Wedding Preparations in the Country

Franz Kafka

The Complete Works of Franz Kafka 30 巻 · Continental Press

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Written during the summer of 1907 and significantly revised in 1909, Wedding Preparations in the Country marks one of Kafka's earliest attempts at sustained narrative fiction. The unfinished novel fragment, published posthumously by Max Brod in 1931, introduces themes that would haunt his later work: the anxiety of impending marriage, the desire to escape social obligations, and the split between public and private selves. The manuscript breaks off after five chapters, leaving its protagonist suspended in a state of perpetual preparation. The story follows Raban, a young lawyer from Prague traveling to the countryside to make arrangements for his wedding. Like many of Kafka's later protagonists, Raban seeks ways to avoid fulfilling his social duties without openly refusing them. His fantasy of sending his clothed body to the wedding while his real self remains in bed as an insect prefigures the transformation in The Metamorphosis. The text's preoccupation with doubles and divided selves reflects Kafka's own ambivalence about marriage - he was beginning his long correspondence with Felice Bauer during this period, a relationship that would produce multiple engagements but no wedding. The rural setting serves as both escape route and trap for Raban, who finds himself caught between urban and rural worlds, between his obligations as a bridegroom and his desire for solitude. The detailed descriptions of train stations, hotel rooms, and village streets create a landscape of transition where nothing can be finalized. Written years before Kafka's mature works, the text shows him developing the technique of using precise, realistic details to ground increasingly unrealistic situations. The fragment's unfinished state appropriately mirrors its theme of perpetual preparation - like its protagonist, it never arrives at its supposed destination. This 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.

著者について

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.