Reviews

Reading Kafka's Letter to His Father felt like being a psychotherapist with Kafka on the couch, listening to his innermost thoughts. Or perhaps more like an imposter, sneaking into his house, rifling through his drawers for a diary, and flipping through its pages hungrily, knowing you shouldn't. The letter wasn’t intended for publication—Kafka’s last wish was for his entire body of work to be burned. In fact, I’m not even sure the letter was truly meant for his father. It was handed to his mother, who chose not to pass it on. In my view, Kafka wrote this letter more for himself, as a way to unburden his soul.

Regardless of Kafka’s motives, reading this letter—whether before delving into his other works or after—opens both your eyes and your heart. It gives you a key to understanding his entire opus, and perhaps, his genius. Much like his novels The Trial, The Castle, or Metamorphosis, the letter exudes a blend of helplessness, sadness, confusion, fatalism, weakness, and fear—all conveyed with a passive, defeatist tone. As you turn the pages, this complex mix of emotions seeps into you like water into a sponge—slowly, pervasively, and irrevocably.

coeurdesamurai's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional reflective

3.0

I need to find the person on Twitter who said it's weird to give classics bad ratings. They were right.

I've been wanting to read this for a while. I thought it was gonna cure my daddy issues but I'm the first one surprised at how numb I was while reading this book.

This is a deeply intimate letter that the receiver never got to read, that Kafka didn't want to share, and that we shouldn't be reading either. It was uncomfortable to dive deep into Kafka's traumas and emotional turmoil, the complexities of his relationship with his father, and the abuse he suffered from him. It was a long rumble of many sour experiences that happened to him and how he explained he didn't blame his father for the mess he became as an adult while actively blaming him.

I will say the letter helped me understand his work better (i.e. my incomprehension of The Metamorphosis). So unless you're researching Kafka's life and his work academically, I don't think you should be reading this for enjoyment purposes.

bohdi's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.5

This is an interesting retrospective of the relationship between father and son. Throughout the letter we explore their dynamic with one another and their relationship to the world around them. Kafka’s ability to reflect on his father’s actions and their impact on his life was insightful and raw. Overall I enjoyed the book, although it felt at times like an invasion of privacy, as this letter was not addressed to me. Speaking of this, I felt sections fell flat because its purpose was not to entertain but to have a discussion with his father therefore it was dull at parts in comparison to a book like ‘on earth we are briefly gorgeous’, which is similar in that it is also a letter to a parent discussing their lives. However I felt that it did a better job at keeping the reader captivated in the story.

More...