{"product_id":"conversations-with-kafka-9780811219501","title":"Conversations with Kafka","description":"Gustav Janouch met Franz Kafka, the celebrated author of \u003cem\u003eThe Metamorphosis\u003c\/em\u003e, as a seventeen-year-old fledgling poet. As Francine Prose notes in her wonderful preface, \"they fell into the habit of taking long strolls through the city, strolls on which Kafka seems to have said many amazing, incisive, literary, and per- things to his companion and interlocutor, the teenage Boswell of Prague. Crossing a windswept square, apropos of something or other, Kafka tells Janouch, 'Life is infinitely great and profound as the immensity of the stars above us. One can only look at it through the narrow keyhole of one's personal experience. But through it one perceives more than one can see. So above all one must keep the keyhole clean.'\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e They talk about writing (Kafka's own, but also that of his favorite writers: Poe, Kleist, and Rimbaud, who \"transforms vowels into colors\") as well as technology, film, crime, Darwinism, Chinese philosophy, carpentry, insomnia, street fights, Hindu scripture, art, suicide, and prayer. \"Prayer,\" Kafka notes, brings \"its infinite radiance to bed in the frail little cradle of one's own existence.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJanouch, Gustav:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cb\u003eGustav Janouch\u003c\/b\u003e (1903-1968) was a young poet whose father worked at the same insurance company as Kafka. A certain amount of controversy has been aroused by his \u003ci\u003eConversations with Kafka\u003c\/i\u003e: some have been skeptical that any human being can talk the way Kafka does in this book, but both Max Brod and Dora Diamant considered it authentic.\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eProse, Francine:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Born in Brooklyn, \u003cstrong\u003eFrancine Prose\u003c\/strong\u003e has published fourteen novels. The \u003cem\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/em\u003e has called her work a \"sheer delight.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRees, Goronwy:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cstrong\u003eGoronwy Rees\u003c\/strong\u003e (1909 -1979) was a Welsh journalist, academic, translator and writer.","brand":"New Directions Publishing Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50328664015122,"sku":"9780811219501","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_2a4278b3-fb7e-4763-8bff-f747d44f4bc0.jpg?v=1727747268","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/conversations-with-kafka-9780811219501","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}