Who is Max Brod >, you will ask? The mysterious man who made Kafka’s work known to the world, and also discovered the talents of Franz Werfel, Jaroslav Hasek and composer Leos Janacek. Max Brod (1884-1968) Poet, culture philosopher, Kafka’s friend and publisher of his work tells about his life in „Streitbares Leben“ (published by Herbig, Munich in 1964). A writer with his own literary merits and also main figure of the paper Prager Tagblatt in the 1920-1930s. And yet you will hardly have heard about him because most of his works are not available for sale. How come? I wonder. I managed to find out a bit about him and I hereby ask publishers or book lovers everywhere to insist on including Max Brod as one of the finest writers of the 20. C.
His work include:
(a fiction about astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, dedicated to Kafka)
Franzi
Ein Junge vom Lande
Jugend im Nebel
Die verbotene Frau
Die Weiberwirtschaft
Various Articles for Prager Tagblatt
Prager Tagblatt - Roman einer Redaktion
Der Prager Kreis
Die Rosenkoralle
Beinahe ein Vorzugsschí±²íµ²
Correspondence with Franz Kafka (available)
Tod und Paradies, a musical piece based on two poems by Kafka
Streitbares Leben (which includes notes)
(Comments by Franz Kafka about Tycho Brahe in German, after the list of books)
Zebra54 stellt die Frage an deutschsprachige Verlage, warum weder das Buch Streitbares Leben noch den Roman Tycho Brahes Weg zu Gott nicht im Handel verfuegbar sind.
>I am glad that the political changes in Czechland/Slovakia since 1989 enabled the Prague scholars to work freely, and that is why Supraphon Records were able to publish Tod und Paradies by Brod with a sleeve note by Arnost Lustig, who is a writer well known over there. We quote as follows:
"Arnost Lustig, Prague, 21st November 1994 for Supraphon Records (11 2188-2 931):
My personal reminiscence of Max Brod will be very short indeed. Back in 1968, amidst the general upheaval, I was commissioned by the Writer's Union to take the opportunity of my trip to Israel in March of that year, to visit Max Brod and invite him to Prague. So I called on him at his Tel Aviv appartment which looked very much like a Prague home. Most likely it would reminded you of the homes of well-established burghers in the 1920s. Massive pieces of furniture, thick curtains and books and pictures by Czech and German artists everywhere. Max Brod was shortish and upright, compensating from a back ailment, with a kind, wise face into which age had imprinted its indelible marks. From the moment I introduced myself and said from whence I came, he was so pleasant to me, at first just a tiny bit reserved but soon almost enthusiastic. There I was, a messenger coming from his native land with which he had been connected by a myriad of indestructible delicate roots, whose culture he admired and which provided nourishment for his genius. He was a man who showed instinctively a constant concern, through all the deformities of history, to salvage all that had been accomplished in the best of literature, music, fine arts and other cultural fields, as a duty to preserving our vulnerable civilization in the minds of men....
And there I was, a messenger coming to invite him to the city which he loved and which he was now supposed to revisit for a few weeks, after so many years of absence. Before long the two of us were sitting at a table, talking. His housekeeper came to set the table, which was covered with a white linen cloth, with a real Czech cake and to serve coffee in porcelain from Bohemia. Max Brod talked about his symbiosis with Czech culture which represented a life-giving source of influence for Prague's German and German-Jewish cultural communities - a process that worked just as smoothly in the opposite direction. According to Max Brod, Prague had been an island of three cultures: German, Czech and Jewish, the last constituting a bridge between the other two....
Max Brod (...) was a man steeped in reality, one who undertook the practical task of translating a culture that was glorious yet was not adequately known to the wide world. This he did into the language of a big nation (ed: German), with a view to open the doors to international recognition. Single-handedly, Brod accomplished something that had not been achieved by all the cultural attaches of his time put together: namely, he introduced to the world such giants as Janacek or Hasek. Max Brod talked to me about his vision of culture as the most passionate, most vigorous manifestation of life, about the ways in which culture can transform negative values into positive ones, how it can unmask evil, hatred, racism, discrimination of all kinds and violence and at the same time offer a magnificent and truly universal reconciliation....
