Reading Kafka’s journals, letters, fictions, and parables, one is struck by the extent to which lines from his diaries and correspondence reappear in his books. Genre is remarkably unstable to Kafka; life becomes text and returns as intertextual terrain. In these “found poems” from his diaries, I retained Kafka's capitalization and punctuation in the excerpted fragments. Source: Franz Kafka, The Diaries of Franz Kafka (Schocken 2023) translated by Ross Benjamin. Only the epigraph is “foreign,” so to speak, though less foreign in the republic of ghosts.
“Once I went as a skeleton.”
— Joe Brainard, I Remember
i “It was at midnight.”: ibid. 344.
i “I was riding with my father in a tram through Berlin.”: ibid. 219.
i “Pants tight even in the groin area.”: ibid. 207.
i “I am a memory come alive”: ibid. 459.
i “prepared to die at any moment”: ibid. 215.
i “nailed onto a doll.”: ibid. 207.
i “By lamplight and to gramophone music”: ibid. 349.
i “the pleasures of sex, eating, drinking”: ibid. 176.
ii “As a child I was”: ibid. 161.
ii “a disgrace to the village”: ibid. 339.
ii “the vague sense of a bed”: ibid. 458.
ii “separated from the spring only by a thicket.”: ibid. 459.
ii “The unhappiness of a perpetual beginning”: ibid. 459.
ii “in short to press down with one’s own hand”: ibid. 194.
ii “whatever ghost of life is left”: ibid. 194.
ii “I, only I”: ibid. 242.
ii “at most an inkling”: ibid. 459.
ii “Yours faithfully”: ibid, 225.
ii “every little street noise”: ibid, 180.
ii “left empty”: ibid, 176.
iii “In the evening alone on a chair under the lindens.”: ibid., 346.
iii “Hence the incitement”: ibid., 230.
iii “feeling demands”: ibid. 170.
iii “a fire”: ibid. 170.
iii “to cut up the small unripe peach with a knife.”: ibid., 347.
iii “I begin the Trial again—”: ibid. 355.
iv “Again”: ibid. 213.
iv “I take hold of myself”: ibid. 213.
iv “covered with human muck”: ibid. 219.
iv “like the balls that fall and that one catches in falling.” ibid. 213.
iv “‘So my little dog’ I said”: ibid, 342.
iv “God’s masterpieces fart at each other in the bathhouse”: ibid, 371.
iv “loudly if not coherently”: ibid. 185.
v “Listlessly”: ibid. 389.
v “but not of my own volition”: ibid. 459.
v “I lie in my corner”: ibid. 389.
v “groveling, sly, beside the point, impersonal”: ibid. 390.
v “incessant noise of the trains”: ibid. 348.
v “desolation, senselessness, weakness.”: ibid. 391.
v “In all innocence”: ibid. 393.
v “father was playing with his watch chain.”: ibid, 238.
v “You have no friend in St. Petersburg”: ibid., 237.
v “I sentence you now to death by”: ibid., 241.
v “high waves”: ibid., 229.
v “I could express all this as offensively as possible”: ibid., 225.
v “a veritable birth covered with slime and filth:” ibid., 257
v “believes he has his father in himself”: ibid, 257.
v “blown to pieces.”: ibid, 378.
v “The strange evening light of summertime”: ibid., 417.
v “covering her face with her apron”: ibid., 240.
v “when the bridge is empty at night.”: ibid. 417.
vi “The white horse.”: ibid. 243.
vi “(Suicide, letter to Max with many instructions)”: ibid. 357.
vi “one runs away”: ibid. 170.
vi “driven by restlessness”: ibid. 170.
vi “music first and foremost”: ibid, 176.
vi “I am the observer of the ground floor.”: ibid. 242.
vi “It is already very dark”: ibid. 424.
vi “My sister said: The apartment (in the story) is very similar to ours.”: ibid. 243.
vi “I nodded”: ibid. 351.
vi “my hand moved around uncontrollably and genuinely”: ibid. 243.
vi “I regard myself as the ruin of the family”: ibid. 371.
vi “still on my horse”: ibid. 351.
vi “I’m sitting here and thinking”: ibid. 225.
vi “something intolerable.”: ibid. 265.
vi “But the something was a bug”: ibid. 230.
vii “To forget everything.”: ibid. 417.
vii “To open windows.”: ibid. 417.
vii “Read Lenz incessantly”: ibid., 227.
vii “Intention to start a special notebook”: ibid., 186.
vii “decorated with various mementoes”: ibid., 235.
