The Jewish quarter of Prague was home to Franz Kafka, literary genious who put his psyche down on paper to become this nation's most revered writer.I went to the Kafka Museum during my visit and learned about this author's sardonic existence. The "little ravachol" was led to school each morning by the family chef, he worked his way up in a public health and safety office and grew old, unmarried, but existed in the realm of four loves throughout his life.
The museum was dark, a reflection - or non-reflection - of the writer's style and character. The multi-media effects were dizzying, the author's biography depressing a shadowy mark on your soul.
I exited the museum, my vision strained by the daylight, emotionally exhausted - but enthralled at the same time. I would find this same effect in Kafka's writing once I finally got my hand on a copy of The Metamorphasis and dug my nose in deep.
One of his most intriguing pieces (in my opinion!) is A Hunger Artist - the story of a man allowed to die of starvation, in vain, amidst a bustling city centre. I'm pretty sure Kafka died of tuberculosis. In any event, he suffered a long, slow suffocation - and starvation - as his pipelines slowly collapsed.
The whole notion of the hunger strike, to me, is fascinating. It has been, historically a very powerful method of political movement and protest in a strangely ascetic way.
Dark, like the bottom of a barrel. Like the pit of an empty stomach. Like the hole where this sculpture's head should be.
I digress, but I will curtail this piece before I am overcome by the peculiar and suddenly onset sense that I need some comfort food:
This sculpture Jaroslav Rona is a memorial to FK. It is the artists interpretation of a figure in Kafka's story "Description of a Struggle."
A strange piece, yet it fits like the missing puzzle piece in this otherwise modest square.
