http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/09/fa ... -i-am.html
Growing up in the shadow of someone as loud, opinionated and aggressive as his father was almost too much to bear for novelist Franz Kafka. In fact, so emotionally scarring was their relationship that, on November 10th of 1919, then-36-year-old Franz began to write the following desperate letter to Hermann in an effort to candidly express his feelings on the subject and, just maybe, heal the ever-growing rift between them. Two months later, Franz gave the completed letter to his mother and asked her to pass it on; for reasons still unknown, it never reached him. Franz passed away 5 years later.
Lengthy transcripts follow, both in German and English; click here to be whisked quickly to the translation. The image below shows the first of the letter's 104 pages, all of which can be seen at Wikimedia Commons.
Recommended reading: Kafka's Letters to Friends, Family and Editors, and Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories.
Father, you asked me recently why I am afraid of you
Father, you asked me recently why I am afraid of you
K440 : Lucky cheese for the gentry; poultry and death for the peasants.
"Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad."
"Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad."
This bit is taken totally out of context but it's very touching:
Fortunately, there were exceptions to all this, mostly when you suffered in silence, and affection and kindliness by their own strength overcame all obstacles, and moved me immediately. Rare as this was, it was wonderful. For instance, in earlier years, in hot summers, when you were tired after lunch, I saw you having a nap at the office, your elbow on the desk; or you joined us in the country, in the summer holidays, on Sundays, worn out from work; or the time Mother was gravely ill and you stood holding on to the bookcase, shaking with sobs; or when, during my last illness, you came tiptoeing to Ottla's room to see me, stopping in the doorway, craning your neck to see me, and out of consideration only waved to me with your hand. At such times one would lie back and weep for happiness, and one weeps again now, writing it down.
You have a particularly beautiful, very rare way of quietly, contentedly, approvingly smiling, a way of smiling that can make the person for whom it is meant entirely happy.
Fortunately, there were exceptions to all this, mostly when you suffered in silence, and affection and kindliness by their own strength overcame all obstacles, and moved me immediately. Rare as this was, it was wonderful. For instance, in earlier years, in hot summers, when you were tired after lunch, I saw you having a nap at the office, your elbow on the desk; or you joined us in the country, in the summer holidays, on Sundays, worn out from work; or the time Mother was gravely ill and you stood holding on to the bookcase, shaking with sobs; or when, during my last illness, you came tiptoeing to Ottla's room to see me, stopping in the doorway, craning your neck to see me, and out of consideration only waved to me with your hand. At such times one would lie back and weep for happiness, and one weeps again now, writing it down.
You have a particularly beautiful, very rare way of quietly, contentedly, approvingly smiling, a way of smiling that can make the person for whom it is meant entirely happy.
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