vii “one of those repugnant lapdogs with a relatively large head”: ibid, 343.
vii “no piano”: ibid. 498.
vii “To empty the room.”: ibid. 417.
vii “If she loves me, I don’t deserve it.”: ibid, 378.
vii “The wind blows through it.”: ibid. 417.
viii “Outbreaks of tastelessness”: ibid. 493.
viii “be it in happy hatred, be it in unhappy love.”: ibid. 493.
viii “The hollow burned”: ibid., 230.
viii “the great stained glass windows”: ibid. 519.
viii “The sharply bounded green areas of light by the side of the bridge”: ibid. 151.
viii “twitched with pleasure”: ibid., 229.
viii “Goethe liked to have a supply of cold food and wine on hand”: ibid., 211.
viii “Goethe said he had meant the glow of coals”: ibid., 211.
viii “I could sleep in filth”: ibid., 339.
viii “utterly influenced by Goethe”: ibid, 186.
viii “Goethe ordered a cake”: ibid., 212.
viii “Ottla has just been reciting poems by Goethe for me.”: ibid, 225.
viii “I have made F. unhappy”: ibid. 371.
viii “finally made E. unhappy too”: ibid. 371.
viii “the other is unshakable and merciless.”: ibid, 380.
ix “I have two little boards screwed against my temples.”: ibid. 419.
ix “Flaubert and Kierkegaard knew very well how things stood”: ibid. 426.
ix “and the vowel e is repeated in the same places as the vowel a in Kafka”: ibid. 258.
ix “I said: how so?”: ibid. 243.
ix “the family is punishment enough”: ibid. 371.
ix “The filth”: ibid. 382.
ix “extinguishes everything.”: ibid. 383.
x “Tragische Ouverture.”: ibid. 150.
x “Take me, take me, web of folly and pain”: ibid., 421.
x “circle of blood drawn around father and son”: ibid., 257.
x “that is the depth”: ibid. 420.
x “I am powerless.”: ibid. 385.
x “I have never seen people as small”: ibid. 517.
x “take me”: ibid., 420.
x “Take me into your arms”: ibid. 420.
x “in the depths of the hall over the brothel”: ibid. 517.
x “in the semidarkness something”: ibid., 345.
x “cried softly”: ibid., 241.
x “every glance directed at me”: ibid., 180.
x “alive.”: ibid., 345.
xi “Irresponsible to travel, even to live without taking notes.”: ibid. 518.
xi “Cling to the book.”: ibid., 419.
xi “this work to be endangered by marriage.”: ibid, 264.
xi “F. has merely the reason of completely insufficient love.” ibid., 265.
xi “Georg has nothing, the bride”: ibid., 257.
xi “changing the diapers of a future actor.”: ibid. 483.
xi “Only that keeps me from writing.”: ibid., 224.
xi “Only the billowing overcoat endures”: ibid., 212.
xii “He seduced a girl in the small town in the Isergebirge”: ibid., 208.
xii “and let himself fall.”: ibid., 241.
xii “every photograph in a display case was more important to me than I was”: ibid., 180.
xii “mine could betray itself more easily in the brightness.”: ibid., 186.
xiii “He crumples your letters unread”: ibid., 240.
xiii “your false little letters to Russia”: ibid., 238.
xiii “a little slamming of doors in the corridor”: ibid. 483.
xiii “the enemy free and fresh in festive attire”: ibid., 256.
xiii “a man happy in his honorableness.”: ibid. 484.
xiii “The alley of cherry trees”: ibid. 493.
xiii “sent a cyclist with a farewell letter”: ibid., 347.
xiii “what embarrassment before writing down names– Felice Bauer.”: ibid., 225.
xiii “As if my ape had written it.”: ibid., 377.
xiii “Impossibility of living with F.”: ibid. 419.
xiii “A letter to F., false, not sendable.”: ibid. 391.
xiii “Writing letters in my parents’ room.”: ibid. 465.
xiii “Nightmare recently because of M.’s letter in my portfolio”: ibid. 489.
xiii “The firm boundedness of human bodies is ghastly”: ibid. 464.
xiii “so that I lie beautiful and light and bluish-white”: ibid. 376.
xiii “Letter dishonest and coquettish”: ibid., 347.
xiii “the condemned man furtively turns his head”: ibid., 424.
xiv “About a week ago gave M. all the diaries.”: ibid. 459.
xiv “I am no longer”: ibid. 459.
xiv “Endless rolling with eyes closed”: ibid. 419.
xiv “the colorless senseless clouds almost incessantly drifting by.”: ibid. 465.
