Czech Gallery - A Roaming Prague Homage to Kafka Part II

If you have missed Part I, you can read it here: https://steemit.com/travelfeed/@tmayd/check-gallery-a-roaming-prague-homage-to-kafka-part-i
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Not surprisingly, the works Kafka has inspired are weird in their own right. Take for instance the 2003 statue of Franz Kafka by Jaroslav Róna just outside the Spanish Synagogue. It refers to a scene in Kafka’s first novel “Amerika”. If you look closely, you will notice insect legs and antennae discreetly outlined in the mosaic surrounding the small pedestal. A nod to his story “The Metamorphosis” which you can read here: http://www.bookpump.com/upb/pdf-b/7340661b.pdf

And my favorite, the giant kinetic head of Kafka. This 2014 sculpture by David Černý ”K on Sun” is located right next to a building where Kafka worked as a clerk at an insurance company (he needed a day job and was resentful that the necessity of earning a living encroached on his writing time). It consists of forty two mobile tiers that rotate and are once in a while in alignment to portray Kafka. It is a fascinating work and I must have spent well over an hour there just looking at it. Apparently there is a complementary sculpture in Charlotte, North Carolina called “Metalmorphosis”.

Before crossing the Atlantic to check it out, it is much easier to cross the Vltava. On the bank of the river, you will find the Kafka museum. In front of the entrance is another Černý work “Piss”. It is the kinetic sculpture of two men peeing into a basin shaped like the Czech republic and the wagging penises kept me amused until opening time.

I must confess that the Kafka museum itself was a bit of a disappointment. I thought I would come close and personal to Kafka’s writing, see the paper he touched and the ink with which he penned his stories, but I found many facsimiles instead. It would be more accurate to describe it as an “installation” than an actual museum, and in that context I still found the audiovisual experience rewarding as I wandered through the writer’s life and mind, through his history and his stories as eerie background music was filling the darkened space. http://www.kafkamuseum.cz/ShowPage.aspx?tabId=-1

From there, it is a walk up the hill to the Prague Castle and through the entire complex until you reach the Golden Lane where Kafka rented number 22. It is now a shop that sells Kafka books and memorabilia. During his time there Kafka wrote a number of short stories collected in “A Country Doctor” https://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/A-country-doctor-by-Franz-Kafka.pdf

All good neuroses must come to an end. Kafka’s died 3rd June 1924 in a sanatorium near Vienna, Austria, where he was undergoing treatment for tuberculosis. He is buried in the family plot in the New Jewish Cemetery.

Across Kafka’s grave is a plaque to Max Brod his lifelong friend. A prolific novelist, essayist and editor in his own right, Max Brod enjoyed much more success than Kafka during his lifetime. He encouraged Kakfa to write and publish, and as the executor of his estate he defied Kafka’s instructions to destroy his manuscripts after his death. This is one instance where not respecting the wishes of the deceased is to be celebrated. It is thanks to Max Brod that Kafka’s pretty much complete body of work has come down to us.

The memory of Franz Kafka is alive and well. His presence is ubiquitous. He pops up on plaques, in coffee houses, in restaurants, on office buildings: “he ate here”, “he worked there”, “he read here”, “he lived there”, “he was here and here and here”. It’s almost a “Where’s Waldo?” kind of experience. One could take offense that such a master of literature has become trivialized in a flourishing cottage industry, but at the same time, it is perhaps the very thing that will get him to be known and appreciated more widely. I like to think that he is looking down from whatever he envisioned heaven to be (mmm, maybe not? it would probably be some twisted heaven) in awe of his posthumous popularity, and that released from suffering, he would get a kick out of it.

All the photographs, unless stated otherwise, are mine. I have submitted and will continue to submit some of them to the @czechglobalhosts Photo Challenge. In this post you are getting the perspective of a tourist. If you are interested in all things Czech, I encourage you to visit @czechglobalhosts for an insider’s view and regular Travel Tips, and to enter your own photographs of your travels to that beautiful countries as well as enter other world-wide travel photography contests. So if it’s something you are passionate about, you’ll love the blogs, the contests and the photographs of fellow Steemians. By the way, this plug is unsolicited. It is my way to say thank you to @czechglobalhosts for providing a forum where I can relive my trip all over again.

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