Kafkas Dinge ed. by Agnes Bidmon and Michael Niehaus (review)

Kafkas Dinge, edited by Agnes Bidmon and Michael Niehaus, is the sixth essay collection in the series "Forschungen der Deutschen Kafka-Gesellschaft," begun in 2013. Titles of earlier volumes include Kafkas China, Kafkas narrative Verfahren/Kafkas Tiere, and Kafkas Betrachtung/Kafka interkulturell. This 2019 essay collection is introduced in a "Grußwort" by Bidmon, since 2016 president of the Gesellschaft. She writes that the French sociologist Bruno Latour is known for asserting that "nicht nur Menschen handeln, sondern durchaus auch Dinge" (5) and asserts that in the second half of the twentieth century the view emerged that "statisch gedachte Kategorien wie Mensch-Ding oder Subjekt-Objekt aufgelöst werden müssen und durch ein dynamisches Beschreibungsmodell ersetzt werden sollten" (ó). Bidmon lists some of Kafkas objects with which scholars concern themselves in the book: "Regenschirmen, Bällen, Schnapsflaschen, Kinderspielzeugen, Brotmessern, Werkzeugen, Visitenkarten, Koffern, Müll, Moskitonetzen" (5). These objects are frequently interpreted by critics (or perceived by fictional characters) as displaying "Widerständigkeit" toward human beings, whether inexplicably, seemingly intentionally, or projected upon them by fictional people. In one article in the book, Roman Seifert writes, "Die sogenannte Tücke des Objekts ist in aller Regel freilich eine anthropomorphisierende Zuschreibung einer Intentionalität, über die Gegenstände so nicht verfügen" (55).

The volume's fascinating and well-researched collection of essays illuminates the roles, effects, and meanings of objects in Kafka's fiction, a subject no doubt overlooked by many readers, who, understandably, focus on human agency if perhaps experiencing vague feelings at times that some material things are "Kafkaesque." In addition to a collection of valuable analyses of shorter and lesser-known pieces, well-known or "major" works are featured in three articles on the novel Der Verschollene (on, respectively suitcases, umbrellas, and photographs), a study on garbage (which also emphasizes furniture and household maintenance) in Die Verwandlung, and an essay on the aforementioned schnapps bottle featured in the story "Ein Bericht für eine Akademie."

Appropriately enough, the first essay in the volume, "Konstellationen des Misfitting: Kafkas Arbeits- und Wohndinge" by Alexander Kling, includes general discussions of the book's subject. Kling asserts, "Die vielbesprochene Sprachkrise der Moderne ist auch eine Dingkrise" (23). Crises of language and objects both demonstrate "die Ohnmacht des Menschen," in confronting the "Eigenleben" and "Fremdheit" of nonhuman entities. Kling emphasizes the significance of "fitting" and "misfitting." He also draws on the landmark 1984 book of Kafka's Amtliche Schriften, which showed common ground between Kafka's fiction and his professional writings as an insurance executive, many involving relationships between human beings and tools and machines in the contexts of workplace training and accident prevention. Discussing "Arbeits- und Wohndinge," Kling calls "Konstellationen des Misfitting" "ein Grundprinzip der Dinge in Kafkas Texten" (31).

In his insightful contribution, "Kafkas Undinge: Gemeinschaftsstiftendes Potenzial und die Frage der Verantwortung in 'Blumfeld ein älterer Junggeselle,'" Clemens Dirmhirn probes intricate webs of meanings and events in a story in which Blumfeld, an ordinary bachelor, is challenged by two bouncing celluloid balls that appear at his door and will not leave. Their existence, sudden appearance, and movements are all inexplicable by science. Strange as their arrival is, their singling out of Blumfeld as a host seems mysteriously connected to his isolation and contemplation of getting a dog (the balls' domestic presence is similar to that of a pet) and to his employment managing production and payments for textile goods, associating him in Dirmhirn's view with the "Zirkulationssphäre innerhalb des Kreislaufs des Kapitals" (84). The jumpingballs suggest "den Warenfetischismus [ . . . ] auch wenn der Warencharakter der Bälle zugegebenermaßen in Frage steht, denn Blumfeld hat sie weder käuflich erworben noch selbst produziert" (85). The balls are "Halb Industrieprodukt, halb 'Zauberei'" (87). They also seem to display the human quality of comradeship when one defends the other from Blumfeld's attempt to capture it. Further, Dirmhirn discusses the story's illumination of such issues as bachelorhood, responsibility the realms...