Fascinating papers from ‘tortured genius’ that he wanted to be burnt

Kafka: Making of an Icon
Weston Library, Oxford
Until Sunday, October 27

THERE is surely no opening to a story which is more deadpan, more unnerving, than: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”

This, the hand-written beginning of The Metamorphosis, a short story by Franz Kafka, is one of many treasures currently on display at the Weston Library, part of Oxford’s Bodleian Library.

The exhibition, Kafka: Making of an Icon, marks the centenary of the author’s death in 1924.

The Bodleian is fortunate to possess the majority of Kafka’s papers, which range from the manuscripts of novels to diaries, notes and postcards as well as sketches and doodles.

The curious and unlikely story of how the papers of a Czech writer made his way across Europe and into a British library as recently as 1961 is itself the subject of a fascinating exhibit and animated display.

But then much about Kafka’s story is unlikely. Born in 1883 into a German-speaking, Jewish family in Prague in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kafka, a lawyer by training, worked in a state-run insurance company.

He retired early on health grounds. Though he got engaged several times, he never married. He died from tuberculosis at the age of 41.

Yet this relatively obscure and ordinary setting produced one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. For every person who has actually read Kafka there are a thousand who know the term “Kafkaesque”, applied to anything from nightmarish persecution to trying to get through to British Gas.

The survival of his writing was unlikely, too. The first thing you see on entering the exhibition is an image of flames overprinted by Kafka’s dying wish to his friend Max Brod: “Burn all my manuscripts, diaries, letters… completely and unread.”

Brod’s defiance of his friend’s last request remains controversial. Did Kafka really mean it? Where did Brod’s duty lie: to his friend or world literature?

Before you leave the Weston Library, you can cast your own vote, whether to “publish” or to “burn”.The exhibition shows how Kafka became a global figure. His soulful, penetrating gaze is here reproduced by Andy Warhol. His work has inspired and been reinterpreted by many other authors, from Ian McEwan to Alan Bennett to Haruki Marukami.

There is even a display of books on entomology, a science that flourished in the 19th century and which fascinated Kafka, hence the transformation of the unfortunate Samsa into a beetle.

The image of the tortured genius is slightly misleading. As the personal postcards and notes on display demonstrate, Kafka had a wide circle of friends. The famous “soulful” photo is actually cropped. His fiancée is by his side.

This exhibition shows both the personal and the universal sides of this famous figure who had such an impact on the 20th century (and the 21st, too). We haven’t outgrown Kafka.

Philip Gooden