In November 1919, Franz Kafka, already a well-known writer at thirty-six, the author of "The Metamorphosis" and "The Trial," but still a deeply insecure man, sat down to write a letter. The addressee was his father — Hermann Kafka, a Prague haberdasher, a man with a heavy hand and a loud voice. The letter turned out to be enormous — over a hundred pages. It was never sent. Kafka handed it to his mother with a request to give it to his father, but she didn't dare and returned the letter to her son. Thus this document, which Max Brod, Kafka's literary executor, called "one of the greatest confessions in literature," remained undelivered. And perhaps that's the most important thing in this story: an attempt at a dialogue that never happened. "You recently asked me why I say I am afraid of you" The letter opens with a sentence that immediately sets the tone: this is not an aggressive accusation, but a painful attempt to explain. "You recently asked me why I say I am afraid of you. As usual, I was unable to give you any answer, partly because of the very fear you inspire in me, and partly because the reasons for this fear are far too many." Kafka does not rebel. He does not shout. He tries — in a Kafkaesque, meticulous way — to dissect the mechanism of his fear. For him, his father is a giant. A childhood memory: Kafka cries at night, asks for water. His father pulls him out of bed and puts him on the balcony in just his nightshirt, locking the door. "Years later I still suffered from the tormenting thought that the huge man, my father, the ultimate authority, could, almost for no reason at all, come to me in the night, drag me out of bed and put me out on the balcony — that meant I was nothing as far as he was concerned." This is a key episode. Not the punishment itself — many parents punish their children. What matters is that for little Franz, this became a symbol of absolute, unlimited paternal authority. Authority that needs no explanation. "From your ar ... Читать далее