Letters to Felice

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The more than five hundred letters Kafka wrote to Felice - through their breakup, a second engagement in 1917, and their final parting in the fall of that year, when Kafka began to feel the effects of tuberculosis that would eventually claim his life -  reveal the full measure of his inner turmoil as he tried, in vain, to balance his desire for human connection with what he felt were the solitary demands of his craft. On December 11, 1912, Kafka's debut book, Meditation, was published. He sent it to Bauer with a plea: "Please be kind to my poor book! Show the book to as few people as possible."

Comenzaría así una relación que terminará el día de Navidad de 1917, dos meses después de que Kafka escupe sangre y comienza a entender que su destino está sellado: la tuberculosis lo acechará e implacablemente lo matará el 3 de junio de 1924.

Bauer emerges as an unassuming woman from Berlin with aspirations of marriage and family. However, places his writing as a barrier between them – betraying her through his literary pursuits. As for Bauer, she couldn't fathom this peculiar form of treachery. Curious contradictions This was predictable: a month before the visit, Kafka wrote that “ if one bolts the doors and windows against the world, one can from time to time create the semblance and almost the beginning of the reality of a beautiful life”. In these words, one could argue, lies a premonition of online romance. What Kafka did in lyrical prose, the rest of us bumble through on social media and dating apps today – enjoying a similar disconnect from reality. Kafka first studied chemistry at the Charles-Ferdinand University of Prague but after two weeks switched to law. This study offered a range of career possibilities, which pleased his father, and required a longer course of study that gave Kafka time to take classes in German studies and art history. At the university, he joined a student club, named Lese- und Redehalle der Deutschen Studenten, which organized literary events, readings, and other activities. In the end of his first year of studies, he met Max Brod, a close friend of his throughout his life, together with the journalist Felix Weltsch, who also studied law. Kafka obtained the degree of doctor of law on 18 June 1906 and performed an obligatory year of unpaid service as law clerk for the civil and criminal courts. When Bauer sent Kafka a photograph of herself with her family, he immediately delved into decoding its meaning. He analysed every element – hand gestures, smiles, shadows, lighting, clothes, and gazes within and beyond the frame. Kafka, que siempre luchó contra sí mismo y contra las barreras y obstáculos que creó para complicarlo todo, tal vez como le sucede a los personajes de sus novelas -especialmente K. y Joseph K. de "El castillo" y "El proceso", hizo lo mismo para su relación personal que siempre fue débil, dependiente y conflictiva también con otras, tal es el caso de Juli Wohryzek y muy marcadamente con Mílena Jesenská con quien también mantuvo un intercambio epistolar intenso y complejo teniendo en cuenta que Mílena estaba casada.

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: His stories include "The Metamorphosis" (1912) and " In the Penal Colony" (1914), whereas his posthumous novels include The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926) and Amerika (1927). Para que lo sepas, mi amor, pienso en ti con tanto amor y devoción como si Dios te hubiera confiado a mí con las más inequívocas palabras." Bulgarian novelist Elias Canetti wrote about the correspondence in Kafka's Other Trial: The Letters to Felice. Through a reading of the letters along with sections of The Trial Canetti examined Kafka's struggle between a comfortable middle-class life and individual isolation. This is a book of love letters sent by Franz Kafka to Felice Bauer between 1912-1917, the woman he was engaged to marry several times. A prolific letter writer, sometimes Kafka would write her twice a day. The following is a line from one of his more famous letters to her and it’s quite intense:I was also fond of his relationship with his youngest and favorite sister (he had three), Ottilie (who, sadly, was later murdered in the Holocaust). He would be the sweetest brother. Mañana me pondré a escribir de nuevo, con todas mis fuerzas, cuando no escribo siento como si una mano inflexible me arrojara de la vida a empujones." Perhaps happiness, in Bauer's eyes, was marriage and parenthood. This starkly contrasted to Kafka, who sought to stoke the flames of his inner torment through writing. On 13 August 1912, a summer evening in Prague, a young Franz Kafka was gathering up his manuscripts to take to the house of his friend, Max Brod. His excursion to the Brods’ home late in the evening was not unusual, but this was an unusual night, for two momentous reasons: Kafka was about to send off what would be one of his first works to be published, and that evening he would meet the woman who would dominate his romantic imagination for the next five years. Book Genre: 20th Century, Autobiography, Biography, Classics, European Literature, German Literature, Literature, Memoir, Nonfiction, Reference, Romance