Description of a Struggle
Jan 1960 · The Complete Works of Franz Kafka Book 7 · Continental Press
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About this ebook
Written during Kafka's early twenties and extensively revised between 1904-1909, Description of a Struggle represents his first sustained attempt at prose fiction. The manuscript remained unpublished during his lifetime, with only a fragment appearing in 1909 thanks to Max Brod's intervention. The complete text, published posthumously in 1936, reveals a young writer experimenting with narrative techniques that would later define the "Kafkaesque" - though here they appear in raw, sometimes uncontrolled forms. The story's structure defies simple summary, shifting between multiple narrative layers and reality levels with dreamlike fluidity. It begins with a party in Prague, where the narrator meets an "acquaintance," but quickly fragments into surreal episodes: a man riding on another's shoulders through an impossible landscape, a prayer that becomes a kind of metaphysical gymnastics, conversations that loop back on themselves like Möbius strips. The text's Prague setting transforms from realistic city streets into a psychological dreamscape where physical laws break down and identity becomes unstable. The term "struggle" in the title points to both the social anxiety of the characters and the formal struggle of young Kafka finding his literary voice. This collection contains Zwei Gespräche (Two Conversations). These two conversations, titled Gespräch mit dem Beter (Conversation with the Supplicant) and Gespräch mit dem Betrunkenen (Conversation with the Drunkard) are two distinct dialogues that reflect on philosophical and existential themes. Kafka uses these conversations to explore human relationships, misunderstandings, and the struggles inherent in communication. They are less about narrative and more about the interplay of ideas and emotions. Elements that would become hallmarks of Kafka's mature style emerge here in embryonic form: the alienated first-person narrator, the blend of precise physical detail with metaphysical uncertainty, the sense of reality as a thin membrane that might tear at any moment. Max Brod noted how the text's obsession with social interaction and physical embodiment reflected Kafka's own anxieties as a young man in Prague's literary circles. The story's unfinished quality - its abrupt transitions and unresolved plotlines - suggests both artistic immaturity and a deliberate aesthetic of fragmentation that Kafka would later master. Reading it feels like watching a great artist's first attempts to map the territory they would later make their own This new modern translation from the original German is a fresh, accessible and beautifully rendered text that brings to life Kafka's great literary work. This edition contains extra amplifying material including an illuminating afterword, a timeline of Kafka's life and works alongside of the historical events which shaped his art, and a short biography to place this work in its socio-historical context.
About the author
A Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, Kafka's work, which fuses elements of realism and the fantastic, typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. His writings, such as "The Metamorphosis" and "The Trial," explore themes of alienation, existential anxiety, and guilt, and are influential in modernist literature.
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