Word: hayman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Without his writing, his only lifeline to sanity and order, Kafka's life might have ended in suicide or madness. But Kafka's fiction, as Hayman consistently show, was an outlet for his self-destructive fantasies and aggressive impulses, an ongoing psychotherapy. If he could not solve his inner conflicts in real life nor counteract his growing feeling of isolation, then he could at least face them in literature, and perhaps gain the "illusion of having both under control." Hayman begins the book with a short chapter that underlines Kafka's skill at using his fiction both to confront...
THERE IS LITTLE to find fault with in Hayman's presentation. Sticking closely to Kafka's letters and diaries, which together form a most extensive record of his inner life, and quoting liberally therefrom, he is not obtrusive. His analytical passages seem to have been inserted into the narrative with maximum concern for short. American attention spans; they are humble and mostly insightful, free of excessive jargon-mongering, aware of the crushing bulk of Kafka criticism and content to suggest the clearest connections to the immediate moment of his life. If there are any complaints, they are that...
...Hayman's attitude towards Kafka, it is, not surprisingly, less reverential that Max Brod's; Brod's biography seemed to be written chiefly as an antidote to the view that anyone who created Gregor Samsa must have been a dark and morbid character, though Brod's work is honest and engaging, we almost lose sight of all the self-torture in the radiance of the saint-like glow. Hayman's biography is more balanced, but also admiring (as anyone must be) of Kafka's incredible lack of cynicism, even as he was dying...
...took pleasure in other people's pleasure, and in a somehow wondrous bit of real-life symbolism, asked other people to take deep draughts of water and beer in front of him. Kafka never hated the world like he hated himself, and his endless capacity for empathy is for Hayman, one of the earmarks of his genius...
...Ronald Hayman's biography is excruciating to read. Though the survival of Kafka's work, at lest, is consoling, all the high-school tragedy course rot about our uniquely human capacity to suffer makes it no easier to witness his writhing. Grab another beer and shake your heads. Poor Kafka. Why he clung so desperately to his father, why he endlessly romaticized him and even incorporated a piece of his shopkeeper, artist-as-vermin mentality--these are questions that Hayman knows are unanswerable. How 'bout that Gresor Samsa--transformed into a dung beetle so he kills himself with sorrow watching...