Franz Kafka zwischen Judentum und Christentum by Gernot Wimmer (review)

This new collection of articles inspired by the international conference “Kafka at 125” held at Duke University and the University of North Carolina in 2009 explores Kafka’s position in terms of culture and religion. The book is divided into three sections, one devoted to the author’s socialization, the second to theological issues, and the third to interpretations. The juxtaposition of Judaism and Christianity in the title already poses a problem in view of the multiplicity of cultural, social, and religious groups, sects, and, viewpoints characteristic of early twentieth-century Central Europe. Which form of Christianity and which Jewish orientations are to be discussed is a question that is by and large left unresolved, causing the mistaken impression of two religious-cultural monoliths of approximately equal force and numbers to arise occasionally. For example, Thorben Päthe’s discussion on differences and similarities in Jewish and Christian dogma and their manifestations in Kafka’s writings and thought remains sketchy and incomplete in that respect.

A major shortcoming of the volume becomes obvious while reviewing the references—footnotes in the absence of a comprehensive bibliography and index. International scholarship seems to be considered only to a small extent. Where, for example, is the English- and French-language scholarship, which includes far-reaching Kafka research, debates in Jewish Studies, and literary and general cultural analyses (such as Alfred Thomas’s recent study on the Prague palimpsest, which adds to the model of the Prague triad of Germans, Jews, and Czechs cosmopolitan perspectives that shaped Kafka as well)? While many familiar topoi are evoked in Franz Kafka zwischen Judentum und Christentum, the volume presents fresh insights and challenging problems as well. Calling into question the book’s title theme, Christoph Gellner, while conceding that in private Kafka may have been more religious than is generally assumed, asserts that the literary oeuvre does not foreground religious concerns. Arguing from a different point of view, Roman Halfman maintains that Kafka, even though he was influenced by religious discourses, nonetheless adopted an ideal of originality and a pronounced Western Jewish assimilationist habitus. Bernd Neumann refers back to the much-discussed encounter between Kafka and Milena Jesenská as Libuš a rediviva and as an emblem characterizing the Jewish-Christian polarity in modern Prague, and he interprets the generally assumed final reversal of Kafka’s position under the auspices of his relationship with Dora Diamant. Gernot Wimmer traces a similar process, which he sees expressed in Kafka’s father-son-conflict, which according to him is less of a personal/familial than a cultural/religious rift.

Manfred Voigt examines the impact of Jewish textual traditions on Kafka, who, he claims, deliberately chose to be a creative writer. He explains that Kafka found himself within a Jewish environment that may have seemed uniform to the outside but was internally divided and contentious. Voigt argues that Kafka, unwilling to align himself with any of the three Jewish paths at the time—Westernization, Eastern traditionalism, and Zionism—positioned himself in the context of Talmudic writing and was thus torn between mutually exclusive demands. Jochen Schmidt in his theological analysis of Kafka’s writing suggests that not the presence of theological motifs but the structural element of an irreducible negativity constitutes the decisive theological moment in Kafka.

The “Interpretation” section opens with Tomislav Zelić’s reading of “Odradek” as a figuration of the enigma of identity that excludes notions of a secure future or even a program for continuity. Kurt Angler, with special emphasis on the “Olga” narrative in The Castle, characterizes Kafka as a witness of his time who by his textual strategy ends up documenting the void that lies beyond the present. Theo Elm contributes an engaging reading of the Nature Theater of Oklahoma in Amerika, arguing that Kafka’s visuality leads to a revolutionary aesthetic in which text and image coincide. Gernot Wimmer’s poetological reflections on what he terms Kafka’s poetics of the labyrinth conclude the volume. Wimmer maintains that Kafka was...