He promised to come to Prague some time in late spring or early summer. As it turned out, he did not. As with so many other plans, his too were eventually frustrated by the five occupation armies that invaded the country in yet another of her history's too many trials. Max Brod died without having revisited the country for which he felt deep affection and the sincerest admiration...."
Arnost Lustig is a Prague writer, English translation by: Ivan Vomaczka (Supraphon) More about Max Brod after our selection of books - The quote by Arnost Lustig was very important because it indeed summarizes some ideals - culture can transform negative values into positive ones, unmask evil, hatred, racism, discrimination of all kinds and violence and at the same time offer a magnificent universal reconcilation. We need that more than ever if we don't want to turn into cynics and nihilists and destroy ourselves.
das Leben muss offenbar ein Unrecht sein, denn es wird mit dem Tod bestraft“
Den Satz habe ich schon oft gedacht. Er ist falsch Denn der Tod ist keine Strafe, er ist (wie das Verwelken) ein notwendiger natuerlicher Vorgang
Dennoch hat dieser Satz eine gewisse Anziehungskraft. – Wird man ihn nie los? Max Brod
Max Brod admits in his books that he is attracted to anything beautiful like a butterfly to the fire and this got him into very dangerous situations, in his book "Jugend im Nebel" he writes about a boy who keeps a box for a beautiful woman (and she is in fact a criminal), and in real life he went to see operas by Richard Wagner even knowing that Wagner and the crowd in Bayreuth despised people of Jewish background, and even worse, whilst escaping from Prague into exile he could not help but stare at a soldier because he looked like a statue in the sunset. So he writes a lot about the thrill of close encounter situation and says that he thanks his stars to have overcome this danger. I don't want to sound patronising here, but this man had all the luck of the Irish on his side at the right time.
Max Brod was a scholar of many talents, he had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and so he did not only study law but also sciences which included metaphysics, philosphy, mathematics, astrology and history - and he had a gift for melody so he was also versed in poetry, music and languages. One could have become seriously big headed with that, but all his life he remained an affable man, with self-doubts and fallibily. His greatest quality was his honesty and his sincerity, he cared a lot about books and writers, and liked to talk about books and music and meet those who made it. I read in his memoirs that he considered his duty not only to find out the classics but to support contemporary arts, call that a vocation! In his younger years he wanted to be a cultural journalist and write about what he liked, and so he did with a passion that often lacks with many journalists and he knew that he was doing something different because he writes in his memoirs "We are the despite generation" (Trotzdem). He was certainly a bit of a compulsive writer too because he wrote many things about all sorts of subjects. Sparkling multi-facetted personality. I am very fond of such people, and although life might not be an easy ride for an idealist, they can do something about it.
Well because he kept on being so starry-eyed about all his wonderful friends, I wanted to see what that was all about and decided to have a closer look at these people because until then, the Prague Circle was a vague notion to me as I had known the stories by Franz Kafka. And this very person was the one who inspired me to write in the first place. Without this one barging by chance into my life in 1984, I would have probably chosen a career in teaching history. But I figured, whoever is friends with Franz Kafka must be alright.