xiv “the edges of the bent-back face blur in the light”: ibid. 516.
xiv “rue de Cléry rises into the sky and falls into it.”: ibid. 522.
xiv “How—”: ibid. 226.
xv “I once heard music”: ibid. 498.
xv “as if this clenching were”: ibid, 256.
xv “strength to be erected.”: ibid. 263.
xv “There are no distances between questioner and answerer.”: ibid. 399.
xv “Even these few words”: ibid. 195.
xv “sit in judgement over me at the Askanischer Hof”: ibid., 356
xv “Torments of the apartment”: ibid. 387.
xv “world history confined in rooms.”: ibid. 485.
xv “There are no distances to overcome.”: ibid. 399.
xv “I have nothing.”: ibid., 262.
xv “I used to think: Nothing will kill you”: ibid. 400.
xv “Yesterday Either/Or”: ibid. 494.
xv “by the time I was sitting I had an unshakeable judgement.”: ibid., 226.
xvi “Finally he put the letter in his pocket”: ibid., 234.
xvi “the disgusting goose”: ibid, 238.
xvi “cowardly and weak as such schnapps drinkers are”: ibid. 231.
xvi “A segment-like piece is cut out of the back of his head.”: ibid. 450.
xvi “can’t clean up the remaining little pieces”: ibid. 224.
xvi “abhorrent for you, for me”: ibid. 356.
xvi “nothing but abyss”: ibid. 492.
xvi “Homeric figures, in a fleeting sunshine”: ibid. 447.
xvi “Ottla’s window in the twilight”: ibid. 447.
xvi “Himself he knows, the others he believes, this contradiction”: ibid. 451.
xvi “The castle in Friedland.”: ibid. 498.
xvi “I am sinful in every corner of my being”: ibid. 423.
xvi “and therefore will not publish the book.”: ibid. 224.
xvii “Already he clung to the railing”: ibid. 240.
xvii “everything thronged there”: ibid. 176.
xvii “as a nothing, as a dream, as a hovering.”: ibid. 454.
xvii “my veins leaped along my body like little fires”: ibid. 195.
xvii “at an angle”: ibid. 150.
xviii “Max: spared the journey to the castle by the sight of it.”: ibid. 519.
xviii “outside a lingering sultriness”: ibid. 252.
xviii “a man in the pear tree opposite my window with a girl not visible to me”: ibid. 253.
xviii “what is happening”: ibid. 461.
xviii “Enough imagination”: ibid. 460.
xviii “has scented Canaan”: ibid. 461.
xviii “enough judgement to know that I am too weak for this happiness.”: ibid. 460.
xviii “Only the ruin has any effect.”: ibid. 371.
xix “Dream”: ibid. 219.
xix “the high window”: ibid., 419.
xix “Eternal childhood”: ibid. 461.
xix “on his half-opened fist.”: ibid. 150.
xx “Max is taking the cat for a walk in the reading room”: ibid. 518.
xx “with the concluding scene of the Education sentimentale.”: ibid. 461.
xx “Long torment.”: ibid. 224.
xx “to be able to convince others of it in writing”: ibid. 454.
xx “Mahler asked for his heart to be pierced too.”: ibid. 517.
Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her partner and several intense mammals. Recent books include a creative nonfiction chapbook, Ribald (Bull City Press Inch Series, Nov. 2020) and Dor, which won the Wandering Aengus Press Prize (September, 2021). Her debut fiction collection, Every Mask I Tried On, won the Brighthorse Books Prize (April 2018). Alina's poems, essays, and fiction can be found in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, World Literature Today, Pleiades, Poetry, BOMB, Crab Creek Review, and others. She serves as editor, reviewer, and critic for various journals and is currently working on a novel-like creature. My Heresies, her latest poetry collection, was published by Sarabande in April 2025. More online at www.alinastefanescuwriter.com
Some writers' 'truest' thoughts, ideas and expressions can be found in their diaries and for other writers, their real being is in the pages which wrote to be published. Kafka obviously belongs in the first category. It is probably that Kafka never really felt like he succeeded in becoming a real writer; he called his stories and novels, his "scribbling" and asked them to be destroyed after his death because he didn't consider them his real work, I guess. I think there is an exception though, he is the Kafka of his novels and stories in his letters too but only when he can keep his cool but when he gets close to the person he was writing to (milena or felice) you see him transformed in words and sentences, he becomes human and starts to write like a human. His genius depended on his unique, distant point of view and maybe that is why he always strove to protect his solitude.
Beautiful compression of the Diary or like glints of sunlight off the river of the text.