ENGLAND — It really says something about society’s perceptions when tales of a man turning into a giant cockroach are at the foundation of a man’s literary greatness — but his taste in pornography is feared to be enough to undermine that foundation. Yet such has been the case with posthumously published 20th century German-language novelist and short story writer, Franz Kafka.That the existentialist who penned The Metamorphosis, The Trial, and The Castle, all of which tell tales of tormented people victimized by surreal environments, might have a unique taste in erotica seems hardly unexpected. Yet academics have studiously avoided examining or discussing the influential writer’s private stash of explicitly risqué words and images.
Until now, with the publication of James Hawes’ Excavating Kafka, which shows the world what sensual delights occupied the thoughts of the depressive, socially anxious genius.
Hawes came across the collection of hardcore material while investigating Kafka’s journals kept at the British Library in London and the Bodleian in Oxford. He discovered, among other things, that Franz Blei, the publisher of Kafka’s preciously secret materials was also the first to put its now-famous reader into print. In 1908 Blei published a series of Kafka’s short stories, which were later collected together and released as Meditation.
“Academics have pretended it did not exist,” Hawes observes. “The Kafka industry doesn’t want to know such things about its idol.”
Of the material contained in his book, Hawes will simply say, “These are not naughty postcards from the beach. They are undoubtedly porn, pure and simple. Some of it is quite dark. It’s quite unpleasant.”
So “unpleasant” are the images of animals, lesbianism, and women with strap-ons, that although Kafka is one of the most chronicled and examined writers since Shakespeare, “no one has ever shown his readers Kafka’s porn,” according to Hawes.
Although some may fear that Kafka’s literary stature will be lost now that some of his more exotic sexual titillations are revealed, Hawes believes that the innocently titled Amethyst/Opals found locked at the house of Kafka’s parents where he lived show him to be human, something those who have nearly deified him may find upsetting.
