have sympathy for everything, surrender to everything, but at the same time remain patient and forbearing. One March morning in 1920, a Czech( ) teenager named Gustav Janouch arrived at the Workman s Accident Insurance Institution, where his father worked. The purpose of the visit was for the seventeen-year-old aspiring poet to meet his father s famous colleague, Metamorphosis author Franz Kafka (July 3, 1883 June 3, 1924), who had been laboring at the insurance company for twelve years. The two struck an unlikely friendship and for the remaining four years of Kafka s life, they frequently shared long walks through the city, talking about literature and life. strike vt. struck struck The two struck an unlikely friendship and for the remaining four years of Kafka s life, they frequently shared long walks through the city, talking about literature and life. 17 Gustav Janouch

5 In 1951, long after Kafka s death, Janouch published his recollection of these remarkably rich walking talks as Conversations with Kafka (public library).what makes these conversations so compelling is that much of what is said counters the familiar image of Kafka as a creature of grievance and gloom.perhaps because we are constantly entraining each other through conversation and the young man s openhearted optimism awakened dormant parts of Kafka s spirit, there is radiance in a great deal of what they discuss art ( Art like prayer is a hand outstretched in the darkness, seeking for some touch of grace which will transform it into a hand that bestows gifts. ), poetry ( Goethe says practically everything that matters to us human beings. ), and love. counter vt. grievance n. gloom n. What makes these conversations so compelling is that much of what is said counters the familiar image of Kafka as a creature of grievance and gloom. In reflecting on the anguish of ill-fated love affairs, Kafka offers a magnificent definition of love and its hazards, at once utterly elevating and utterly grounding: What is love? After all, it is quite simple. Love is everything which enhances, widens, and enriches our life. In its heights and in its depths. Love has as few problems as a motor-car. The only problems are the driver, the passengers, and the road. enhance vt. widen vt. enrich vt. height n. depth n. What is love? After all, it is quite simple. Love is everything which enhances, widens, and enriches our life. In its heights and in its depths. Love has as few problems as a motor-car. The only problems are the driver, the passengers, and the road.

6 Far more often than we like to imagine, those problems can steer the car toward a crash. Kafka himself was intimately familiar with heartbreak, as evidenced by his beautiful and harrowing love letters. But perhaps because heartbreak is how we mature, his own experience is what allowed the author to offer young Gustav such strangely assuring advice in comforting the Gustav s distress over his parents divorce a rupture of the heart that had rendered him hopeless about the possibility of happiness in love. Echoing Nietzsche s belief that a fulfilling life requires embracing difficulty, Kafka urges the young man to stay present with his difficult emotions: Just be quiet and patient. Let evil and unpleasantness pass quietly over you. Do not try to avoid them. On the contrary, observe them carefully. Let active understanding take the place of reflex irritation, and you will grow out of your trouble. Men can achieve greatness only by surmounting their own littleness. mature vi. Heartbreak is how we mature rupture n. render sb + adj. A rupture of the heart that had rendered him hopeless about the possibility of happiness in love Gustav On their following walk, he revisits the subject. In a sentiment that calls to mind John Steinbeck s unforgettable advice on love If it is right, it happens, he counseled his lovestruck teenage son. The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away. Kafka tells young Gustav: Patience is the master key to every situation. One must have sympathy for everything, surrender to everything, but at the same time remain patient and forbearing There is no such thing as bending or breaking. It s a question only of overcoming, which begins with overcoming oneself. That cannot be avoided. To abandon that path is always to break in pieces. One must patiently accept everything and let it grow within oneself. The barriers of the fear-ridden I can only be broken by love. One must, in the dead leaves that rustle around one, already see the young fresh green of spring, compose oneself in patience, and wait. Patience is the only true foundation on which to make one s dreams come true. patience n. master key sympathy n. surrender vt. forbearing adj.

7 overcome vt. Patience is the master key to every situation. One must have sympathy for everything, surrender to everything, but at the same time remain patient and forbearing. There is no such thing as bending or breaking. It s a question only of overcoming, which begins with overcoming oneself. Conversations with Kafka is a trove of often dark, sometimes radiant, always profound insight from one of the most complex and compelling minds humanity has produced. Complement this particular portion with the great Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hahn on how to love and Milan Kundera on the central ambivalences of life and love.