Word: kafka
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...number of Kafka's surprising interests emerge. He develops a liking for carpentry and other skills for making "real" things; he cannot stand imitations, photographs, or the cinema. His tremendous reverence for language is evident in every speech, and he loves to seek word sources and double meanings. He has read Lao-tse and is something of an expert of Taoism; he loves Jewish drama and is an ardent Zionist...
...TIMES the book seems to show a much too serious Kafka. He advances an occasional word-play, but more often cuts off Janouch's little jokes with the admonition that "one should take everything seriously"--he dislikes humor at the expense of others. Although he laughs frequently, he admits that for him laughter is "a concrete wall" behind which to hide...
Janouch, as if he knew what the Kafka critics would want, seems to press Kafka almost to the point of annoyance with questions about his writing. Part of the reason that the actual writings figure so little in the Conversations is Kafka's reluctance. When the subject is raised, he becomes embarrassed, tightens his lips and comes out with some epigrammatic statement about art in general which avoids mention of any specific aspects of his "spectres...
...times, Kafka in his role as an older advisor contradicts a statement of Janouch's, and the contradictions seem somehow more sincere than other sections where Kafka appears loath to force his opinions. At one point, Janouch comments at an exhibit of paintings that Picasso "is a willful distortionist...
...think so," said Kafka. "He only registers the deformities which have not yet penetrated our consciousness. Art is a mirror, which goes 'fast', like a watch--sometimes...