Der andere Franz Kafka: Ein Prager Dandy zwischen Einsteins Relativitätstheorie und Mozarts Musik by Bernd Neumann (review)

A recent opinion piece in the New York Times refers to Theresa May as "Britain's Kafkaesque Prime Minister," comparing her to the creature Odradek in Kafka's "Die Sorge des Hausvaters." It might be tempting to equate the decline in Theresa May's political meaning with the enigmatic Odradek; indeed, the overused term Kafkaesque is thrown around rather frequently to refer to anything that will not reveal its utility or meaning. Coming to terms with what Kafkaesque might mean if Franz Kafka and his work is studied in the context of his time and place is the central task of Bernd Neumann's latest study of Kafka. Neumann reconstructs the appellation Kafkaesque so that it is replete with meaning and applicable to a specific set of circumstances that intersected with Franz Kafka's lived experience.

The vast scope of Neumann's new historical study allows the reader to consider the importance of location both in terms of place and time, as the subtitle alludes to. By situating Kafka between Mozart and Einstein, Neumann lays claim to important territory specific to his development as a writer and to his writing. Considerations such as national, Jewish, authorial, and sexual identity intersect with, as Neumann explains, the development of atonal music and post-Newtonian physics. He likens these developments in music and science to Kafka's own struggle with the limits of language and writing, which also runs parallel to the disappearance of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during Kafka's lifetime: "[D]ie spezielle Kafkasche Stilhaltung der 'Erlebten Rede' mit ihrem fehlenden auctorialen 'newtonischen' Überblick (der seinerseits das bedrohlich 'Kafkaeske' unterstreicht)" corresponds to "der Existenz auf einer sprachlichen und kulturellen Insel. Einem Eiland, das zudem von den Rändern her rapide schrumpft" (98). Further, Neumann analyzes Prague in comparison to Vienna during Kafka's early life, suggesting that Kafka's writing could have only appeared in Prague (not in Vienna) because its essentially "apokalyptisch" nature derives from Prague's central location in the dying Hapsburg state, closer in proximity to Russia than Vienna (99).

Neumann's reading of Kafka's Der Heizer (219–28) is a good example of how the author uses Mozart as a Leitmotif for "das Altösterreichische" (the multi-national state) throughout this study. Neumann sees parallels, for example, between Kafka's portrayal of the naïve piano-playing Karl Roßmann, who refers to himself repeatedly as a "Deutscher aus Prag," and the reception of Mozart as a childlike and generally "deutscher Künstler" (221)—the image of Mozart in Mörike's "Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag." Neumann positions this astonishing parallel in the context of Kafka's work at the Arbeiter-Unfall-Versicherungsanstalt (AUVA), providing another layer of historical-biographical context for Der Heizer. As Neumann explains, the Jewish bureaucrat Kafka worked at the AUVA during a time of relative integration, and therefore, the identification of Karl Roßmann as German in Der Heizer relates to the specific experiences of German Jews in Prague, who wished to align themselves with the culturally educated, rather than with other nationalities who were perceived as being less educated.

Similarly, fascinating is Neumann's analysis of how post-Newtonian physics could provide a context for understanding the Kafkaesque. He suggests that Einstein's theory of relativity created a new Weltbild that could be understood metaphorically for social interactions, as Kafka experienced them and represented them in his writing: "Der Roman nicht mehr als ein Abbild des Kosmos, sondern als Feld der (sozialen) Energien, beherrscht von Feldstärke und Kraftlinien" (424). That is, Kafka creates a four-dimensional world in which time and space are relative.

Although organized chronologically around Kafka's biography, Neumann draws upon the world of musical compositions to name each of the eight chapters, beginning with an "Overtüre" and ending with a "Coda." Each smaller section within the eight chapters could be seen as variations on...