Ronald Hayman

Artaud being one of those people I knew about by the time I was 22, much of what I've read by & thought about him belongs to my personal ancient history. Skimming thru this bk again to refresh my memory makes me realize how deeply Artaud's influence runs thru things that've interested me since. EG: in Peter Brook's adaption of Peter Weir's "Marat/Sade" - an amazing film that I rewatched recently & found as potent as ever. Artaud himself played Marat in Abel Gance's film re Napoleon. R. D. Laing was also influenced by Artaud. & then there's the whole notion of Van Gogh "suicided by suicide" - something I understand all too well. All in all, reading Artaud is probably not enuf - reading this bk will help put him even more in perspective.… (mere)

Ronald Hayman’s “Kafka” constitutes the first detailed biography of Franz Kafka, having been published in 1982. Its historical status is surprising, given the large volume of works that had been devoted to the author by the early 1980s. It was preceded by the 1937 account by Kafka's close friend Max Brod, one notoriously hagiographic, and unreliable due to its biases, errors, and sociopolitical agenda. Despite the historical value of Hayman's work, it has been superseded by a series of subsequent biographies, notably the spectacular 3 volume magnum opus by Reiner Stach.

While less definitive than its successors, Hayman’s book has some merit in providing an account of the life of the famed author, and in helping to dispel the considerable mythology that surrounds Kafka’s life and psyche in the popular imagination. Bearing in mind its status as the first semi-reliable account, the author did prodigious digging to construct this work. In fact, the acknowledgements reveal that he was able to access private papers held by Max Brod’s secretary (documents that may still have eluded Kafka’s biographers), as well as to draw on recollections of two of Kafka’s nieces. The result is a full-scale account of Kafka’s life, offered in considerable detail. Further, Hayman puts his subject in the context of the social and political environment in Prague, an environment in which the Kafka family counted as a double minority, being both Jewish and German.

Notwithstanding its merits, Hayman’s biography suffers from a large number of dubious inferences and questionable assertions. Given the fragmentary material available to the author, he drew conclusions that may or may not be true. For example, we’re told that the young Franz “may have felt responsible” for causing deaths of his two younger brothers, each of whom died of illnesses in infancy. Likewise, when his mother stayed home from work towards the end of her second pregnancy, young Franz “must have felt happy to see more of his mother.” Kafka (we’re told) had a “death wish”, he may have harbored sexual fantasies about his sister Valli; and his habit of sleeping with the window open may have been associated with “an irrational faith in cold air as an anti-sexual antiseptic”. Hayman takes accounts from Kafka’s detailed, unpublished “Brief an der Vater” (Letter to Father) as true accounts of his childhood – rather than as the highly subjective and self- serving recollections of Kafka as an adult. Kafka’s notes in his diary are treated similarly. Hayman also lends credence to the now-discredited “recollections of Gustav Janouch, written and published decades after Kafka’s death. Other questionable features include Hayman’s inference that Kafka and Milena had sex during their visit in Vienna, and that at his funeral, Dora Dymant threw herself into his grave in anguish. To the author's credit, he casts serious doubt on the claim that Kafka fathered a child with his fiancé's friend Greta Bloch, a claim for which evidence is nearly non-existent.

Despite issues of small inaccuracies and unsupported inferences, Hayman’s biography goes a long way towards helping the naïve reader understand the enigmatic figure that was Franz Kafka. He interprets Kafka as writing about himself throughout his career as “his father’s victim” – and that this is the key to understanding his work. While supportable, this interpretation goes too far (in my view) and fails as applied universally to his diverse writings, published and unpublished. Fortunately, Hayman makes no serious attempt to analyze Kafka's writing in detail, leaving that to the armies of literary critics.

It may be revealing that Reiner Stach never mentions Hayman’s biography in his own work, nor does he cite it in his long list of references. The omission is both purposeful and significant. Clearly, Stach’s work is preferable; but for readers seeking less of a reading commitment than its 1800 pages, I consider that Hayman’s biography has its merits, and it contributed to my understanding of Kafka's strange, perplexing personality. For biographical alternatives that are still shorter, Robertson’s “Kafka: A Very Short Introduction” and Jeremy Adler’s “Franz Kafka” are highly recommended.… (mere)

Overall, a satisfactory biography. However, from someone who eschews microhistory, I would have prefers more tie-ins to the greater European political arena at large, as there are definitely connections. It is a shame that Nietzsche, A Critical Life, is currently out of print, as this examination of Nietzsche's life is well-done. Perhaps my demerit of 1.5 stars comes from my natural inclination to disparage biographies; if you seek to learn about Nietzsche's life, this text will serve quite well.… (mere)