Franz Kafka (1883–1983): His Craft and Thought ed. by Roman Struc, J.C. Yardley (review)

HUMANITIES 209 dans une trop courte etude, trace Ie passage de l'oral al'ecrit, 'Du roman d'hier au roman de demain' (comme Ie signale Runte, Ie roman acadien existait, existe, existera 11 part l'ceuvre de Maillet, aussi). Don Conway se penche ensuite sur les prosateurs et prosatrices des xvure et XIxe siecles, et Fred Cogswell revient ala charge pour prolonger cette etude jusqu'1I nos jours, dans l'un des meilleurs articles du volume. Viennent clore Ie recueil un essai forcement schematique d'Anne-Marie Robichaud sur Ie discours et l'essai acadiens, et un essai reflechi du principal traducteur de l'equipe, Henri-Dominique Paratte: 'Deux litteratures 11 mieux decouvrir: Notes sur la traduction des deux litteratures majeures du N. -B.' Si I'auteur a raison de souligner la traduction deficiente de la Sagouine par Luis de Cespedes (heureusement, celie de Mariaage/as par Ben-Z. Shek est nettement meilleure), il faut quand meme se demander pourquoi M. Paratte lui-meme se serait permis un tapsus aussi fikheux que de traduire, dans l'Introduction par Reavley Gair, 'by the tum of the seventeenth century': 'vers la fin du 17eme siecle,' faussant ainsi sens etchronologie; ou, dans Ie meme texte, d'employer Ie mot maSC11rade pour traduire l'anglais masque, en designant Ie Theatre de Neptune de Marc Lescarbot .. . Ces legeres imperfections ii part, c'est un joli et utile volume ou Ie lecteur general (neo-brunswickois ou non) et, pour la plupart, Ie lecteur averti trouveront genereusement leur compte. (L.E. DOUCETTE) Roman Struc and J.e. Yardley, editors. Franz Kilfim (1883-1983): His Craft and Thought Wilfrid Laurier University Press. viii, 158. $14.95 paper This collection of eight essays on Franz Kafka in the year of the centenary of his birth, resulting from an international symposium at the University of Calgary, Alberta, in October 1983, has the unusual merit of being introduced by an inspired and exacting editor who critically assesses his contributors' 'imperfect insights' within the larger context of Kafka scholarship . Itis further testimony to the scope and vigour of the Kafka debate, which so far has spawned more than twelve thousand articles and books, with no end in sight. In his refreshingly candid evaluation, the editor makes a convincing case of the 'historicity' of both the readers' awareness and the critics' focus, as well as their fallibility sub specie aeternitatis, while highlighting the bewildering diversity ofcontemporary criticism reflected in the essays of this volume. A tactful cautioning of this kind goes a long way towards neutralizing the reader's concern about the lack of coherence of this volume as well as the uneven quality of the individual contributions. Charles Bernheimer's and James Rolleston's papers, which open this collection, both explore links between Kafka and Flaubert. Bernheimer, 210 LFITERS IN CANADA 1986 building on his previous landmark study, Flaubert and Kafka, investigates the split within the self in Hochzeitsvorbereitungen, while Rolleston examines Kafka's fascination with time in the context of the concept of realism and German Romanticism. Rolleston convinces us of the usefulness of his categories of 'prescriptive time: 'encyclopedic time: and 'ecstatic time' for the classification of Kafka within German literary tradition ; Kafka's stories, however, seem to disintegrate under the imposition of his categories from without. Bemheimer's meticulous analysis casts new light on Kafka's narrative technique by revealing the latent fusion between Kafka's 'impersonal narrator' and 'subjective reflection.' Narration is also Patrick O'Neill's subject, in this collection's most controversial contribution. His generalized assertion that there is no true progress for Kafka's protagonists, but that the pervasive ambiguity in his 'active-passive' groupings, e.g. between domination and defeat, adds up to 'stasis' rather than development, will puzzle his readers not only because he deduces from this the irrelevance of sequence in Kafka's texts but also because it, in effect, dismisses the phenomenon of paradox as a factor in Kafka's fiction. Presented as a modest contribution of a non-expert, Egon Schwarz's paper on 'Kafka's Animal Tales and the Tradition of the European Fable' yields more for the assessment of Kafka's place in literary tradition one hundred...