So Max Brod writes about Franz Kafka, Leos Janacek, Jaroslav Hasek, Milena Jesenska, Egon Erwin Kish, Johannes Uzchidil and Franz Werfel plus a few others who write about science: Emil Nack and Felix Weltsch are historians. He write his story giving me the feel of a dizzy well-informed romantic romantic. Indeed, he liked music and poetry, and if he had not met Franz Kafka he might have become a poet writing poems about how life has been hard on him (disabled as well)a man who liked the poetry of R.M. Rilke and Jules Laforgue and his local heroes, for he was a Prague person who knew each corner of his town.. Before he met Franz Kafka at university where he was studying law and other things, he was reading the books of the master of doom and gloom, Mr Schopenhauer whose cynical message to all the depressed of the world is: "you might as well kill yourself". Thanks to Franz Kafka, Mr Brod was saved the fate of young Werther and lived on instead he took a look into the works of Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher who wrote roughtly about human dignity and spirituality. So Kafka was up to the job cheering him up, that says a lot about Franz. Soren Kierkegaard if my infos are correct based many of his ideas on the writing of Erasmus of Rotterdam who said in his Adagia, that we are not talking about Humanism but Humaniora . The Humanity (Menschlichkeit ): in clear: humanism is the knowledge that one gets by reading scholarly works i.e. it is not enough to read books either in Latin or whatever language and humaniora means to learn to become human. And this explains why Franz Kafka he was a man who was very wise, at a very young age, because he cared in uncaring times.
ohne ein dauerndes Vertrauen
zu etwas Unzerstoebarem
in sich,
wobei sowohl das Unzerstoerbare als auch das
Vertrauen ihm dauernd verborgen bleiben koennen.
Eine der Ausdrucksmoeglichkeiten
dieses Verborgenbleibens ist
der Glaube an einem persoenlichen Gott.
"
said Franz Kafka
A book says: If you sincerely seek the truth, it will knock at your door.
Getting a bit spiritual in life - does mean running into the next cult. In the times of Max Brod there were many cults and it was the time of psycho-analysis, absynthe, even mind-bending drugs and all sorts of prophets like this Mr Rudolf Steiner. Max Brod and Franz Kafka avoided those because one of their favourite writers called Gustav Meyrink had been there before and concluded that it did not work for him. None of these two sorted their depressions with the remedies of the time but confronted their fears and nightmares with a courage and intelligence that seeks comparison, and yet is very inspiring.
As a journalist, Max Brod took critics to his heart, to the extent that he kept on moping how nasty these decadent hacks were, if one reads what he has to say about Karl Kraus, then one will understand. The anecdote is that Franz Kafka went on to write a letter to bolshy Mr Kraus of the Fackel Magazine in Vienna to tell him that he had been incorrect in his statement about Mr Brod, and he got a letter saying that Mr Kraus was not available for comment... Somehow this anecdote makes everyone here smile. "Poor old me", Max Brod, a sensitive person - often a show-off because he sounds to me very insecure person and vulnerable - and yet his achievements are admirable.
So you would think the literary world recognize his talents? Well dear friends, his books are out of print, and as the European nations are cataloguing their libraries, it seems to be that poor Max Brod fell through the rooster. The library of Czech books says he is too deutsch-boehm (German from Czech-Bohemia), the German anthology says he is from Prague, the Austrian library says he emigrated to Israel, and at the Jewish museum they say he doesn't belong in there either.
Someone read his Tycho Brahe book and was impressed:
Letter from Franz K to Max B. ---
I am
not going to translate what Franz Kafka says about the book but getting
a dedication cheered him up, (especially as he was battling with tooth-
and headache - sounds familiar to me as well...). - and he even asks in
the letter for Max to come and read the book to him.
I am not going to do that. But if you can find this book, read it, and
you will understand. A fine and intelligent book. Learn German and read
the letter:
An
Max Brod]
[Prag,] 6. II. 14
Mein lieber Max!
Ich sitze zuhause mit Zahnschmerzen und Kopfschmerzen, jetzt bin ich eine
halbe Stunde im finstern überheizten Zimmer an einer Tischecke gesessen,
vorher bin ich eine halbe Stunde an den Ofen gelehnt gewesen, vorher bin
ich eine halbe Stunde im Lehnstuhl gelegen, vorher bin ich eine halbe
Stunde zwischen Lehnstuhl und Ofen hin- und hergewandert, jetzt endlich
werde ich mich losreißen und weggehn. In Deinem Namen eigentlich,
Max, denn wäre ich nicht entschlossen gewesen, Dir zu schreiben,
ich hätte nicht das Gas anzünden können.
