Brief an Oskar Pollak / Franz Kafka

"Ich glaube, man sollte überhaupt nur solche Bücher lesen, die einen beißen und stechen. Wenn das Buch, das wir lesen, uns nicht mit einem Faustschlag auf den Schädel weckt, wozu lesen wir dann das Buch? Damit es uns glücklich macht, wie Du schreibst? Mein Gott, glücklich wären wir eben auch, wenn wir keine Bücher hätten, und solche Bücher, die uns glücklich machen, könnten wir zur Not selber schreiben. Wir brauchen aber die Bücher, die auf uns wirken wie ein Unglück, das uns sehr schmerzt, wie der Tod eines, den wir lieber hatten als uns, wie wenn wir in Wälder verstoßen würden, von allen Menschen weg, wie ein Selbstmord, ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. Das glaube ich."

Franz Kafka ~ (Brief an Oskar Pollak, 27 Januar 1904)

"I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book we are reading doesn’t shake us awake like a blow to the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? So that it can make us happy, as you put it? Good God, we’d be just as happy if we had no books at all; books that make us happy we could, in a pinch, also write ourselves. What we need are books that hit us like a most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than we love ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any human presence, like suicide. A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us. That is what I believe.”

Franz Kafka ~ (Letter to Oskar Pollak, 27 January 1904)

[other english translate]

"I think we should only read books that bite and stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a punch to the head, what are we reading for? To make us happy, as you write? My God, we would be happy if we didn’t have books, and we could write books that make us happy ourselves if necessary. But we need the books that hit us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, as if we were cast out into forests, away from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. This is what I think."

Franz Kafka ~ (Letter to Oskar Pollak, 27 January 1904)

"Bizi ısıran ve bizi zehirleyen kitapları okumalıyız. Okuduğumuz kitap kafamıza balyoz indirilmiş gibi bizi uyandırmıyor ise, neden okuma zahmetine girelim ki? Senin dediğin gibi, bizi mutlu kılsın diye mi? Aman Tanrım, hiç kitap olmasaydı da o denli mutlu olurduk. Kendimizi azıcık sıkarsak bizi mutlu edecek kitapları biz de yazabiliriz. Bize gerekli olan, en acı verecek talihsizlik gibi bize vuran kitaplar. Kendimizden çok sevdiğimiz birinin ölümü gibi vuran, insanlardan uzaklara, ormanlara sürgün edilmişiz duygusu veren, intihar gibi kitaplar. Kitap, içimizdeki donmuş denize inen balta gibi olmalı. Ben buna inanıyorum."

Franz Kafka ~ (Oskar Pollak'a Mektup, 27 Ocak 1904)

Çeviri: Füsun Elioğlu

(Metnin geçtiği kitap: Okumanın Tarihi / Alberto Manguel; Yapı Kredi Yayınları 2001)

Franz Kafka by Minh Nguyen (Illustrator)

Siddhartha / Hermann Hesse

“So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it. She taught him that after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or glutted or has the bad feeling of being used or misused.”

Hermann Hesse ~ (Siddhartha)

Linda Evangelista and Kyle MacLachlan
for Vogue Italia, September 1993,
by Steven Meisel