Daß Du mir den Tycho widmen willst, ist seit langer Zeit die erste
unmittelbar mich angehende Freude. Weißt Du, was eine solche Widmung
bedeutet? Daß ich (und sei es auch nur zum Schein, irgendein Seitenlicht
dieses Scheins wärmt mich doch in Wirklichkeit) hinaufgezogen und
dem "Tycho", der um so viel lebendiger ist als ich, beigefügt
werde. Wie klein werde ich diese Geschichte umlaufen! Aber wie werde ich
sie als mein scheinbares Eigentum lieb haben! Du tust mir unverdient Gutes,
Max, wie immer.
Du hast also die Arbeit von Haas so leicht verstanden? Bis in jedes Fremdwort
hinein: Und wenn er Deine allgemeine Meinung bestätigt, wie verhält
es sich dann mit Fikher (so schreibt er sich gewiß nicht), der davon
so erschüttert werden konnte?
Du hättest Musil meine Adresse gar nicht geben sollen. Was will er?
Was kann er, und überhaupt jemand, von mir wollen? Und was kann er
von mir haben?
So, jetzt kehre ich zu meinen Zahnschmerzen zurück. Ich habe sie
schon drei Tage in fortwährender Verstärkung. Erst heute (gestern
war ich beim Arzt, er fand nichts) weiß ich mit Bestimmtheit, welcher
Zahn es ist. Die Schuld hat natürlich der Arzt, der Schmerz ist in
einem plombierten Zahn unter den Plomben; Gott weiß, was dort in
der Absperrung kocht; es schwellen mir auch die Drüsen unten an.
Morgen zu Fanta komme ich kaum, ich gehe nicht gerne hin. Möchtest
Du mir nicht schreiben, wann Du mir nächste Woche etwas vorlesen
könntest. Offenbar denke ich, ich darf jetzt, was den Tycho anlangt,
kommandieren.
Dedicated to Max Brod:
The music box
"I have heard in the night air
A wandering airy music
And moidered in that snare
A man is lost of a sudden
In that sweet wandering snare (WB Yeats, the poetic realist)
I always dreamt too much
That I would never bend my back
That I would be welcomed
And meet many friends
Like the eerie bird in the sky
Roaming for a new horizon
I felt free but exiled alone
Freedom is but loneliness one said
O am I stupid exhibiting pain
Are those tears not just the rain
Did you believe they would love you
Or understand your despair?
So one flies away into exile
With dreams of happiness and peace
I use the tools of the exile
And realise that nothing much has changed
So what will I do with my soul
Did I expect too much?
And though it is so cold
I must still clutch my dream
(1994)
We watch Max Brod packing his books into a big case and carting it on the train, and we remember that he was a disabled person who had only his wife as a travelling companion. Max Brod the poet nearly got busted as he stared at a soldier standing outside the train because of the light effects. In his Streitbare Leben he says that his sense of beauty nearly got him killed... He manages to get to Israel and start a new life, but the memories and the traumas never fade. In one of his stories called "Beinahe ein Vorzugsschueler" (nearly top of the class) he talks about meeting his old school friend Vikmath in Tel Aviv and this starts the reminiscence of the old days in Prague, then Vikmath tells him to wait outside the door until he gets back and Brod waits, and waits and waits then he writes in the story that in fact there was no door in that wall, and Vikmath had died in Theresienstadt concentration camp... Many people would have broken down after such experiences, and because I have met a few people who had to go through the horrors of the unmentionable regime, I know that it is sheer impossible to forget. Max Brod to me is an admirable person because he never tired to challenge fate. He was involved in peace and reconcillation not only in Israel with the Jews and the Palestinians looking for common grounds in the history and the faith, but also in Europe to bridge the cultural differences between the Czech, German and Jewish cultures...
Heine said: Oh schoene welt wie bist du abscheulich Ich sage:oh abscheuliche welt wie bist du schoen, denn es faellt mir schwer von dir zu gehen! (Heine said: Beautiful world how repulsive you are, I say: oh repulsive world, how beautiful you are, as I find it hard to leave you.")
So I guess this is a beautiful story.
